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Leverage. Hmm.
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.
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.
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If you haven't read the series, I'm not necessarily recommending it, btw; it's about a pretty unredeemed criminal who thinks himself vaguely feminist in a far-future society ... as written in, like, the 50s. In other words, sexism ahoy! I only bring it up because it sounded similar to what you mention. That character does revel in his schemes, though.