Poker Face is a modern homage to the classic murder-mystery-of-the-week shows which filled those parts of 1970s and 80s television schedules that hadn’t been colonised by soaps about oil tycoons and shoulder-pads. It’s created by Knives Out director Rian Johnson and the gravel-throated Natasha Lyonne, of Orange Is the New Black and Russian Doll fame, stars as the infallible sleuth Charlie, who remains unfazed by the number and regularity of the killings that happen around her. Think of it as Murder, She Rasped.
The main change to the traditional format is that our heroine has an almost preternatural ability to read a person’s body language and deduce whether they are lying or telling the truth. On second thoughts, perhaps you should think of it as Columbo meets The Mentalist, if anyone remembers The Mentalist these days. Anyway, Charlie’s gift is just strong enough to pique her curiosity in any given scenario and help her along the way to solving crimes, but not strong enough for her to do so until at least 45 minutes and sometimes as many as 52 have elapsed and given the weekly guest star reason enough to turn up.
