TV You Might Have Missed #10 — Pokerface

Poker Face is a murder mystery "case-of-the-week" series with each episode adapting the inverted detective story format popularized by Columbo.

Charlie Cale, a former casino worker with an innate ability to detect lies, is on the run from a casino owner following a suspicious death. Along the way, she encounters colorful characters and solves homicides in a variety of settings.

We really love procedural murder mysteries and this one is really entertaining. In each episode, we see the crime being committed, then we back up in time to see how Charlie was involved on the fringes of the victim's life, and the final section has the crime solved and justice served. The justice is sometimes unorthodox but always satisfying. I was always fascinated by how ingeniously Charlie has been included off-screen in the murder we've seen happening.

We were drawn to it because Rian Johnson developed it. Just as he did with Knives Out and The Glass Onion, this show is an homage to classic mystery TV series. 

The series was inspired by Columbo, being referred as a "howcatchem". Johnson also used Magnum, P.I., The Rockford Files, Quantum Leap, Highway to Heaven and The Incredible Hulk as influences for the tone of the series. Johnson was interested in "doing that Columbo or even Quantum Leap thing of having every episode be an anthropological deep dive into a little corner of America that you might not otherwise see." — Wikipedia

As with most Rian Johnson work it is a creative, superfun throwback to TV the way it used to be. 

Season One is streaming on Peacock and Season Two is in the works.