"Tilt" (2005)TV series

Directors:

Brian Koppelman
David Levien

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

13 January 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

You're playing poker. They're playing you.

Plot Keywords:

High Stakes | Las Vegas | Poker

Cast

Michael Madsen	...	Don 'The Matador' Everest / ... (9 episodes, 2005)
Chris Bauer	...	Leeland 'Lee' Nickel / ... (9 episodes, 2005)
Kristin Lehman	...	Ellen / ... (9 episodes, 2005)
Todd Williams	...	Clark Marcellin / ... (9 episodes, 2005)
Don McManus	...	Bart 'Lowball' Rogers (9 episodes, 2005)
Eddie Cibrian	...	Eddie Towne / ... (9 episodes, 2005)
Michael Murphy	...	Jimmy Molloy / ... (9 episodes, 2005)
Amelia Cooke	...	Dee (8 episodes, 2005)
Nicholas Pasco	...	Testa / ... (7 episodes, 2005)
Dov Tiefenbach	...	Crackle (6 episodes, 2005)
Fulvio Cecere	...	Skip / ... (6 episodes, 2005)
Kenneth Welsh	...	Seymour Annisman (5 episodes, 2005)
George Buza	...	Henry 'Tropical Henry' / ... (5 episodes, 2005)
Barry Flatman	...	Police Captain Bill Carruthers / ... (5 episodes, 2005)
Fab Filippo	...	Dean Whitmark (5 episodes, 2005)
Norman Chad	...	Himself (4 episodes, 2005)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

ESPN Original Entertainment

Trivia:

In a deleted scene which is featured in the DVD, Miami reveals her real name as "Ellen".

Goofs:

Continuity: In the final episode of the first season, when Clark is playing in the World Poker Championship, in the hand that he goes out of the tournament, the ESPN pseudo-coverage showed him as "All-in" before he actually declared.

Quotes:

Don 'The Matador' Everest: Clear out of here when you're done bleeding.

What can they do for a second season???

*spoilers if you haven't seen the finale...read at your own peril...*

Okay, so how predictable was that??

All the good guys won; all the bad guys got what they deserved; and the guy who straddled the line between the two got the brass ring because he (pardon the horrible pun) played his cards right.

And so we drink a final toast to Seymour...the cop goes home to Iowa...our three young heroes leave the field of battle vindicated and much, much richer.

What can they do for a season two?? A new bad guy for us to hate?? New unknown card players for us to cheer on to victory? And Lowball making another interesting visit to the house of ill repute?!?!?!?

It was interesting and novel for one go-round...sort of the way Survivor was for the first season...but won't this get predictable if they try it again?

I did enjoy the poker scenes, although there were certainly blatant errors (I even saw one tonight...when you watch the finale, look at the screen closely on Clark's last hand and see if you spot what I did). It was nice to see the sprinkling of the well-known players throughout the series. But I'd much rather watch the reruns of the WSOP if it came down to a choice between that and another season of this show.

I'll give the season a 6 out of 10...good acting for the most part (although Michael Madsen did seem a bit flat to me most of the time...but maybe that was the jaded part of his character). Points off for such a predictable plot and finale. There was just one more cliché they could have thrown in to make the fairy tale complete...reveal that Miami was Seymour's long lost granddaughter or niece or some distant relative (I thought about daughter, but that kind of destroys the part of the storyline that she was playing to raise money for her father's bail with Seymour's assistance).

But, of course, I will tune in for at least the first episode of another season...if nothing else to see the real-life pros wander in and out of that very realistic-looking set.

P.S. (added after second viewing a few minutes ago): ACK! I just caught the final scene...which I somehow missed the first time. That changes everything...and potentially changes the cast for next season (if there is one). Not quite such a tidy ending as it first appeared. Hmm....