Wednesday, April 28, 2010

90210- Splashing the Pot

Dixon Wilson- "Have a seat. It'll be a pleasure to take your money."

It's lines like this from the Brandon Walsh equivalent of the new 90210 that got me all riled up and ready to write a scathing review. I wanted to talk about how the show wasn't good at being bad a la Las Vegas. In a similar poker game setting, the main character in that show (the legendary Danny McCoy) acted all high and mighty pretending to know about poker. The genius was in the fact that he was making fun of people like Dixon who think they know what they're doing and come off like an idiot.

My mindset changed after the new semi-villain Mark makes a bet worth more money than Dixon has at the table. As in any poker seen on tv, the character doesn't have that much money. Instead of figuring out that you should only bet up to the amount that the other person has in a friendly game like this, Dixon asks if he can have a marker (again acting like he's some sort of professional) and says he's good for it. Oh what a surprise the jerk won with a four of a kind. The key was that his execution in the scene was great. He grabbed my attention and made the whole thing feel current and actually like something that would happen in real life.

"Unless...wait, do four queens...beat a full house?" in such a snarky and sarcastic yet subtle tone that it reminded me of something one of my buddies would say back in 2005 when poker was in vogue. This guy came and just showed how terrible Tristan Wilds is.

The combination of Mark coming back into focus and Naomi's evil sister Jen entering the picture at the back end of this episode make the future of 90210 a little more interesting. These villains and vixens are exactly what the show was missing in the recent episodes. All of the characters are too similar, and too good. They're all good kids and that just makes for bad television.

Line of the night

Teddy Montgomery- "If I wanna play professional tennis, I have to do it now."
-Yeah especially since you're a 30 year old high school student! There's no telling how many years those knees have left!

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