Well I guess you know what I think, but what does everyone else think? They seemed to take the shadow out of the run.

I think they bent it back toward the A-Team. Don't get me wrong, I like A-Team, just not Leverage in the A-Team mold. Let's see if the next one, a corrupt orphanage gets us back to the shadows.

Part of the problem may be expectation. The first episode (almost two really when you take the commercials out) dealt with thieves doing what they do, for money. The next several have been about righting wrongs and justice and such. It could be that the writers were planning this from the start.

Now if they had Mr. T that would be a different matter.

Although I keep thinking of the A team song when I see Leverage now. The problem is taking the show in a different direction means the pilot is useless.... everyone gets their hopes up and BOOM thats all she wrote. I don't think this show has much promise for the shadows.

Also I noticed that a lot of the music is an Oceans 11, 12, 13 rip off. Listen to the end of episode 5 and it is totally Oceans 11. They should call it the O team and bring in Danny Ocean.

Righting wrong is perfectly alright. The only problem is that they're so damn white-hat about it and cavalier and formulaic. And the supporting characters have the depth of cardboard. And there doesn't seem to be any sort of real danger. The result is a lack of passion, intensity, and edge. And how the heck do they put a cute pyromaniac sociopath on the team and not use that to its fullest.

It is more like the characters just can't stop saying their stick out loud.

"I'm a cute thief, I'm a cute thief, I'm a cute thief!"

"I don't use guns, I don't use guns, I don't use guns!"

"I'm the comic relief hacker, I'm the comic relief hacker, I'm the comic relief hacker!"

Yeah... I know... just shut up already and rock out. You can't be Oceans 11 because you don't have a cool enough cast so maybe if you looked at the pilot episode and why everyone enjoyed and was excited about the show maybe there would be something to it. All I know if I sat at a table with roll playing like that I would probably have enough after about the first five sessions.

GM: "Your at a doorway what do you do?"

Player 1: "I'm a cute thief, so I try and pick the lock!"

Player 2: "Well I don't use guns so I try and bad ass at it!"

Player 3: "I make a bad joke and try to hack the door!"

Me: "I cast AOE slay crappy PC. I'm done with this."

Try Burn Notice...I like that one. Great plot, lots of intigue, and smart villians, smarter main character, and Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness) as one of the supporting actors. It is starting its third season this month.

I still really like Leverage, really fun show.