Friday, April 18, 2008

Review Update: Poker After Dark

Poker After Dark didn't change a lot for season three. I still consider it to be the best of the major poker shows on TV. It retains the strong **** rating I gave it in my last review. A few notes about this season:
  • Doyle's litany of wisdom in the opening segment seems contrived to me, as do the times when Ali clearly talks to "cover up" silence at the table.
  • Marianela Pereyra is the first poker hostess that has held her own in the peanut gallery's comparison with Shana Hiatt, and I'm one of the many that prefer her. I'm sorry that she won't be back next season. Doing interviews during hands is still a bad idea when she does it, however.
  • They seem to have changed the blind structure or editing this season: it seems that players last a long time, then it becomes a series of coinflips for the win in the last episode. There was at least one week this season where five players made it to the final episode.
  • The most troubling episode this season was when Eli Elezra busted out on the first hand of the "Jam Up" tournament, then they let him rebuy. Changing the rules after the fact is troubling, but more troubling is that they presented it as if it had been a rule all along. That, and the episode of High Stakes Poker where they pretended that Daniel Negreanu left the table to do live commentary, makes me think that POKER PROductions is honesty-challenged.
  • Pretending that the show is filmed over a week and using cash in a tournament are still offensive.
  • There are still problems with the sound, e.g. too much background noise, and Ali's level is too high relative to the players.'
Posted by Self Made at Friday, April 18, 2008
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3 comments:

  1. Just exactly why is Shana Hiatt
    gone from all these shows? Do you know? Can you say? Personally, I liked her a lot. She, to me, was one of the rare "beauties" who seemed to have a positive every day type personality .. comments?
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  2. I've heard that Shana Hiatt had a baby. Other than that, I don't know anything.

    Shana was certainly the most popular poker hostess ever with the masses. Everyone has their own opinions, however, and the "peanut gallery" discusses this issue every day. My personal favorites are probably Layla, Marianela, and Lizzie Harrison. Kimberly Lansing is also very popular these days. The last two are known for their online videos. Serinda Swan hasn't done much work as a poker hostess, but is certainly a great beauty.
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  3. Overlapping dialogue is a problem with this show. I wonder if the problem could be solved by using a round table, so that they'd all tend to participate in one conversation? It might require more cameras, however.
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