While I try to prioritize theatrical releases, I still receive requests for reviews of streaming content, which I began writing about after the pandemic sent us all into lockdown.

As horrible as the COVID era was, it did yield some gems of entertainment, and May 8 heralded the long-awaited return of a smart, funny TV series whose first season premiered shortly before the federal public health emergency finally ended two years ago.

It’s a shame so many Star Wars fans remain sore about “The Last Jedi,” because between 2005’s “Brick” and the Benoit Blanc films — 2019’s “Knives Out” and 2022’s “Glass Onion” — Rian Johnson has proven himself to be a canny, crackerjack murder-mystery talespinner.

“Poker Face” should serve as proof even to those who have never seen Johnson’s films, because he correctly recognizes the best television detective ever was Peter Falk’s Columbo, which is why “Poker Face” shamelessly steals so many of the successful and appealing traits of “Columbo,” right down to using the same yellow typeface as the title cards from “Columbo.”

Like Falk as Columbo, the ostensible protagonist of “Poker Face,” Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, almost qualifies as a recurring guest-star on her own show. The true main characters are each episode’s murderers and victims, since in both “Poker Face” and “Columbo,” they command significant chunks of screen time before our sloppy sleuths even show up.

This tactic allowed “Columbo” to recruit relatively prestigious actors (or at least famous faces) whom you wouldn’t otherwise expect to put in appearances on weekly TV, from Johnny Cash to Donald Pleasence. “Poker Face” lives up to this standard by casting Cynthia Erivo from “Wicked” in its second-season premiere, after Academy Award winner Adrien Brody, Academy Award nominee Nick Nolte and Emmy Award winner Ellen Barkin all appeared in its first season.

Another similarity between “Columbo” and “Poker Face” is that Falk’s Columbo and Lyonne’s Charlie are both smart slobs, which matters more than it should in the case of the latter, because far too few female characters are allowed to be sympathetic and messy all at once.

Charlie’s gift and curse is that she can always tell when someone else is telling lies, but “Poker Face” finds clever ways to mislead her lie detector, since she can be fooled by those who phrase their statements carefully enough that they’re technically not saying anything untrue.

The second-season premiere of “Poker Face” also featured the show’s first instance of a character who talked themselves into believing their own misleading lines in real time.

When so much of your ongoing narrative is driven by a constantly rotating cast, your premise needs to account for how your investigator is meeting so many murderers. And while Columbo was a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department, Charlie Cale has spent her onscreen run criss-crossing the country to dodge mobsters harboring grudges against her.

This doesn’t make Charlie a criminal, but it does put her on the same footing as Dr. Richard Kimble as “The Fugitive,” because her continued survival relies on striking up relationships with folks who are themselves sketchy enough that they won’t look too closely into her background.

This tug-of-war makes for a fascinating dichotomy in Charlie’s character, because while her instinct, as a fugitive, is to try and keep herself to herself, she’s also naturally empathetic and gregarious enough to bond quickly with complete strangers, learning their life stories and becoming invested in seeing justice done on their behalf.

Natasha Lyonne, who at 46 is only four years younger than me, has been a breakout talent since her child acting days on “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” in 1986, and her nuanced, layered portrayal of Charlie Cale rewards repeat viewings. Charlie is averse to misleading others, since she’s so frequently frustrated by how much “bulls__t” she has to brook from them, but she’s developed sufficient self-preservation reflexes to guard against sharing certain truths of her own.

Plus, Lyonne plays Charlie as a charming trainwreck, whom costar Simon Helberg, as FBI agent Luca Clark, describes as “genial” and “inquisitive,” with “thrifted clothes” and a “voice like a rusty clarinet.” She's a character who has installed venetian blinds in the back window of her 1969 Plymouth Barracuda, so she can sleep comfortably in her car well past sunrise.

Peacock released the first three episodes of “Poker Face” Season 2 on May 8, with a bold twist to its status quo for the finale of the third episode, so I’ll be interested to see if Johnson can maintain the same momentum going forward.