'The Player' Is Good, Crazy, Fun

You know, this year I haven't paid much attention to shows that were coming out in the 2015-15 season since most didn't look that interesting. I do however read the reviews and bits that come out about these new shows on tv.com. The one that caught my eye this year was The Player, a show about a man named Alex Kane, former FBI analyst turned security consultant. He soon finds himself involved with a dangerous game as "the player" for rich people to bet on crime. Tv.com had said positive things about it, so I decided to check it out and was rewarded with a crazy action packed tv show that was pure entertainment. 

The Player is like a crossover between Person of Interest and Burn Notice with a side of fun.You have the brains and tech similar to Person of Interest and the explosions and pure bad ass moments that Burn Notice was. It is a pity that there is only a small part of television that devotes itself to action instead of pure drama for the sake of drama. As Tv.com mentioned, The Player knows that the premise is not realistic and milks it for all it's worth. Also helps to have a great cast to sell it to you and make you invested. Before The Player, I hadn't known who Philip Winchester and his characters Alex Kane was and for me, he was the one who sold The Player to me. He is able to do the action, emotions, and the comic relief with excellent timing. To be honest, after I watched The Player, I went and watched all of Strike Back, which I also enjoyed. What also makes The Player worth watching is the underlying story, or rather mystery of where is Ginny, Alex's ex-wife, who was presumed dead at the beginning and the House itself. In addition to what is Cassandra's connection to all this. The Player proves that you can keep it simple, have fun, and have an over arcing story line.

So what about The Player is not selling it to people? Like I mentioned before, the premise of The Player is a bit strange of a game that rich people bet on crime that operates outside of the law and is all powerful. You can even see in the Pilot that even Alex doesn't believe it when Mr. Johnson and Cassandra explain it him. The Player is an action show basically as Alex Kane does the impossible and tries to stop bad guys from hurting people and such. This is not a show if you want love triangles or something like How To Get Away With Murder. There is unbelievable action scenes and explosions, which truth be told is awesome.

It is a pity though that The Player does not have the ratings to keep it alive. NBC announced that it "trimmed" the episode count of The Player down to 9 episodes instead of the 13 originally ordered. At the time, The Player was filming episode 9 and filming shut down soon after. So what went wrong exactly that NBC pretty much cancelled it as they did with Constantine? First, there wasn't much advertising about The Player. I had heard that Wesley Snipes got a show, and hadn't cared at the time. It wasn't until I saw it on tv.com that I gave it a try. Second, the time slot it is in at 10pm on Thursdays competes with some big name shows that draw in viewers The Player could have potentially gotten. I would like to see The Player live on somehow and maybe somewhere than NBC, which in my experience is not the greatest channel. In fact, I really don't watch anything from NBC other than Constantine (which they unfairly cancelled), and The Player. Who knows, maybe The Player can live somewhere that better suits it, or get a better time slot to draw in viewers. For now, I intend to watch the remaining episodes of The Player and watch Philip Winchester kick some more butt.

What do you think of The Player? Do you want to see it go on?

Can I see a trailer? Yup.