Leverage—Still One of My Favorite Shows

Leverage

Ok, so Leverage isn’t a new show to me—I started watching when it first aired in…2008 (wow, that was a while ago). But it’s still one of my favorite tv shows and one I find myself re-watching on Netflix—the visual equivalent of comfort food, and one of the few not murder-based (the shows, not the food, which are mostly mystery series). It’s just fun watching the Leverage crew take down the bastard of the week with cons and heists and well-choreographed fights. And though the show has its serious moments, it never takes itself too seriously.

So here’s my quick rundown on each season.

Season 1—Meet the Criminals

Season one starts off with the assembly of the crew: three criminals—Eliot the hitter, Hardison the hacker, and Parker the thief—each a genius in their field but also all loners, and ex-insurance agent Nathan Ford hired to be the mastermind and “one honest man” to keep them in line. Not that the job goes as planned—their employer tries to kill them, prompting the crew to stay together and get revenge. Which leads to adding Sophie, the grifter, to the group.

The Mysteries of Laura—A Good Run but I’m Done

The Mysteries of Laura is a tv show about an NYPD detective who’s also a single mom of twins. It’s one of the shows I watch with my mom—or rather, watched. I’ll explain below why I liked the show and why I’ve decided to stop watching it after two seasons.

1—The Mysteries

The actual mysteries in each episode are good enough—nothing spectacular but they didn’t bore me either. The first few episodes were a touch heavy handed with the “mom skills are being used to solve the crime” thing, but it often takes a few episodes for a show to find its feet. The Mysteries of Laura did and got better at incorporating Laura’s unique way of looking at the world with her police work, without having to shout about it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens—A New Beginning for an Old Universe

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It’s been a year since I bothered going to see a movie in a theater but I kept hearing good things about The Force Awakens. Yesterday, I finally managed to see it and I’m glad I kept trying. The Force awakens was a fun movie and a solid story, or rather a solid beginning as this is very much the first part of a longer tale. But I expected that going in—this is Star Wars, after all. Trilogies are kind of their thing.

1—Worlds of Wonder

This movie is beautiful. There is such a sense of space and grandness in the scenery. Of the vastness of the wrecked starship and the greater vastness of the desert. Of the lushness of Takodana, and Rey’s awe of this green and wondrous planet, so different from her own barren homeworld. Even the corridors and bays of the ships are beautiful, in their way. Hell, even the Rathtars Han is transporting—balls of teeth and tentacles and death—are beautiful in a grotesque, hand-down-the-sink-disposal way. …don’t ask me how that’s beautiful, it just is.

More of the Un-Book Reporter’s Pet Peeves

This post will be shorter than the previous Pet Peeves Post, I promise. (I’d promise not to use so much alliteration again too, but sometimes I just can’t help myself.) And so again, here are some of my most-hated entertainment peeves.

1—You Only Use 10% of Your Brain

Once this trope merely annoyed me—now it it makes me foam at the mouth. We don’t need much of an excuse to suspend disbelief in a fantasy—it’s what we’re there for after all—so there’s no excuse to keep quoting this ridiculous “fact”. Even if you know little about the brain, it’s still ridiculous. Would you believe it if you were told you only use ten percent of your digestive system? Or your bones?

It’s easy—even tempting—to go along with the idea that a) we as a species and as individuals aren’t living up to our full potential and b) that most other people are stupid (admit it, you believe both these things). So it really shouldn’t be that difficult to come up with an excuse for how your Joe Schmoe becomes a psychic/genius/super hero/all of the above. And I suppose that’s why this trope now makes me rabid—the unrepentant laziness of it. That, and I don’t enjoy being called stupid by my entertainment. Or, alternatively, told that I’m not worth the effort to think up a half-decent premise.