Last night was the final episode of ESPN’s original series TILT. I had watched every episode of the series and I have to be honest; I thoroughly enjoyed every episode of TILT.
A lot of people have bashed the series, but I think they were expecting something different. I wasn’t expecting any poker lessons or any deep looks into the poker world. I was looking for an entertaining TV series that involved the game of poker and that’s exactly what the worldwide leader in sports delivered.
I tuned in each week wondering what would happened next. I became more interested in the overall plot and side stories than I was in the poker aspect of the show. I think this is what ESPN was going for and simply used poker as their lure to reel us all in. After all, I would have never watched the series if it involved blackjack players instead of poker players.
Some of the arguments against TILT I’ve read are justified. I’ll be one of the first to agree the producers did make mistakes, but what show on TV doesn’t? Too often we look for the negative things about a show, movie, or book and fail to appreciate the work for what it is. I highly doubt the producers ever planned to make this series a realistic look at the high stakes poker world or else they would have included a lot more of the high profile players and they wouldn’t have made some of the mistakes they did.
TILT was meant to be an entertaining tale of poker, gambling, love, friendship, murder, and corruption. That’s exactly what it turned out to be. I commend ESPN on a job well done in that department.
Now, I must say that I was disappointed in how the series ended. In my opinion, there are too many unanswered questions, but maybe we’ll see TILT 2 in the future. What happened to the court case against Everest? Did Eddie and Dee hook back up? What about Miami and Clark…where did they go?
Overall I’d have to give TILT a B+.
Nick Momrik 