Wesley Snipes wasn’t available for basic cable’s “Blade: The Series,” but he’s clearly not too good for NBC.
This latest Las Vegas series (I believe federal law mandates that at least one new series must be set there every year) may or may not have stolen CBS’ Person Of Interest Machine that predicts crime. Or maybe that was Fox’s Minority Report Machine. So much precrime TV these days! “Snipes is required to deliver line after line of dead-serious dialogue laced with gambling metaphors,” explains TV critic Alan Sepinwall over at Hitfix. I hope one of them is “Always bet on black!”
NBC describes “The Player” thusly:
From the executive producers of “The Blacklist” and starring Wesley Snipes and Philip Winchester (“Strike Back,” “Fringe”) comes an action-packed Las Vegas thriller about a former military operative turned security expert who is drawn into a high-stakes game where an organization of wealthy individuals gamble on his ability to stop some of the biggest crimes imaginable from playing out. Can he take them down from the inside and get revenge for the death of his wife, or is it true what they say: The house always wins. The cast also includes Charity Wakefield and Damon Gupton. John Rogers (creator of “Leverage” and “The Librarians”) serves as writer and executive producer.
… fairly paint-by-numbers and generic, but as escapist hours go, there's not a lot of meat on the bone here. …
... seems like a high-risk, low-reward gamble. …
... a new action series from NBC with a ludicrous plot full of unlikable characters played by not particularly likable actors. … Plenty of TV shows get by, and even succeed, with equally preposterous plots, but not with a cast full of personality-free characters. Fans of the tax-evading Mr. Snipes, if there still are any, will be disappointed that his character is limited to wearing finely tailored suits and delivering omniscient-sounding lines in a blank voice. Ms. Wakefield’s character is just as antiseptic.…
... It's an efficient if mass-produced engine — every week a different race against crime and time — made a bit more interesting by the most dangerous game gone digital. Snipes is the A-lister here, and from the opening scene on, he displays an excellent poker face, moving from menace to all-but-winking complicity in a variety of roles. …
... I’m happy to let you knock yourself out with something loud and stupid like “The Player,” which has a — oh, I see that you’ve already dozed off. Which, to me, means “The Player” does its job rather well.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says :
Once home to serious, grounded dramas “St. Elsewhere,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “ER” and “The West Wing,” too many NBC dramas are now all about conspiracies and secret societies. That’s getting tiresome. Case in point, NBC’s “The Player”... “Place your bets,” Cassandra says at the end of the show’s first hour. Here’s betting “The Player” will fold in TV’s current ultra-competitive environment.
... There are times when the best course is to just leave mediocre enough alone. And no, despite the presence of an under-employed Wesley Snipes and whatever wan hopes NBC might have had, there are no signs in The Player (*⅓ out of four) that the show could ever have been more than a standard-issue, hunky crime-fighter, mindlessly competent TV show. …
... “The Player” might set a record in terms of the amount of time spent trying to explain the rules of the show. Not that it really helps this simple-minded drama, which contains an element similar to “Person of Interest,” if that show were smacked across the frontal lobe. Presumably bountiful action, modest mythology and the casting of Wesley Snipes are expected to smooth over those rough patches, but since the premiere talks a lot about gambling, in terms of a second season, don’t bet on it. …
10 p.m. Thursday. NBC.
