Celebrity Poker Showdown, Season Deux
- Wade
As you may recall, last winter I became enamored with Celebrity Poker Showdown. If you need a refresher, the show takes five "celebrities" from random walks of life and pits them against each other in a game of no-limit Texas hold 'em. Since I loved the first series so much, I was very excited for the new season to start, which it did last night. Did it hold up?
Well, first things first. Is this not the cutest baby you've ever seen in your life?
Seriously. (Ok, ok, enough of that.)
If I had one syllable to sum up last night's episode of Showdown, it would be this: BOOOOOOO!
The main problem was simple: Wanda Sykes. I'm not sure if you know the name, but you know who she is. The name probably didn't stick because you don't waste your mental energy remembering names of people with absolutely no talent. She rode her own show into the ground last year (on the WB, mind you), got called out onto the carpet by Bill Cosby for not being funny, and single-handedly made me decide to cancel HBO after her appearances on "Inside the NFL." She was true to form last night, bringing her outright racist so-called humor and sailor/whore mouth to a show that, while never would be confused with "The 700 Club," would at least be watchable with my Grandma in the room. Not last night.
Sykes' stupidity wasn't the only downfall. Jerome Bettis, another celebrity, was entertaining but possibly the worst poker player in the history of the game. There was another woman named Rosario whose claim to fame was a role in Men In Black II, woo hoo. I'm not sure who to compare her to... picture Rosie Perez, more chatty but with not as bad of an accent. Again, worthless. Travis Tritt was, well, Travis Tritt. He got a few good zings in on Wanda, which was nice ("You should pick up some tips from that Chris Rock feller...") I felt the most sorry for Mena Suvari, she seemed to actually want to play a serious game of cards; eventually she got tired of the pointless jabs from Wanda and Rosie ("Oooh, look at that white girl givin' you the eyebrow") and stopped talking altogether.
Maybe my distaste for one of the celebrities tainted my view. Hopefully some of the players for the upcoming weeks will be better-- Norm McDonald, Jon Favreau, Andy Richter, Lauren Graham and (gasp!) Star Jones seem to hold promise. But maybe it's the idea that the sequel can never be as good as the original: despite what you'd think, Dave Foley as host isn't as entertaining as Kevin Pollack as host. And in the vein of "you can't get too much of a good thing", each episode has been expanded from one hour to two. That's a lot of celebrity poker, even when it's entertaining.
And when Wanda Sykes is involved, it's waaaay too much.
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feedback. Maybe we'll even run your letters in future Gambits. 'The Daily Gambit' is updated every weekday.
