70年代支柱“哥伦布”从未真正走了出去of style. It’s still the gold standard for all mystery-of-the-week series, from “Murder, She Wrote” to “Diagnosis: Murder.” With Peter Falk doing his just-a-simple-detective routine, and a stable of guest stars and strong directors (including a young Steven Spielberg) passing through the ranks, the show enjoys multigenerational hipster cachet.
The new Peacock series “Poker Face” is both a loving “Columbo” homage and a savvy send-up. With Natasha Lyonne traversing the country in an old beater, solving murders from town to town, it has a hardscrabble charm and an acute knowledge of the tradition it proudly claims. Even the yellow, block-letter title credits scream “Columbo.”
But “Poker Face” is its own beast, straight from the minds of Lyonne and Rian Johnson, whose mystery output ranges from the recent “Knives Out” movies to the 2005 cult high school gumshoe favorite “Brick.”
With her inquisitive rasp and seen-it-all New York attitude, Lyonne, also an executive producer, is perfect for the assignment. Her Charlie Cale has a nest of hair that would look at home in an ’80s metal band (the metal scene is actually the setting for one of the best episodes, “Rest in Metal,” in which the members of a has-been band, led by Chloë Sevigny, plot to kill their new drummer to keep him from collecting royalties on a surefire hit song).
Charlie has an eye and ear for throwaway details that end up beingimportant. Like Columbo, she’s easily underestimated, just some drifter chick who needs a job wherever she goes. But Charlie has an ace in the hole. She can always tell when someone is lying— about anything. She never really chose to solve murders. It chose her.
One could fairly take “Poker Face” to task for being an exercise. But it’s a loving exercise, consistently executed with precision and wit, and directed by numerous people with the attention to visual detail you usually see on the big screen. “Poker Face” has a kind of neon noir feel, with backwater towns and quotidian settings that seem to invite trouble. Charlie finds herself uncovering homicide in a dinner theater, a retirement community, a Texas barbecue empire and an auto repair shop. She has a hellhound on her trail, the only other character who shows up throughout the first season, a casino enforcer played by San Francisco native Benjamin Bratt. He wants Charlie dead, but she always manages to escape to the next crime in the next locale.
The writing is steadily sharp; with the whodunit part always abundantly evident, the show can focus on the intricacies of the why and the how. And the killer guest spots just keep coming. They include LilRel Howery, as a slippery barbecue kingpin displeased that his brother and partner has gone vegan; Ellen Barkin, as a scheming theater diva; and Judith Light and S. Epatha Merkerson as a pair of former ’60s radicals with a nasty vengeful streak.
Watching “Poker Face” is like seeing a bunch of old friends, realizing they’re murderers, and liking them all the more for it. They’re all here to get busted by Lyonne. Let’s face it, there are worse fates.
M“Poker Face”:Comedy/mystery series. Starring Natasha Lyonne and Benjamin Bratt. Created by Rian Johnson. (TV-MA. Ten episodes at approximately 60 minutes each.)First four episodes streaming Thursday, Jan. 26, on Peacock. Subsequent episodes available Thursdays through March 9.