01/13/05

1/1305—Tilt, ESPN
Sports Center, ESPN

Tilt

Young, good looking turks take on the machine. It's an old set-up, but a solid one. Threesomes have a little danger in them, especially when one is an impatient yet charming whitey, smooth yet charming black guy (you know he’s cool because of the shaved head), and a knowing blonde chick. And the machine is run by a Las Vegas casino owner, with his pal, the super duper card player Matador, as the seemingly clean front man. And Matador is tough and cool, because he’s played by Michael Madsen. The creases in his face can have more chops than the cast of a daytime soap opera.

Madsen is one of those actors who supposedly says a lot by saying a little.

One look

and

you know.

You know?

He’s about the slow reply, the pause, the look that he will throttle you if necessary—though that just might be the camera angle. And here he is, The Matador, sleazy and cool, winning all the hands with the help of his henchman and his casino owner pal. He’s afraid of being found out, though the fear never registers. Even the anger doesn’t entirely register; he’s more into that smoldering thing.

But more to the set up, as this was the series premiere. The main characters are sitting around a poker table, and the two guys get into a discussion about Clark’s (the black guy) sweatsuit. He says, “it’s aubergine.” Eddie (the white guy) says, “it’s more eggplant.” And Clark attacks Eddie. Supposed to be a good show, though I found myself wondering if most people today know it as a racial slight. Whatever.

We’re supposed to see that the key threesome has some tensions to work out, and that these tensions are going to make the show as much as the conflict with the big baddies and the third plot of the off-duty cop trying to bring down the big house. But the tensions are too obvious, and don’t seem to go deep enough, and the characters are so clearly good looking, so clearly a notch above the people they’re trying to infiltrate, that it’s a wonder they hadn’t been spotted even before the first episode was over.

On the good side, it’s dark, there seem to be few plot advancement eunuchs (spotted one, working for the guys, got his leg badly broken by the matador at the end of the first episode), and the corruption is everywhere. The third plot, that off the off-duty cop bent on avenging his brother, has the most potential, but I don’t know how much time the show will spend on him. He’s not much to look at and doesn’t have a way with words.

Except that ESPN has a sports hole to fill, I wouldn’t see this show going anywhere.


Sports Center

This episode of Sports Center demonstrates the hole ESPN needs to fill. This was a slow sports night. They teased out as many segments as they could, incessantly ran previews and recaps, and updated us as to the condition of Kobe Bryant’s ankle—which was sprained during the evening’s Lakers’-Cav’s game--at least five times during the hour. Yasir Arafat didn’t merit that much news attention when he was dying.