Very happy to be part of the temperamentally not crazy Bulwark community.
Man, I'm happy that you covered Poker Face. I've been really digging this show because it is a throwback to old TV. I have prestige TV fatigue and all the darkness that comes with it. I mean, this is a show about murder, but it's fun! I had the same feeling of relief watching the new episode of The Mandalorian. It's nice to just have a location/guest of the week show.
My favorite Poker Face episode so far is Exit Stage Death, probably the most entertaining episode of TV I’ve seen this year. So very funny and clever. Great use of Charlie’s truth/bs detector as applied to stage acting. With an almost head snapping Deathtrap vibe. I had to watch it twice. This show deserves an Emmy imo.
Poker Face sounds fantastic! Am I the only listener *oLd eNoUgH tO rEmEmBeR* tv series like The Fugitive, Kung Fu, The Hulk, all built around the 1970's formula of a wondering, crime fighting super hero who suspiciously shows up as a mysterious problem solving stranger from town to town? Did y'all think Jack Reacher invented the formula?
I definitely watched The Hulk and Kung Fun in syndicated repeats on Saturday or Sunday mornings as a kid in the late-1980s/early-1990s. There was a Kung Fu reboot as well on, maybe TNT?
Charlie from Poker Face reminds me of Columbo. She can come across as being scatterbrained and clueless like Columbo while all the while outsmarting the bad guy.
I haven’t seen ‘Poker Face’ yet, but it sounds like a throwback to 60s/70s TV, like ‘Then Came Bronson’ or ‘Kung-Fu,’ where the loner shows up and solves the problem, then moves on.
I thought Sonny’s comment re online communities was really important: I think the Bulwark, and more broadly, Substack have done a remarkable job of creating online communities in which people start with enough in common to create communities that actually engage in thoughtful and actual, if occasional, interactive communication online. So much of what happens on Twitter, for example, feels to me to be broadcasting and then trolling of that broadcast that it seems to have become a 2-strategy universe: tell people about something whose content is really someplace else or STIR THE POT TO GET ATTENTION. The latter now dominates and gets the most attention and, to the degree that it creates what Noah Smith recently called “vertical community,” it is a ‘community’ of people who don’t really want anything like the mutuality that makes for real communication or relationships. It is the world of the same non-negotiable, non-executable declarations that pervades some “political” arenas these days: all pronouncement, no real participation! Like Alyssa, I’m not sure I’d miss Twitter if it collapsed entirely, but I sure would miss the Bulwark and some of my other Substack neighborhoods 😊
Re Scott Adams, I agree with Peter Suderman in that I don't want to use the Adams example as a data point on cancel culture. Scott Adams knew exactly what he was doing.
It reminds me (just a bit) of the example of sculptor and potter (even painter) Charles Krafft who did images that were considered darkly ironic - so of Hitler, also of a Luger. But then it was found out that he was active in white supremecist sites and was a holocaust denier.
So in the end, Adams was holding it all in and in the end he just had to get it out. He was always the bitter racist.
I am a bit older than Adams and so dealt with issues that he talks about. He mentions that he could not get a promotion because he was white. Well such was real - I remember leaving graduate school with my MFA in 1976 and only the women and the one black kid got offers of jobs right after school - we only had 13 graduates in our small MFA program. A few year later one of the guys who found an academic job after a longer search was recommended for tenure by his college (Ohio State - the Arts college) but at the University level, he did not get tenure. So he moved on. Left academia. The understanding was that it did not fit the goals under affirmative action.
The difference with many of us who faced affirmative action and Scott Adams is that we also remember that blacks had been entirely excluded from so much, so it is hard to know what else would have moved America along other than affirmative action.
Adams is 6 years younger than I am. I ended up fine. He did too. I wonder why he retained the bitterness? Even the hate.
Re Adams, you guys seem to be spending an awful lot of time defending Adam’s loss of distribution from charges of wokeism. No need. Adams transgressed long established boundaries, not once but many times. He knows where the boundary lines are. I’m betting he also knows that as newspapers die, ‘Dilbert’ is a less lucrative income generator, but being a proven victim of reverse racism is a growth industry. I said elsewhere I wouldn’t be surprised if he commissioned the Rasmussen poll himself. They’re not a quality vendor, this kind of shit-stirring stunt is right up their alley.
I am watching Pokerface and observing its descent into unbelievable fantasy where Pokerface not only discerns when people are lying but engages in evidence gathering and analysis superseding the finest detectives. My continued role as a viewer is in jeopardy. I do agree with other commenters: I love her raspy voice and her signature bullshit line. Perhaps she should try it out on Trumplicans.
I just subscribed to Peacock to watch this, and I am so glad I did. I absolutely love Poker Face. The episode with Judith Light and S. Epatha Merkerson was brilliant!
Poker Face has been on my list. Looks like I'll have bump it higher and get around to watching it sooner.
Very happy to be part of the temperamentally not crazy Bulwark community.
Man, I'm happy that you covered Poker Face. I've been really digging this show because it is a throwback to old TV. I have prestige TV fatigue and all the darkness that comes with it. I mean, this is a show about murder, but it's fun! I had the same feeling of relief watching the new episode of The Mandalorian. It's nice to just have a location/guest of the week show.
My favorite Poker Face episode so far is Exit Stage Death, probably the most entertaining episode of TV I’ve seen this year. So very funny and clever. Great use of Charlie’s truth/bs detector as applied to stage acting. With an almost head snapping Deathtrap vibe. I had to watch it twice. This show deserves an Emmy imo.
Thumbs up for Poker Face. Even the font used in the opening credits looks like the old Columbo show.
Poker Face sounds fantastic! Am I the only listener *oLd eNoUgH tO rEmEmBeR* tv series like The Fugitive, Kung Fu, The Hulk, all built around the 1970's formula of a wondering, crime fighting super hero who suspiciously shows up as a mysterious problem solving stranger from town to town? Did y'all think Jack Reacher invented the formula?
I definitely watched The Hulk and Kung Fun in syndicated repeats on Saturday or Sunday mornings as a kid in the late-1980s/early-1990s. There was a Kung Fu reboot as well on, maybe TNT?
Charlie from Poker Face reminds me of Columbo. She can come across as being scatterbrained and clueless like Columbo while all the while outsmarting the bad guy.
I haven’t seen ‘Poker Face’ yet, but it sounds like a throwback to 60s/70s TV, like ‘Then Came Bronson’ or ‘Kung-Fu,’ where the loner shows up and solves the problem, then moves on.
The Fugitive
The Hulk
The Rebel / Johnny Yuma
There ya go.
WATCH IT!
I thought Sonny’s comment re online communities was really important: I think the Bulwark, and more broadly, Substack have done a remarkable job of creating online communities in which people start with enough in common to create communities that actually engage in thoughtful and actual, if occasional, interactive communication online. So much of what happens on Twitter, for example, feels to me to be broadcasting and then trolling of that broadcast that it seems to have become a 2-strategy universe: tell people about something whose content is really someplace else or STIR THE POT TO GET ATTENTION. The latter now dominates and gets the most attention and, to the degree that it creates what Noah Smith recently called “vertical community,” it is a ‘community’ of people who don’t really want anything like the mutuality that makes for real communication or relationships. It is the world of the same non-negotiable, non-executable declarations that pervades some “political” arenas these days: all pronouncement, no real participation! Like Alyssa, I’m not sure I’d miss Twitter if it collapsed entirely, but I sure would miss the Bulwark and some of my other Substack neighborhoods 😊
Re Scott Adams, I agree with Peter Suderman in that I don't want to use the Adams example as a data point on cancel culture. Scott Adams knew exactly what he was doing.
It reminds me (just a bit) of the example of sculptor and potter (even painter) Charles Krafft who did images that were considered darkly ironic - so of Hitler, also of a Luger. But then it was found out that he was active in white supremecist sites and was a holocaust denier.
So in the end, Adams was holding it all in and in the end he just had to get it out. He was always the bitter racist.
I am a bit older than Adams and so dealt with issues that he talks about. He mentions that he could not get a promotion because he was white. Well such was real - I remember leaving graduate school with my MFA in 1976 and only the women and the one black kid got offers of jobs right after school - we only had 13 graduates in our small MFA program. A few year later one of the guys who found an academic job after a longer search was recommended for tenure by his college (Ohio State - the Arts college) but at the University level, he did not get tenure. So he moved on. Left academia. The understanding was that it did not fit the goals under affirmative action.
The difference with many of us who faced affirmative action and Scott Adams is that we also remember that blacks had been entirely excluded from so much, so it is hard to know what else would have moved America along other than affirmative action.
Adams is 6 years younger than I am. I ended up fine. He did too. I wonder why he retained the bitterness? Even the hate.
“It is hard to know what else would have moved America along other than affirmative action.” Yes. Thank you.
Re Adams, you guys seem to be spending an awful lot of time defending Adam’s loss of distribution from charges of wokeism. No need. Adams transgressed long established boundaries, not once but many times. He knows where the boundary lines are. I’m betting he also knows that as newspapers die, ‘Dilbert’ is a less lucrative income generator, but being a proven victim of reverse racism is a growth industry. I said elsewhere I wouldn’t be surprised if he commissioned the Rasmussen poll himself. They’re not a quality vendor, this kind of shit-stirring stunt is right up their alley.
I am watching Pokerface and observing its descent into unbelievable fantasy where Pokerface not only discerns when people are lying but engages in evidence gathering and analysis superseding the finest detectives. My continued role as a viewer is in jeopardy. I do agree with other commenters: I love her raspy voice and her signature bullshit line. Perhaps she should try it out on Trumplicans.
I just subscribed to Peacock to watch this, and I am so glad I did. I absolutely love Poker Face. The episode with Judith Light and S. Epatha Merkerson was brilliant!
I love Poker Face and Charlie’s raspy voice and no nonsense style. And, of course, her signature line- Bullshit!
I still think that's what they wanted to call the show and couldn't get it past the streaming censors!