Synopsis- Ex insurance investigator Nate Ford leads a team of specialist criminals in a Robin-Hood type enterprise, where they help the victims of government and big corporations whom the law has let down. Kinda like a really badass, illegal Citzen’s Advice Bureau.
Medium- DVD
Entirety or episode?- Entirety
Overall verdict- Leverage is awesome. It’s not only fast, witty, awesomely scripted and plotted, and full of characters so characterful you are just guaranteed to fall in love with every one of them, it’s also really feel-good. I think it’s the feel-good aspect that hooked me so much. Even the best dramas I find tend to wallow in angst quite a lot, which I have a limited tolerance for. The whole point of every Leverage plot is the fight for justice, and I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that pretty much every episode has a nice, satisfying, happy ending where justice is served.
The plots and schemes for each job are intricate and clever. Every episode is fast paced and funny and there is never a dull moment. It can be cheesy at times, but in a thoroughly charming way, and I’ve caught myself tearing up frequently at how genuinely sweet this gem of a show can be.
The characters and their relationships are all very well-rounded and realised and just incredibly likeable. That’s it. This is just an incredibly entertaining, smart, funny and likeable show that will leave you feeling better for having watched it. It’s also mercifully free of ‘oh, boy’ moments regarding gay/trans/sexist jokes (although there’s quite a lot of honey-potting that goes on with the female characters I guess) In fact I think I only had one or two cringes throughout the whole series.
Screen time- Main character in a handful of episodes
Accent- British
Mark’s character- Jim Sterling is a bastard, but he’s a proper suave, charming bastard who manages to perfectly pull off being an antagonist without being a bad guy. He used to work with Nate, but they end up as rivals, with Sterling remaining one step behind tracking the Leverage group down for their altruistic crimes, until he ends up collaborating with them and then striking up a sort of deal where he lets them remain in operation in exchange for them helping him catch the bad crooks for Interpol.
I love Sterling. He’s another absolutely Sheppard role, and Mr S plays him brilliantly. He’s also dryly hilarious, and comedy is one of Mark’s strong points, so he’s just glorious to watch in this role.
Highlight- Another show where there’s too many to list, but…
- That bit in the finale. You know which bit. I won’t spoiler ;)
- Parker getting excited about anything. Money, Christmas, sugary snacks, burglary. Parker is the best.
- Parker making friends.
- The purely sweet in-team romances.
- Everyone’s character arcs and backstory.
- Sterling in the lift.
- Sterling play-acting being drunk.
- Sterling and Eliot’s hate-hate relationship.
- I’m here for Eliot’s confusingly terrible dress sense.
- I’m also here for Sterling’s truly beautiful suits.
- Hardison getting appreciated for his incredible work.
- The fight choreography, hell yeah.
- How much the characters genuinely like and care for each other.
- The finale. Tied up perfectly <3
Rewatch?- Absolutely yes
(I’ve not done many screencaps because I imagine there are tons of Sterling floating around here that I can just reblog!)
Title – Dr Who (6x1 ‘The impossible astronaut’ 6x2 ‘Day of the moon’)
Year- 2011
Character- Canton Everett Delaware III
Synopsis- Dr Who and crew have to go back in time to 1969 to infiltrate the moon landings in order to alert humanity to an alien menace that’s been stealthily controlling the human race since early history.
Medium - Netflix
Entirety or episode?- Episodes
Overall verdict- So, one of my many, many unpopular opinions is that I’m not into new Dr Who. I was SO INTO it as a kid – ‘my doctor’ was Sylvester McCoy (fight me) but something seemed to happen between me being ten and now that made me seriously go off sci-fi. So, whilst I have an early love of Dr Who and solid grounding in it, I tried to start watching again when they brought it back and made it all funky and sexy and all that nonsense, but I just couldn’t get back into it.
Another (less unpopular) opinion of mine: I am not even a tiny bit fond of Steven Moffat’s writing and that’s putting it politely.
That said, I (for the most part) really enjoyed these two episodes.
I love The Silent as an antagonist. They’re a cool design and genuinely creepy: the whole ‘you can only remember them while you can see them’ thing is super neat and the ways the good guys get around it are clever. The crosshatches appearing on skin, and the Silent standing around (particularly in the closed orphanage scenes) are really effective and unsettling. Canton executing the escape plan at the start of Day of the Moon is airpunch-awesome. The final solution to planting the idea in humanity’s head to kill The Silent (and of course they’ll remember nothing about doing so) is satisfying and a really good idea. So, basically, the plot of this is pretty cool (for the most part.)
There is however SO MUCH that I HATE about these episodes, not least the lame-o romantic subplot that’s lifted wholesale from The Time Traveler’s Wife, which incidentally is a book I unreservedly loathe. The most annoying part is, if they’d framed it as an allegory of dementia or something it’d be poignant but instead it’s just wall-to-wall schoolyard sexual innuendo. I am nostalgic for the days when Dr Who didn’t contain non-stop chemistry-free flirting that makes my arse clench up tighter than a balloon knot and OK, I’ll shut up now because I could go on and on.
Screen time- Main character
Accent- American
Mark’s character- Mark S should get to play heroic sweethearts more often. I love Canton, he’s the highlight of these episodes and I’m pretty sure it’s not just because I’m biased towards his actor. Mr S is the star of the show.
Canton – an ex-FBI agent who lost his job because he ‘wanted to get married’ - is clever, cautious, brave and badass. Most of all, his reaction to the TARDIS is the best thing I recall ever seeing on Dr Who – it takes him a good long time to get his head around it, and for the rest of the first episode he’s still looking mildly bemused at the technology. It really grounds the plot in reality and it is very well acted.
Having William Sheppard play older Canton is super cute as well (although ngl I find it hard to get past the fact they have noticeably different eye colours so I’d never have got that it was the same character if it wasn’t pointed out.)
Also, the ending: I can almost forgive Moffat for writing pretty much every female character horribly* for making Canton gay. Nixon’s face when Canton graciously accepts that allowing men to marry might just be that one step far considering they’d just literally bent time and space to defeat an alien race, is the most cuttingly perfect satire you can get. “I think the moon is far enough for now, Mr Delaware.” “I figured it might be.” Ugh.
*yeah, no I can’t. Moffat, get in the bin.
Highlight- Canton’s “That’s OK. You were my second choice for President.” Sass level critical.
“I like your wheels” – Canton (after so much delightfully expressioned gazing around) finally gets his head around the TARDIS.
“Would you mind going with her?” “Yeah. A bit.” Rory, same.
That glorious fake death bodybags and secure prison escape from episode 2.
Humanity being reprogrammed to fight back at their captors.
“Yes… HE is.” MIC DROP.
Rewatch?- You know what, I’m going to actually try and watch Dr Who from the start, as a gesture of faith. I started the first Christopher Ecclestone ep after writing this and I’m actually not hating it so far, so perhaps miracles may happen (or perhaps the yuck factor really is just Moffat.)
There’s the tongue.
A+ perfectly accurate TARDIS face /standing ovation/
Synopsis- A jeweller who sells diamonds to rappers gets shot execution-style. Crime procedural ensues.
Medium- TV series, Youtube, horrible quality
Entirety or episode?- Episode
Overall verdict- So, I’m familiar with Prime Suspect from the British version and I may be biased, but it is about 9000% better than the American version. This was the first thing I’ve watched For Sheppard that I was a bit bored by. It’s not bad per se – it’s perfectly serviceable crime procedural, probably of technically way higher quality than the SyFy stuff I’ve been mainlining. It’s just a bit po-faced and predictable and not that fun. Mr S is good in it, doing about the most you could with such limited screen time. The annoyingly-named Blackjack seems to also have beef with Chief Investigator’s dad too, but I didn’t quite cotton on why or how and I’m not prepared to watch any more for context.
Screen time- Brief but frequently interspersed.
Accent- With that character name and the early assertion ‘he was a mick’ I was expecting Irish, but this time we have New York Mafioso (guilty confession: because I’m British, all I had in my head was the Fox’s Biscuits panda the whole time. It’s not an unwelcome association, tbh.)
Mark’s character- Smirky smug ex con crime boss with a big gold cross necklace. Mr S looks yummy in this and still manages to ooze his usual charisma despite not getting much to play with. Action-wise, he gets firstly flushed out of a wall-space hidey-hole by cops with a battering ram and secondly gets his hand twatted by Fake Helen Mirren whilst mid-anecdote. Rude. Especially as yes, I do want to know why he’s called Blackjack, as it happens.
