Rian Johnson’s critically acclaimed throwback detective series “Poker Face,” starring Natasha Lyonne, is looking likely to score a second season judging by its performance on Peacock.
Lyonne stars as Charlie Cale, a woman who has an innate ability to detect lies and she encounters strange crimes and mysterious deaths that she can’t help but try to solve whilst also on the run from a casino boss in pursuit of her.
The series evokes 70s detective procedurals and adopts the ‘howcatchem’ formula rather than a whodunnit approach as the murder is shown in detail at the start and the joy is watching Charlie work out how it was done.
Johnson has assembled an impressive ensemble of guest stars including Ron Perlman, Cliff LeGrand, Adrien Brody, Benjamin Bratt, Chloë Sevigny, Jameela Jamil and Joseph-Gordon Levitt. The series released the first four episodes of its ten-episode first season on January 26th, with the fifth having gone up last night.
Susan Rovner, NBCUniversal’s chairman of entertainment content for TV and streaming, recently sat down with THR to discuss the show’s performance. Rovner says NBCUniversal is “over the moon” with the show’s success but could not provide specific viewership numbers at present:
“I can’t right now; hopefully, at some point, we will be able to but [Poker Face] is definitely punching above its weight. In addition to the actual numbers, we are also over the moon about the critical response. [It] has a 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.”
Rovner was then asked about a possible Season 2 renewal order to which she said: “I think there’s probably going to be some good news at some point soon.”
She also says Peacock having a large library of the various shows that inspired this, such as “Columbo” and “Murder She Wrote,” is one of the reasons the show ended up at Peacock and it also helps the streamer out as it retains engagement.
New episodes of “Poker Face” will continue to air on Peacock every Thursday.
