The first season of The Players, directed by Tony Yasenda, has ended on Paramount+. The creator of “Dave” and “American Vandal” made a mockumentary project about a fictional professional team of players in the League of Ledends. The series is made in the form of a comedic satire on eSports. In addition, we have before us an addictive drama and a great comedy, designed for a wide range of gamers and fans of the popular MOBA from Riot Games. We have already watched the full season and share our impressions.
Genre drama, comedy
Directed by Tony Yacenda
Cast : Mischa Brooks, Alexa Mansour, DaJour Jones, Ellie Henry, Holly Chow, Moses Storm
Paramount+ release
Release year 2022
IMDb website
The Fugitive Gaming team has not been able to win the LCS, the League of Ledends championship in the USA and Canada, for the fifth year already. In the past, they have made a powerful breakthrough in professional esports, and their top player Kremcheese (Misha Brooks) was considered one of the most promising gamers in the world. Now Kremchiz’s career is coming to an end, because he is already 27 – the age at which professional gamers are gradually leaving eSports. The owner of Fugitive Gaming is recruiting a promising 17-year-old player nicknamed Organizm (DaJour Jones). Kremcheese and the Organism almost immediately do not find a common language and this threatens not only the future championship, but also the preservation of the team.
“Gamblers” is a vibrant mixture of sports dramas and popular documentaries. The series has a lot of interviews and time jumps into the past, which is typical of real documentaries. There are many important scenes that are supposedly filmed without the knowledge of the characters, as if from the outside. Such shots perfectly reveal the characters and show them without the outer shell or social armor.
The series is lucky with the actors. And although most of them are little-known, and others are completely new, they all perfectly coped with their roles, powerfully combining drama, comedy and trolling over the world of e-sports.
The opening of “Gamblers” is the actor Misha Brooks, who plays support Kremchiz. He is an American Jew who fell out with his parents over the game and found a new family in friend and later coach Kyle Braxton (Ellie Henry) and his wife April (Holly Chow). Kremcheese is a millionaire nerd who covers up his vulnerable nature and heartbreak with pathos, awkward jokes, and passive aggression. Most of the story rests on this character, and judging by the open ending, his eccentric nature will set the vector for the second season.
Yacenda and his co-author Don Parro use satire to expand on a chosen topic. So it was with the “American Vandal” and the same can be seen in the “Gamblers”. The creators skillfully manipulate the pseudo-documentary genre in order to escalate the conflict as much as possible, reveal the characters and make the audience look forward to the next episode.
The series contains a lot of advertising of various gaming, computer and other brands, one way or another connected with the industry. It’s also one big advertisement for League of Ledends. On the one hand, the authors easily lured a lot of money from sponsors into the project, and on the other hand, with or without intent, they went too far with their amount, so advertising is literally in every frame.
If you like mockumentary series like The Office and Parks and Recreation, then The Gamblers is a must-see. Especially if you still love games, in particular League of Ledends. Now, this MOBA has two cool projects, and the closest Dota 2 competitor has only a more or less tolerable Dota: Dragon’s Blood anime and an excellent documentary “Free to play”. But in order to surpass the “Players” and, moreover, “Arcane” this is clearly not enough.
