Television Whitenoise: Leverage

So, I just caught up on my dose of Leverage and it was just as entertaining as those first few episodes. The Mile High Job had a nice little nod to Doctor Who amongst other nice touches. They are slowly working to round out each character, each through their own liberally sprinkled flashbacks. I think the show gets away with a lot of what it does because everyone seems to be having such a great time making the show. The stories are compelling and touch on a lot of areas currently at the forefront of people\’s consciousness, providing a great set of vicarious thrills as these guys get their comeuppance.

However, today, watching three episodes in one sitting, it struck me that things for them generally go too smooth — I felt that their needed to be more friction to impede their progress. I know I might be alone in this, and their have been obstacles they\’ve had to overcome, but nothing, even a plane falling out of the sky, that really seemed to pose a real or significant threat. Some of this is the slickness of the show (also ironically one of its good points) and I was perhaps wanting a grungier take on the whole thing – could be just around the corner … who knows? I think they may be building to some big emotional pay off as they are pushing the characters closer together so they have more invested in each other. I hope so – I would hate for the show to become bogged down in being clever-clever and losing that emotional heart we\’ve seen at certain points.