TV: Tilt

I finally was able to catch the first two episodes of Tilt, ESPN's new poker drama. Which was harder than it sounds. ESPN is making it a bitch to catch an episode (as Augie will also attest to... twice). The first time I tried to TiVo the pilot, it ran long (due to, what else, a sports program that didn't finish on time) and the last five or ten minutes got cut off. The second time I tried to record it, ESPN promised me Tilt, but then just decided to broadcast something else instead. Thanks, ESPN! Good thing you didn't spend any money on Tilt, and therefore clearly don't care if anyone is able to watch it or not!

I finally got the complete pilot episode by programming the TiVo to add fifteen minutes to the recording time. But then I tried the same thing with the second episode -- and this time, it was late by thirty minutes. So I missed the ending again. Jesus, why even bother? Seriously, why say you're going to air a show at a certain time when you clearly are unable to meet that commitment? Why air the show at all, when it's obviously such a low priority?

I was able to catch a repeat of the second episode by setting TiVo up to record an hour extra. So now I've seen the first two shows. After all that -- was it worth it?

Surprisingly, I think yes. Michael Madsen has always been such a wonderful, brutish, intimidating actor, and he's certainly all that as Don "the Matador" Everest, the most famous poker pro in Vegas -- one who's gotten where he is by cheating. But Everest is more of a background character. The three real leads of the show are Eddie Cibrian, Kristin Lehman, and Todd Williams, as Eddie, Miami, and Clark, three young players who were all cheated by the Matador, and who have teamed up to take him down. I'm not familiar with any of those actors, but I found them all genuinely likeable, and I'm interested in their efforts to either win bankrolls big enough to challenge Everest, or to con their way into his inner circle.

A couple things I'm not wild about so far: one, the Matador's daughter, Dee. She's draped in furs, living high on life, rolling in riches provided by daddy, yet it's her ambition to strip for one of the local clubs (which her father uses his connections to prevent). Yeah, that's believable. Anything to get a strip club in the show, right, ESPN?

And two, the poker players aren't very good. As Nat has correctly pointed out, "The winners win because every hand they're shown playing, they have the best hand. Yawn." Anyone can win with the best hand. (And even then, only a good poker player will still get the other guy to bet.) A good poker player wins when he's got the worst hand. And we haven't seen that yet. (In the second episode, Everest wins with the worst hand, but only because Eddie intentionally throws away the best hand to let him win.)

It's worth it right now for me to jump ESPN's scheduling hurdles to see Tilt. I'm hooked enough to care what happens next. But it's not a must-see show just yet, and if ESPN keeps screwing with me -- hell, Kenny Rogers taught me to know when to walk away.