Leverage

Based on comments and recommendations from Wil Wheaton (via his Twitter stream), I decided to check out the TV show "Leverage." Maybe unsurprisingly, Leverage is on TNT. Seems like some of the most interesting/fun non-R rated TV shows are happening on basic cable channels, like USA, TNT, TBS, FX, etc. (Not to mention the obvious, like Comedy Central and SyFy.)

The basic premise of the show is that a group of crooks and former criminals work to steal from wealthy criminals and corrupt businessmen to even the scales for those they have wronged. Timothy Hutton (who won an Oscar & Golden Globe for "Ordinary People" way back in 1980, and which I will admit I have never seen) stars as Nathan Ford, leader of this motley crew. An ex-insurance investigator, Nate reinvents himself as an avenging angel with the help of his crew: thief Parker (Beth Riesgraf), hacker Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge), grifter Sophie Devereaux (who I loved as Coupling's Gina Bellman), and retrieval specialist Elliot Spencer (you may recognize him as Angel's Christian Kane).

I've seen about 5 episodes, and so far, I like it. I give it a solid B and think it has room to grow. I hope we get more back story on the characters, but in the meantime, I'm enjoying the theme of sophisticated thieves taking down big, bad companies and evil people. I appreciate the clearly defined protagonists, especially because they are criminals. From doing a little background research, I see that Jonathan "Riker" Frakes directs a season 1 episode with guest stars Brent "Data" Spiner and Armin “Quark” Shimerman. I am already salivating at the Star Trek geeky goodness.

I'm still trying to pick out the shots that are filmed in Portland, but I think they used to shoot in my old neighborhood near PGE Park. And in the meantime, I've just learned that there was a recent "Con Con" (haha) here in PDX -- too bad I didn't know about Leverage before that convention. I'm totally in a 'lets go to all the geek related-events' kick, and if it's right here in town, I'd have to go....maybe next year.

Looks like the new season of Leverage starts in June. On a 10-point scale, how likely is it that I will watch all the available episodes and be caught up in time for the season premier (where 0 is Not at all likely and 10 is Extremely likely)? I'm going to say "8." Hooray for summer seasons!