TNT’s Leverage is candy for heist junkies – CliqueClack Preview

I love a good heist. I’d even go so far as to say I’m a heist junkie. So maybe I’m not the best person to preview the new TNT series Leverage, which premieres Sunday, December 7, starring Timothy Hutton, Christian Kane (Angel‘s Lindsey) and some other top-notch actors that are under-worked and underrated. You might say I’d love it no matter what … but you’d be wrong.

OK, I did love the first two episodes that I saw, but that’s not the point. I really am going to give you an honest first look at this show … the good and the bad. For a show so well done, though, it’s going to be mostly good.

What stands out the most? The cast, the atmosphere (ambiance, mood, what have you), the humor and cleverness, and the unique and interesting basis for the show: bad guys who become independently wealthy and work together to help people while still getting a charge out of the danger of the jobs. Win-win.

Strangely enough, I am not usually a fan of pilot episodes of many shows. It usually takes a show several episodes to hit its stride. Leverage‘s pilot, “The Nigerian Job,” hit it out of the park. It was so tight I felt like I was watching a feature film. They did some very smart things to get viewers hooked:

• The groovy jazz music mimicked the Ocean’s 11 soundtrack, so off the bat we are thinking “fun.” However, they don’t parallel the entire story or every aspect of the film, so it works.
• As the team of main characters is assembling — the thief, the retrieval specialist, the tech geek, the actress and the ring leader (Timothy Hutton) — we get quick, snappy, funny flashbacks to get to know them right away. Short, but effective and so much fun to watch. They remind me a bit of what they do on How I Met Your Mother.
• If you were paying attention, you’d have noticed that the code on the security door they were breaking into was “8675309…” Cute, especially if you were an ’80s kid and know what I am talking about.
• Some funny quotes and jokes at the expense of tech geeks were thrown in. When the retrieval specialist disguised himself as an IT professional and was being flirted with, he said he liked to keep big because he “loves dressing up like a Klingon, going to the conventions ….” Yet the actual tech geek on the team says it is the “age of the geek baby, we run the world.” Truth in that.

The cast has great chemistry off the bat, which says a lot of these actors. Sometimes it takes a while for the actors to fall into a groove with their characters and their interactions, but these guys look like they’ve been playing these roles with each other for years.

Did you love the spot-on missions from Alias, when they were stealing intel and working with Marshall, and cutting it just under the wire? They’d nearly get captured, but would prevail every time. And the disguises? Fun. Well, I think the heist / mission scenes on Leverage are even more clever than Alias.

Part of the charm of Leverage is that these high profile baddies are assembled and continue working together slightly against their will, yet when they decide they really like doing some good for people, “provide leverage” and work for an “alternate revenue stream.” Are those going to be the new “it” catch phrases?

The setup of the pilot was perfect, the formula held through the second episode, and the show is consistently funny and fast-paced. It’s just such a well-rounded show that I can’t help but gush.

One last kudos: there were so many opportunities for blatant product placement and they remained tastefully generic, almost obviously so. A commentary on some of the not-so-tasteful product placement seen on TV today, perhaps?

I highly suggest giving Leverage a try. I know I’ll be watching regularly and writing about it here on CliqueClack TV. What do you think — are you psyched for this show?

Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Nov 25, 2008 @ 12:00 EST5EDT