The Summer 7: Leverage by Tina Charles

Seven reasons to watch TNT's Leverage:

1. It's hella fun. Leverage does feature some dramatic elements, but the reason why I keep coming back for more is because it's a lot of fun. The way the characters come up with their plan of strategy regarding the week's big case; the way they execute the big plan almost always involves some sort of dress-up or acting in an over-exaggerated manner to fool the big bad of the week; plus they make the villain look really stupid so it's awesome to see him or her get arrested at the end. It's the perfect summer show because it doesn't overtax my brain or weigh it down with heavy drama.
   
2. The cast chemistry. I admittedly just got hooked on this show in Season 3 (I have a lot of catching up to do). But one of my main criteria for tuning into a show is cast chemistry. I have to instantly like the cast, I don't like to have to work for it. I can't believe I never tuned into Leverage before, because the entire cast works so well off each other. It starts with Timothy Hutton as Nate. He's like the Hannibal Smith of this "family." He shares a special type of chemistry with each cast member but especially with Gina Bellman's Sophie. My favorite pairings however, have to be between Eliot and Hardison as well as Hardison and Parker. Christian Kane, Aldis Hodge and Beth Reisgraf sparkle in their scenes together. They each play characters with distinct personalities and they make it all work in their case-centric scenes as well as the scenes when the characters aren't trying to get the bad guy.
3. The characters. I've talked about the cast, now it's time to talk about the characters. Like I mentioned previously, the characters all have distinct personalities. And I like that they each bring something to the table. Nate's the brains of the operation; Sophie's able to scam her way into any situation; Eliot's the muscle; Parker can steal anything and Hardison's the tech guy that can hack into anything. Everyone's essential to the family and each case and I love that. And the relationships between the characters is also interesting. I like to see how they interact and every time I learn something new about them it just adds to their well drawn out characters. They are more than just what they bring to the table however. The fact that the show utilized Christian Kane's singing talents and had Eliot sing in an episode was awesome. And yes, consider me a Parker/Hardison (Pardison? Harker?) shipper. I want these two together. Love that they're sort of exploring that this season. I wonder how far the show will go?
   
4. The cases. Whatever the case may be, I get pretty caught up in them. It's very Ocean's 11 the way they go about doing the good deed of the week. What I mean by that is that the way they go about it is usually very cool and slick and suspenseful. But this crew helps the good guys by nailing the bad guys. And I love trying to guess which way they're going to take out the villain-of-the-week.
5. The titles. This is a simple reason why I love Leverage. I just like the names of the episodes. The titles each have "the" and "job" in it and then some sort of description for what goes on during the hour. It's not the first show that's done something like this, but I like it. So we get names like "The Studio Job" and "The Double-Blind Job." It all adds to the show's cool factor.
   
6. The action. I love seeing how Nate goes about stealing a train to get Eliot and Hardison out of a sticky situation and how Hardison helps Parker get into and out of a high tech security situation. I especially love the action that Eliot provides. He's the one that gets into several fights every week. After all, he's the brawn to Nate's brain. I'm all for as much action as possible and Leverage provides a lot of it. It's not all talk. They do stuff.
7. The guest stars. This show doesn't make us guess who the bad guy is. We pretty much know from the beginning. So Leverage often features name guest stars as the bad guys of the week. I just hate on other shows that it's so easy to guess the bad guy because the guest star is someone pretty well known. What other part are they going to play? So on this TNT hit show, John Schneider and Bill Engvall can come on, and we're not trying to guess if they're the villain, we're just trying to guess how Nate and his team are going to bring these bad guys down. Richard Chamberlin did come on as Parker's mentor and that was such a good guest star get. And now we know Tom Skerritt's coming on the show as Nate's dad. Keep the great guest stars coming, Leverage!

Leverage has already been renewed for a fourth season which is very exciting. You can tune into this fun show Sunday nights @ 9/8C and 9PT.