Wherein I am a squeeling fangirl
Remember about two weeks ago how I was all Zen and finding the Meaning and how Enlightenment was on the tip of my tongue? Yeah, I got distracted.
I have spent nearly every waking hour combing the Internet looking for something involving Leverage that I haven't seen. Why? Um, because I am crazy. Also, it is a show that took me by surprise.
When Leverage first came out Adam and I gave the show a shot. We missed the first few episodes, but caught "The Miracle Job." I was intrigued, but Adam was immediately put off. Too high-handed. Anvils. Preachy. So, we skipped it for a while.
Then, when Mazzy got sick and I was sitting up with in our chaise and there it was, just on, in the background. I couldn't find the remote and I could only hear some of it because her breathing was so labored, but then the unthinkable happened - The episode I was watching flashed to Nate, the main character played by Timothy Hutton, remembering the death of his son. So....I freaked, quit and vowed to never watch the show again. (Because I am crazy stupid and it worried me and then a few days later Mazzy was dead and, for a while, I kind of blamed the show.)
Somewhere in all of the space between her death I started desperately looking for distractions. I got heavily in to Twitter and I was reliving some of my old fandoms. (I was a convention goer for Star Trek back in the day.) This lead me to following Wil Wheaton who mentioned that he was going to be on Leverage. It was during their break and they were rerunning a bunch of Season One to get ready for Season Two of Leverage and I figured, I had the time.....
I initially went in just trying to catch up so that I would understand Wil Wheaton's guest spot. I knew some of the cast (Tim Hutton, Gina Bellman and Christian Kane) from other shows that I liked and the idea behind the show, the concept that had nothing to do with dead children, was fun and appealing. Who doesn't love a group of thieves/criminals brought together by chance to fight the good fight for the little guy? Sure, it isn't a new idea, but hell, it is well executed.
So, there I am, catching up on Season One and by the time Season Two had rolled around, I was hooked. I was so hooked that I had FORGOTTEN that Wil Wheaton was going to be in Season Two and when I saw his name I jumped a little. The whole reason I started up with Leverage and I had blanked entirely.
I am a sucker for fun plots and capers. I love the cons and the big reveals at the end of the show, but more than that, it is so well-acted I am flummoxed. I mean, who expects acting? I watch Burn Notice, for crying out loud, it isn't always about great acting. Sometimes you gotta just bring the pretty explosions and be done with it. The brains behind the show are also very, very sneaky.
They have character growth. Really, they do. Not just stuff that happens that changes them for the moment, but growth. Subtle changes that make a real impact on the story.
And, they did something I haven't seen in a long time, and they did it well. Gina Bellman got pregnant the Spring before Season Two started. Gina's character, Sophie, is the grifter in the group - the face that the bad guys see and she does most of the distraction so that the others can steal or whatever, at any rate, her character is not in a position to have a baby. What they did was genius. They had taken something from Season One (the Nate/Sophie history) and created a reasonable exit for the character for a few months. Sure, that has been done, but then they went with it. They used her character's absence to move everyone else forward in a way that wouldn't have happened if Sophie had been around. They brought in a replacement grifter (Jeri Ryan) and made that character work. By introducing a new element, some of the other team members had to change. They weren't being eased in to things by Sophie. It was sink or swim. Sophie left to Find Herself. While she was gone, Nate was the one that actually went on an Identity journey. It was brilliant. And so powerful to watch.
Okay, okay, okay....I am going way to far with this, but maybe now you get why when I talk about anything these days Adam just assumes it is a Leverage reference and tunes me out.
I have spent nearly every waking hour combing the Internet looking for something involving Leverage that I haven't seen. Why? Um, because I am crazy. Also, it is a show that took me by surprise.
When Leverage first came out Adam and I gave the show a shot. We missed the first few episodes, but caught "The Miracle Job." I was intrigued, but Adam was immediately put off. Too high-handed. Anvils. Preachy. So, we skipped it for a while.
Then, when Mazzy got sick and I was sitting up with in our chaise and there it was, just on, in the background. I couldn't find the remote and I could only hear some of it because her breathing was so labored, but then the unthinkable happened - The episode I was watching flashed to Nate, the main character played by Timothy Hutton, remembering the death of his son. So....I freaked, quit and vowed to never watch the show again. (Because I am crazy stupid and it worried me and then a few days later Mazzy was dead and, for a while, I kind of blamed the show.)
Somewhere in all of the space between her death I started desperately looking for distractions. I got heavily in to Twitter and I was reliving some of my old fandoms. (I was a convention goer for Star Trek back in the day.) This lead me to following Wil Wheaton who mentioned that he was going to be on Leverage. It was during their break and they were rerunning a bunch of Season One to get ready for Season Two of Leverage and I figured, I had the time.....
I initially went in just trying to catch up so that I would understand Wil Wheaton's guest spot. I knew some of the cast (Tim Hutton, Gina Bellman and Christian Kane) from other shows that I liked and the idea behind the show, the concept that had nothing to do with dead children, was fun and appealing. Who doesn't love a group of thieves/criminals brought together by chance to fight the good fight for the little guy? Sure, it isn't a new idea, but hell, it is well executed.
So, there I am, catching up on Season One and by the time Season Two had rolled around, I was hooked. I was so hooked that I had FORGOTTEN that Wil Wheaton was going to be in Season Two and when I saw his name I jumped a little. The whole reason I started up with Leverage and I had blanked entirely.
I am a sucker for fun plots and capers. I love the cons and the big reveals at the end of the show, but more than that, it is so well-acted I am flummoxed. I mean, who expects acting? I watch Burn Notice, for crying out loud, it isn't always about great acting. Sometimes you gotta just bring the pretty explosions and be done with it. The brains behind the show are also very, very sneaky.
They have character growth. Really, they do. Not just stuff that happens that changes them for the moment, but growth. Subtle changes that make a real impact on the story.
And, they did something I haven't seen in a long time, and they did it well. Gina Bellman got pregnant the Spring before Season Two started. Gina's character, Sophie, is the grifter in the group - the face that the bad guys see and she does most of the distraction so that the others can steal or whatever, at any rate, her character is not in a position to have a baby. What they did was genius. They had taken something from Season One (the Nate/Sophie history) and created a reasonable exit for the character for a few months. Sure, that has been done, but then they went with it. They used her character's absence to move everyone else forward in a way that wouldn't have happened if Sophie had been around. They brought in a replacement grifter (Jeri Ryan) and made that character work. By introducing a new element, some of the other team members had to change. They weren't being eased in to things by Sophie. It was sink or swim. Sophie left to Find Herself. While she was gone, Nate was the one that actually went on an Identity journey. It was brilliant. And so powerful to watch.
Okay, okay, okay....I am going way to far with this, but maybe now you get why when I talk about anything these days Adam just assumes it is a Leverage reference and tunes me out.
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