Leverage. Hmm.

[sholio]

I hate to break with my f'list here, but ... I'm not really feeling the love. We watched the first two episodes tonight and so far I'm not overly impressed. Character-wise, I love Hardison and Parker, and I like Elliot okay (as a source of entertainment, anyway, not really as a person), and there's some fun banter, but this is offset by feeling massively emotionally manipulated by the whole show. I just feel like it's deliberately and obviously tweaking at the heartstrings, holding a flashing sign over the characters' heads reading These Are People You Will Like. You Will Like Them. and bending over backwards to prove that they aren't really bad guys, they're people who steal money from evil corporations to cause massive tax problems for help disabled veterans!

I think I'd like the show a lot better if the characters would just revel in their lawbreaking ways rather than trying to convince the audience that they're not that bad after all. Butch and Sundance didn't steal money to give to hospitals! They stole it because they were self-indulgent thrill-seekers and they liked it that way! As it is, I feel like the show's trying to do some moral sleight of hand ("They're stealing from corporations and smugglers! It's not really stealing!") that's not quite working. The whole disabled-veterans thing was so over-the-top I couldn't believe they actually went there. Why not just go all the way and use handicapped orphans, guys? (Maybe they're saving that one for a future episode...) I'm having trouble articulating this -- I just feel like the show is stuck in some kind of weird limbo between having its characters be bastards gleefully revelling in their bastardness, and having them be selfless heroes, and it seems like its efforts to sell us on the idea that they're really selfless heroes while showing their bastardness makes it seem like a thin rationalization and makes me like them less, not more.

There's a certain amount of distance to most heist movies; you know that what the characters are doing is wrong, so there's a gleeful kind of self-indulgence to suspending your awareness of the consequences and going along for the ride. I feel like the show is trying too hard to sell us on the idea that what the characters are doing is right, which just makes me feel sort of awkward and, like I said, a bit manipulated.

I certainly didn't hate it. I like some of the characters, and there are a lot of neat/fun moments to offset the moments when I eyeroll at the screen, but I'm not really sure if it's worth sticking it out for another episode or two. I feel vaguely guilty because a lot of my f'list seems to love this show; I just can't seem to get into it.

Comments

[tipper-green.livejournal.com]

I'll admit, I love Leverage, mostly because I don't watch a lot of TV, and most of the TV I like has a lot of humor underlying it, and this show brings the humor. The characters just got funnier and funnier with each ep, even when they were being serious. Then there's one episode -- the 12-Step Job -- which is really wonderful. If you watch just one more, I'd suggest that one.

But I get that you might want something more, something more intellectually stimulating. I don't think that exists on TV at the moment. The comedies are generally the most intelligent things on TV ("Scrubs", "The Office", "30 Rock"...even the new show, "Better Off Ted", looks like its going to be of that class). But the dramas are mostly meh. I watch "Lie to Me" mostly for Tim Roth, but it doesn't grab me. I also like the characters on "Life", but the story lines aren't great. There are just too many police procedurals on TV right now. Whatever happened to the old, awesome PI shows?

I can't help but love the characters on Leverage, though. I love it the way I like Reaper, Chuck, Psych, and Monk. They just make me happy. But, yeah, I'd never fan it. There's nothing yet to make me want to fan it.

(Oh, as for the "evil corporation" trope. I work for one of them, so I thought it would bother me as well, but they went away from that pretty quickly, and just went after greedy individuals for most of the season).

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I'll probably go ahead and push forward with Leverage -- it's true that I'm craving something a bit different right now, but it's also true that I haven't given it much of a chance. Maybe it just needs a few more episodes for the characters to really sink themselves into my brain. It took something like 14 episodes for Supernatural to really hook me (and then another couple seasons to lose me again, but that's a different story ...).

I'm glad to hear they tone down the 'evil corporation' thing; the black-and-white plotlines are one of the things that's bothering me about the show, and if they ease up on it a bit, I might like the show more.

And I need to get caught up on Psych! That's such a fun show. :D I do wish for a little more angst sometimes; that's one thing I really love about Scrubs, actually -- it's cute and fluffy, but then it'll take a 90-degree turn and yank your heartstrings! I love shows that can do that to me. Psych often leaves me craving a bit more than it gives me... but mostly because I adore the characters so much that I want to see their relationships tested in a way that the show just doesn't do.

[cynonymous.livejournal.com]

Drifting by somewhat randomly and butting in to note that there's a wee bit more angst than usual in the last ep of Psych's third season....

[cynonymous.livejournal.com]

Oops. I hope that's not considered spoilery?

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Nope, it's all good. :) I'd already gotten that impression from my flist's reactions to it!

[cynonymous.livejournal.com]

That's a relief! I try not to do that, and some folks might have considered that a spoiler, which I only thought about *after* I hit "post comment." I wish LJ had an "Are you *sure*, y/n?" button for days like today when my brain's not working.