Culture Blues

Two Shows Enter: Cable Espionage Edition

In Two Shows Enter, Ben Van Iten selects two television programs to compete head to head. His scorecard, as well as the occasional all caps swearing tirade, is found below.

 

 

During the course of any thriller or action movie, several improbable things have to occur in order for the hero to win out. Bullets whiz by their heads as they jump from one moving car to the next or meticulous plans depending on dozens of variables all come together just right. When this is stretched out over the season of a television show, and throughout the life of a series, I stop thinking of the protagonists as skillful and begin regarding them as lucky. That’s not to say I don’t find this sort of thing entertaining from time to time. These seem like the kind of shows I would enjoy hung-over, where I can just kind of turn my brain off and waste a Sunday on a marathon. Burn Notice and Leverage both seem to be doing quite well, and despite my grumpy nature and vicious cynicism I think I will find at least some enjoyment here.

Here’s what people have been saying about the Two Shows Enter Cable Espionage Week:

"Check this out. Why did the cast of Burn Notice cross the road? Cause they were filming a shitty TV show on the other side. High five!" –Dean Devlin, Executive Producer of Leverage

"We are shamelessly begging for bonus points this episode by having all the cast members wear a ‘Ben Van Iten #1’ foam finger. It made the chase scene a little awkward, but this is a must-win situation." – Jeffrey Donovan, Star of Burn Notice

Burn Notice

It is with great embarrassment that I reveal my first thought after seeing a commercial for this show: "was that the douche that rats out Will Smith in Hitch?" (it is) I have seen bits and pieces of this show before, and I like the premise. Basically Michael, a spy, is betrayed or "burned" as it were, and is trying to find out who did it. I like when a television show is working towards something, but it creates an awkward situation for the writers. Eventually fans are really going to want to get to the bottom of this, but once they do will the show have any mileage left? And since it’s one of the highest rated shows on cable, you’d have to think they are going to take their sweet time. Alright shady blog link, let’s do this!

-The show’s intro is a little wordy (-1 point) but it does an effective job letting the viewer know exactly what the show is about (+2 points) and sets up all the key players nicely.

-And speaking of the key players, we have a Bruce Campbell sighting! (+4 points) He plays Sam, the witty friend and sidekick. I’m showing a lot of restraint here by not quoting Evil Dead like the insufferable nerd that I am.

 -Michael’s narration not only tells us who people are, but then huge obnoxious white text labels them as well. This seems like a bit much. (-2 points)

-Shows like this like to have it both ways. They want to present a character with a shady past so that he can have a dangerous edge about him, but we have to be able to root for him so they give him a heart of gold. For reasons that I don’t really buy, Michael likes to take time to help people, which I’m sure leads to a lot of half baked side plots that take away from the show’s forward momentum.

-Well, speak of the devil. In this episode we open with an intriguing storyline of our hero trying to figure out who a sniper is in town to kill, and how it all relates to the bigger picture. (+2 points) But just as its starts to get good, we are removed from this part of the story to focus on Michael trying to stop some rich brat from being kidnapped as a favor to his ex-girlfriend’s new man. Yawn. (-3 points) It doesn’t feel plausible that a man that lives in constant danger from unknown powerful enemies would take time out of his schedule for charity work. I don’t buy it, and I don’t care.

-Instead of just whooping ass, he embarks on an elaborate plan to make the kidnappers reconsider by posing as one of the brat’s security team. He allows himself to get a gun put in his face, but never seems remotely worried. Why is he risking so much? Why does everything work? Gah. (-2 points)

-This episode is reconfirming my long held belief that the only actor in the world who really knows how to act drunk is Jeff Bridges.

-I can’t decide if the narration is insightful or grating. Some of the quotes are lame ("Surveillance is the leading cause of weight gain among Ops"). But I like a few of the spy terms, it reminds me of when I was a kid and I started a spy club with a few of my stuffed animals. I drew ominous red buttons in my notebook and in theory by pressing these buttons I would be blowing up enemy strong holds. I’m glad no one else started a Homeland Security Club. I think I may have said too much here.

-Good chemistry between Michael and his ex-girlfriend Fiona, played by the lovely Gabrielle Anwar. (+1 point) I’m sure in the current episodes they are an item again, because that’s just how this stuff works.

-And finally, some badass shit starts going down. (+2 points) There is a motorcycle chase, some gunshots, etc. It is executed well.

-At the end of the episode we find out that someone has killed the sniper, they booby trap his house and it explodes when he opens the front door. Michael gets this news on the phone about five seconds before he is about to open up a booby trapped door of his own. And, as I imagined would happen, his life is saved by random chance for probably the billionth fucking time. The big white text is back, and lets us know that this will be continued.

-Despite a lot of my small complaints, the cliffhanger ending worked (+5 points) and I really would be open to watching this show voluntarily one day if I was bored. That may not sound like much, but its one of the nicest things I’ve ever said in this column.
Total: 8 points

Leverage

I liked the first Mission Impossible movie, but one of the things that really pissed me off about it was they took what made the TV show so unique, and instantly stomped on it. Why would we need a team of people to do these awesome covert jobs, when we got Tom fucking Cruise!?! Leverage sticks with the team aspect, and it seems to work. A team of con artists, led by Timothy Hutton, have banded together and are now sticking it to the man! Rumor has it the first episode of the third season will have the team creating fake identities for the editors of a kick ass pop culture website and sneaking them into a hip film festival that had previously denied them access. Alright, let’s get Leveragized!

-The episode I’m watching today is the first episode of the 2nd season and its titled "The Bean Town Bailout Job".  I'm wary of some kind of commentary on the financial crisis, but I'll reserve judgment.

-A banker and his daughter are driving down the street, when the brakes go out. Nathan Ford (Hutton) just so happens to be walking by when the car gets totaled. The special effects when the car flips through the air and over his head are so hilariously terrible I’m actually going to award a point here for my first audible chuckle of the night (+1 point).  As you might imagine, there is foul play.

-The first season of this show was written as a complete story, which makes the start of the 2nd season a little awkward. The gang gets back together when one of their colleagues (Sophie, played by Gina Bellman) is the lead in a performance in The Sound of Music and they show up to watch. It flops so bad that one review says "I was rooting for the Nazis." Alright, that was funny. (+3 points)

-In their time apart, it seems all of these thieves and con artists have come to miss helping people. And after the show wastes a bunch of time pretending Ford might not get back into the do-good game, he eventually agrees to help bring down the people that sabotaged the banker’s brakes.

-There is an attempt made on Ford’s life, and right before Sophie saves the day she delivers the following line to the attacker: "Does your mother sew? Stitch this!" (-1 point) I want you to imagine a screenwriter sitting down in front of their computer, and writing that line. A real person did that. Seriously.

-I have watched this show before, and enjoyed it. But there is a campiness to this episode that is unforgivable. (-4 points) For a show that is not a comedy, life and death are handled about as lightly as possible. It’s like everyone on the team thinks they are in a video game, and none of these bad guys that they let put a gun in their face will ever pull the trigger because that’s not part of the plan!

-Despite Sophie’s atrocious line earlier, she is a legitimately interesting character (+2 points). She is a master of accents, and can become anyone she needs to, yet as an actress she is a complete failure.

-So the guy that gets in the car crash at the beginning apparently had the inside scoop about shady business practices at the bank, and the bad guys were trying to take him out. The ringleader of the bad guys? The head of the bank itself. In his big evil monologue he brags about sticking it to the American people, blah blah blah. (-2 points) It’s an uninspired speech from a two dimensional character whose attempt to make this episode culturally relevant fails miserably.

-Apparently when the writers decided to incorporate the mob into this storyline, their research was THE SHITTIEST MOB MOVIES OF ALL TIME. (-2 points) Honestly, this is getting pretty bad.

-The episode feels really rushed (-1 point) and perhaps that’s because they had to waste a lot of time at the beginning getting the band back together. Down the road I imagine some of these kinks will be worked out.

-As I’ve already established I hate when everything comes together just right, but it is cool how they manage to trick the crooked bank guy to bring a briefcase full of evidence of his own crimes directly to the police. (+4 points)

-As the episode closes, Hutton’s character (who is a recovering alcoholic) pays for a shot of whiskey, and simply sniffs it for a few moments before putting it down. It’s a haunting image (+2 points) of a character that hammed it up for far too much of the episode. This is a very talented actor who is capable of much better than this show, and a show that is capable of much better than this episode.
Total: 1 point

Burn Notice (1-0) defeats Leverage (0-1) by a final score of 8 to 1.

Culture Blues caught up with MVP Bruce Campbell who had this to say: "It’s the least you assholes could do after that whole tournament fiasco.  Ash losing to Conan was the funniest thing that’s ever happened on this website."

Join me next time when Fringe takes on a Sci-fi blast from the past.

Tagged as: burn notice, leverage