Hard Knocks In Season: The Arizona Cardinals

Take a screenplay penned by David Milch, add in direction by Michael Mann, and then throw in actors of the quality that includes Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Farina, John Ortiz, Jason Gedrick, Jill Hennessy, and Nick Nolte and you have the makings of a new hit series! Dustin Hoffman is not new to television but it's been a while since he won an Emmy for his Death of a Salesman Willy Loman role. He plays Chester "Ace" Bernstein, a dedicated gambler who's just been released from a four year stint in prison. He returns to his beloved race track and doing what he does best. Now more determined than ever to "beat the system" Ace learns his driver Gus (Dennis Farina of Midnight Run, Get Shorty, & Law & Order) is now owner of a race horse. Mob boss Turo Escalante (played by John Ortiz from Ransom, Narc) is the actual owner who now owns several horses and they all plan on winning big with the inside edge from race horse ownership. Sudden Luck makes them all rich and only adds to the twists and turns involved in this highly entertaining series.

"Poker After Dark" invites questions about chickens and eggs: Did the show create the American poker craze, or did pokermania create the show? Filling the insomniac hours after NBC's languishing late-night line-up, "Poker After Dark" now is the drug-of-choice for let-the-cards-fly fanatics all over North America. For viewers immune to the thrilling contagion of Texas Hold "˜Em, "Poker After Dark" certainly must seem like snooze-fest supreme, because the show's drama and suspense live and flourish in the nuances, and they develop behind the hardest of hardcore poker faces. Unless the viewer knows the game, game theory, the identities and playing styles of the super-stars at the table, and the razor-thin line between skill and luck, "Poker After Dark" looks like nothing but six grizzled characters brooding over scraps of paper. For anyone with a working knowledge of "the flop," "the river," and "all-in," the subtle-but-intense drama is absolutely compelling, and "Poker After Dark" totally dominates its time-slot. In the show's fourth season, once it clearly had established a devoted following among poker addicts, "Poker After Dark's" producers began diversifying the program's format and content, pitting table players against online gamers, showing no-limit cash games, and scheduling head-to-head playoffs between seasoned professionals and dedicated amateurs. Texas Hold "˜Em, however, still has greatest hold on viewers' attention.

Friday Night Lights TV Show is set in a small town in Texas called Dillon where only one thing matters and that's football. So when Eric Taylor gets hired on as the new head coach of the town's famous football team, he has to do whatever it takes to keep them winning. The stress builds for players as the town puts pressure on them to win and Eric does his best to hold the team together and get them to victory. Will it be enough to get them through? Friday Night Lights TV Show gives a glimpse at the hope a high school football team can give to a small town.

We all love to witness a successful comeback and when it involves the sport of boxing that usually means a punch drunk older fighter attempting to make it back into the ring and winning. The expression lights out generally infers someone has been punched out or unconscious, followed by a ten count, and then the match is over. Patrick Leary has the nickname "Lights" for a reason and even though he wants to make a comeback the odds may be stacked against him. With mounting bills and a family to support he needs to make up his mind if he should make a living as an intimidating debt collector or make good on his dream of the comeback in boxing. Either way his brain has been dulled by too many punches to the head and he suffers from pugilistic dementia. In other words Leary is punch drunk. Holt McCallany stars as "Lights" Leary and to prepare for the role he trained with Freddie Roach in an attempt to imitate some successful pugilists they know. It will be interesting to find how successfully he can make that comeback.

WWE SmackDown TV show is a professional wrestling television program for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). As of 2010 it airs on MyNetworkTV in the United States as WWE Friday Night SmackDown. Edge, Chris Jericho, Undertaker and many more WWE Superstars and Divas battle on SmackDown.

Those who are football fans and those who only live with one can enjoy a sports related reality show called Hard Knocks. The documentary style program covers the sport from the insider's perspective as we watch (and learn) about prepping teams for the next season of play, battling for top positions, family issues, pranks, and insider jokes. Moving from one team to another, paying particular attention to the rookie and how he adjusts to life in the NFL. College football heroes become top draft picks and that makes for plenty of pressure even for those who don't make it to the draft. Follow along for an insider view of high profile teams like the Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens, or the New York Jets and have a free ride on the information fast track of playing professional football. This could well be any other sport but football is as American as that proverbial Apple Pie and the sports reality program could not be scripted better if anyone tried.