Why Aren't You Watching?: Leverage pt. 1

News from the file "Why Aren't You Watching?", Leverage, 10pm Tuesday nights on TNT. (Pt. 1)

Network television is awash in a sea of crime procedurals (no, really, have you checked recently? NCIS, various CSI's and Law & Orders. Bones manages to put a nice little spin on it, mostly thanks to the snappy dialogue, but they are all procedurals.) and prime-time soaps dressed up in scrubs. Look, Grey's, just because you've got Jeffrey Dean Morgan that doesn't mean I'm going to watch. Well, maybe. He's a point in your favor, except that the character is dead, which makes no sense. And then there's the CW which is a whole 'nother issue, given Gossip Girl (ugh) and the fact that they are still beating that Smallville horse after eight years on the air. Now with less Michael Rosenbaum, which is a tragedy. Oh, Lex, I miss season one. 

My tangential whining aside, what I'm saying here is that if you're looking for really good television, since Joss Whedon doesn't currently have anything airing, turn to TNT. On Tuesday nights, at ten o'clock. 

Leverage is fairly easily defined. It's a heist show, with all the fun and the troubles that go with that. This one has a twist, however. In the very first episode, our crack team of nearly supernaturally talented ne'er-do-wells scores enough cash to set them up for life. And then they keep working together anyway. But not for gain, they're helping people who can't help themselves. Christian Kane (Eliot Spencer) has described the team as 'Robin Hoodlums' and that's about as concise a summary as you'll get. Check it out.
I promise you won't be disappointed. Still not convinced? Here we go.

1. The Con
Tight plots. This is a heist show of the first order and half the fun every week is watching the various cons unfold. The Leverage team uses everything from slight-of-hand, classic confidence games and state-of-the-art hacking to old-fashioned pick-pocketing to pull the wool over the eyes of their marks and usually the audience. So far the talented team of writers has given us a rip-off that turns into a bank heist/kidnapping rescue, a 'submarine' episode on a commercial jetliner, a mafia wedding and a game of Follow The Lady with thoroughbred race horses, among others. Pay attention and keep up, because when the big reveal comes along, you're gonna want to be the guy going "Oh, that's what that was about!", not the one looking puzzled. 

2. The Team
A cat-burgler with a little mental trouble, a retrieval specialist (read: ass-kicker) who is constantly pissed off, but whips up lovely stuffed mushrooms, a happy-go-lucky hacker and a beautiful grifter team up under the leadership of an honest former insurance cop in order to circumvent the system and help those in need. Even money there's going to be some friction along the way. Each character is extraordinarily well-crafted, and every single actor brings their A-game every episode. No, I am not exaggerating. 

Nathan Ford, the team's leader and father-figure played by Academy Award Winner Timothy Hutton, manages to be charming and slightly intoxicated, skeevy maybe, but upright, and likeable as hell. Sophie Devereaux, the worst actress you've ever seen onstage, but the consummate 'inside man' when she's breaking the law, is played by Gina Bellman. She's sophisticated but vulnerable, always in control…except when she isn't. Christian Kane gives us Eliot Spencer, the team muscle, who rides horses, drinks tea and cooks like a champ, and also maybe killed a guy with an appetizer but doesn't like guns. My favorite thing about Eliot is the constant low-level rage he seems to run on like other people run on caffeine. And the hair. Gotta love that hair. Beth Riesgraf plays Parker (no last name…or is THAT her last name, and she has no first name?) the thief, with a touch of insanity that's as endearing as it is disturbing. Alec Hardison, played by the alliterative and adorable Aldis Hodge is always happy as pie to be playing with his high-tech toys, even when he complains about missing out on a WOW quest. 

Not to mention each week's crop of marks and vics, a cornucopia of awesome guest stars who have included Danny Strong (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Nicole Sullivan (oh, come ON. MadTV?! She's awesome.), and my personal favorite, Sam Anderson, who played Holland Manners on Angel: the Series. The crowning achievement of the guest cast? That's right. Mark Sheppard. Uh-huh, Badger, from Firefly. I'm just going to take a moment to fangirl him like crazy. He plays Jim Sterling, the slightly tarnished insurance investigator who has taken over for Nate since he lost his job. We'll certainly be seeing more of him, and I couldn't be more pleased about it. Oh, look at that! It's like a reunion of "People Who Have Worked for The Joss". Awesome.

(Numbers 3, 4 & 5 next time!)

A Brief *ahem* Introduction.

Yeah. Not likely to be brief, but let's see how it goes.

My name's Kate. I enjoy long walks on the beach - you know what, that joke is so tired, even I can't use it. And I love tired jokes.

Most blogs have some sort of…unifying point, a gimmick or a hook. Tech information, how to live green, the finer points of underwater basket weaving, whatever. My idea of a blog is somewhat more amorphous, certainly more pretentious and hopefully more interesting. Well, almost certainly more interesting than the basket weaving thing. Unless that's your thing, whatever. 

I like media. I live for music, I love television, comic books and graphic novels are slowly growing on me, movies are getting a little lower in my esteem than they used to be, and fiction is my first and greatest love. But as a member of whatever the hell my generation is going to call itself, that's not exactly novel. The thing is, I had really, really good English and Philosophy teachers my whole life. And as much as I love all that crunchy media consumerism, I love thinking and writing about it even more. 

I can't seem to help having opinions on whatever it is I'm consuming these days. I think about stuff like 'What Leverage Means for Cable Television', 'Enlightenment versus Imagination: Prince Caspian', and 'New Media Complications for Average Viewers' on a daily basis. Oh and by the way, if you're not watching Leverage, you should be. (TNT, Tuesdays at 10pm EST. Go. Tivo it or something.)

So that's the plan! Whatever has caught my eye or ear this week, today, this minute, you'll see here. It may be John Green's newest book, an old Whiskeytown album, the new Clooney flick (although that's unlikely), but my thoughts on whatever it is will be posted here. I hope they'll be interesting or even coherent. The motto I will always, always try to live by in my musings is "A deeper reading of the text". Let me elaborate on that a second.

 People complain (well, people I know, anyway) that the quality and artistic or aesthetic significance of media being produced in America is declining. The thing is, the problem inherent in most media produced today is certainly not a problem with the people who make it. Hollywood execs, networks, music labels, newspapers, print publishers and yes, even that Great Bastion of Free Information, Google, they're all just trying to make money. No. Seriously, I promise. They're not pushing an agenda or actively oppressing the small creative artist (in most cases). They just happen to do those things by accident, while they're looking after the bottom line.

The problem is, people pay for shallow media. The consumer is paying for their cable, their subscription, their music, that gives them what they want: quick, easy, shoot-em-up with a great hook that you can dance to. But there is media out there that deals well with issues, that reaches people, and many people do care about those shows, movies and albums. If only people would pay for, appreciate and talk up the television, music and print that touches them deeply, the large conglomerates that unfortunately control media production would…well, maybe they'd at least notice.

So. This is me, doing that. Leverage. See that. It's fun television. But it's also well-crafted television, and that deserves a nod. Expect to see a more detailed entry on that subject sometime soon.

I'm likely to write about etymology, the Authority, the nature of celebrity, con games and Coca Cola all in one week. Probably at great length, as you can see. Let's see how that works out for me!

DFTBA,
Kate