The Cast of Leverage: Christain Kane (Eliot Spencer), Gina Bellman (Sophie Devereaux), Timothy Hutton (Nathan Ford), Beth Riesgraf (Parker), Aldis Hodge (Alec Hardison)
After watching Fringe's pilot episode way back in September, I assumed then and there that it was going to be my favorite new show for the current American TV season. I mean, it possesses all the things I typically love in an hour long TV program: mystery, suspense, scientific mumbo jumbo, sleek-looking cinematography, conspiracy theories and, most important of all, a hot female lead who looks like she hadn't had a decent night's sleep since she was 5 (think something like Summer Glau's River Tam and Cameron in Firefly and T:TSCC). I mean, come on, it even has the actor that played the Steward of Gondor in the LOTR movie adaptations as one of its lead stars so you really can't blame me for arriving into such a hasty decision. My resolve was set then and there--Fringe was going to be it, my favorite newbie show on T.V. and that's going to be final!
Fast forward a couple of months later, a few lingering moments after I saw Nathan Ford and his oddball partners in goodwill and crime stomp an immoral and conniving corporate executive on TNT's Leverage, and all that changes.
It happened during that 2nd most irksome stretch of weeks that most TV show addicts like me tend to go through with heavy heart and shaking, junkie withdrawal hands--the mid-season Christmas break (the 1st most irksome being the American summer off-season of June up until August). Tired of waiting for new episodes of the shows I religiously follow, I decided to go out on a limb and look for a new one with back-episodes to fill the huge void that the break left in my viewing schedule. After searching all over the net for write-ups of shows I never heard of, (and viewing photos of show castings, desperately trying to fulfill that most important of requirements I tend to give a show before I start watching it, which is it having a cute chick in one of its lead roles) I decided to pick up Leverage, an up and coming con series that star's Oscar winner Timothy Hutton.
Allow me to tell you how this show reeled me in through an absurd booze analogy: Leverage ganked me straight into T.V. viewing nirvana like what drinking an entire bottle of a Single Malt, 20-year old scotch does to an alcoholic.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing new to it at all. If we're talking in terms of a prototypical caper story's plot structure, then Leverage certainly fits very well into that. But, what it lacks in originality, it makes up with its smooth, unobtrusive absurd humor--like ketchup flowing from a newly bought, recently unsealed, air-tight bottle after a few slaps to the bottom. Dig this, Parker's awkwardness when it comes to socially interacting with the group, Sophie's insanely bad acting getting good when doing a con, Hardison's stereotypical black dude freak out moments, Eliot's tough-guy-that-gets-easily-irritated-over-everything-act, and Ford's I'm not-an-alcoholic denial syndrome naturally blends well onscreen--a huge credit of which can be attributed to good acting and great casting. Great character interaction always goes a long way in any form of story, whether in a novel, a play, a movie, or a TV show and it is very much true with Leverage.
Also, the feel good element you get in watching the "good" guys (open and close quotations on the word good since technically the protagonists are all thieves) get the best of evil-corporate bullies at the end of the show, while eliciting a very nice black and white view on what is morally acceptable is priceless. Don't be misled though, I still think the discussion on morality and evil is a very complicated topic but, beneath all those complications, one could still arrive to a certain degree of personal sense about it--kinda like what you get after reading a Graham Greene or a Henry James novel (or after watching the Star Wars trilogy). I'm not saying Leverage can be properly equated to any Greene or James masterpiece, obviously that would never be the case. What I'm trying to say though is, at its very core, it has the same end-effect, the same oomf sensation you get deep in your gut albeit the journey totally different and less emotionally and intellectually stimulating than the aforementioned literary masterminds' works.
Nevertheless, the laughter and the sheer entertainment value you get out of the show is enough to make you smile at the end of a tough day--and that's what's truly important when it comes to these kinds of shows, in my opinion. Plus, it's fast and sleek--totally worthwhile if you're tired of overly dragging and serialized shows like Prison Break.
Anyways, if you love sleek, how-will-they-do-it caper stories like Ocean's 11 and Hustle, I highly recommend Leverage.
P.S. BETH RIESGRAF IS FREAKING HOT!
Admit it, you knew that was coming.
P.S.S.
It got picked up for a second season! Yay! More Riesgraf screen time hahaha!
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