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An alcoholic insurance investigator teams up with five world-class criminals to play Robin Hood, ripping off big companies and corrupt, powerful figures to help out the little man.

The name of the game is sting. Or possibly con. Swindle. Heist. Think Ocean’s 11, Once a Thief or well, The Sting, in a handy job-per-episode serial packaging. With quirky, nigh-superpowered characters pulling off labyrinthine cons, the show is definitely entertaining, suffering only of a lack of an overreaching arch. The premise of the show doesn’t vary much from one episode to the next. Character growth throughout the first season is subtle at best, but is replaced by the slow reveal of details of the characters’ pasts and personalities. Leverage is still more character-driven than your regular cop show (such as Law & Order or Cold Case).

It’s a question of taste whether or not you mind this. I generally prefer shows that would not function if the characterization was switched around, but I have to admit that Leverage is entertaining, and its characters are not dull. Nate, the mastermind, has a need to control his surroundings that is challenged by his drinking problem. Sophie, the grifter, keeps the group together but is herself torn between the excitement of the heist and trying to live a normal life as a terrible, terrible actress. Eliot, the hitter, struggles with his need and talent for violence. Parker, the cat burglar, lives on the edge, unable or unwilling to connect with people. She and Hardison, the hacker, seem to be the only ones who truly enjoy their lives; Parker needs nothing but the thrill, and Hardison unlimited access to the best technology money can buy. These disparate personalities’ interaction (and Sophie’s acting) provides the humour of the show, which is necessary for that fun experience that is so central to heist stories.

The only episode of the first season which I felt really got its hands dirty with characterization was episode 10, “The 12-Step Job”, in which Nate gets enrolled in rehab as a part of the con. Sophie uses the opportunity to challenge his addiction, to no avail. Though Nate’s issues are addressed in the first episode as well as the later in the show when his ex-wife is introduced into the plot, this was the episode I thought went beyond cliché to show the mastermind as unreliable and potentially dangerous. That sort of thing is why I prefer character-driven shows: the main character cannot always be trusted to save the day, or even himself.

The shows politics are ambiguous. Corporations and the rich and mighty are presented as the villains and crime an acceptable antidote to their machinations. The Leverage team shaves their income off the top of the heist while also doing right by their clients, which leaves them in a curious moral situation where stealing something is only okay if the person they’re stealing from is considered morally reprehensible. Once on the job, the team shows no mercy, ripping down their marks with an occasionally disturbing – and sometimes heartening – degree of glee. There are few things more interesting than moral dilemmas, though this adds to the whole delicious mix.

In conclusion, it’s not deep, but quite a lot of fun.

**½~~ (2.5/5)

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The show follows the crime-solving success story of Patrick Jane, former fake psychic, as he uses his amazing powers of observation and, well, guessing, to aid a California Bureau of Investigation unit lead by vague romantic interest Agent Lisbon. The other members of the team include Agents Van Pelt – the hungry rookie – and Rigsby – the temperamental he-man – who not-that-secretly long for each other, as well as the only non-white character in the regular cast, the stoic Agent Cho.

Jane’s drive to solve crimes results from his guilt over the death of his wife and child, who were killed by the serial killer Red John (not terribly original, I know – either the set-up or the killer’s name) after Jane belittled him on national television. This turned him from a money-grubbing fraud to an honest man with a mission.

Jane is one of the creepiest heroes I’ve come across in a while. On one hand his ability to feel or at least fake compassion and/or understand people who others dismiss as flakes or jerks is endearing; on the other hand his cool detachment in the face of suffering is creepy as all hell. He may have a fascinated smile on his face as he views the scene of a rape-murder. He also talks quite seriously about meaning to murder Red John at the earliest opportunity. But we like him, because he’s clever and he’s always right, except when it’s cute or funny for him not to be.

The rest of the cast, from what we can tell in one season of episodes mostly focused on the crime of the week, more resembles a stock set of characters, the only exception being Agent Kimball Cho. It’s typical for crime shows today to consist of two women, one black person, no Asians, and a bunch of white guys*. The Mentalist breaks the mold by having the standard non-white character be that elusive Asian. Aside from that fact, Cho is atypical in that he is the perfect stoic, with few quibbles and a perfectly expressionless face, and apparently no life outside of his work. Maybe it’s thanks to the actor Tim Kang, but he was my favourite character in a show with very little time spent on characterization outside that of the lead.

Since that’s the kind of a blog this is, let me list some of the first season’s diversity fail.

Religion

In the episode “Red Rum” the team investigates an apparently occult killing of a teenaged boy. The parents point an accusing finger at the local Witch, Tamzin Dove. Tamzin introduces herself as a Wiccan, and yet goes on to tell the agents how she put a killing curse on the dead boy. For the record: while some Witches may throw killing curses, Wiccans do not – on of their core beliefs is that every spell is returned upon the caster. And, of course, all the CBI agents agree with laughs and shakes of their heads that Tamzin is a whackjob. Very sensitive.

Towards the end of the episode, Jane takes – or pretends to take – Tamzin’s religion seriously for about a split second, thus wrangling some more facts out of her.

The sad thing is that this is probably the best depiction of Wiccans I’ve so far seen on TV.

Race

The worst incident of racefail was when a Lisbon and Rigsby go interview a bouncer in relation to the death of a man he disliked. “Do they call you Terence or Terry?” Lisbon asks. “They call me Mr Andrews,” says Terence Andrews, a black man, quoting In the Heat Of The Night. An altercation occurs, Lisbon tazes Andrews, and says “You okay, Mr Andrews?”

In other words, they took an iconic scene of a black person demanding to be treated with respect and then tazed the black person and mocked his uppity bravado. I have to put it down to the producer’s and director’s privilege-blindness that this ever even got in.

Another example would be in the episode “Red John’s Footsteps”, where an Asian small business manager gives Cho a picture of her niece, suggesting he consider her for marriage. This without ever having met Cho before. Because it’s funny how Asians arrange marriages, or something? I don’t know.

Disability

Also in the episode “Red John’s Footsteps”, which was the season finale, there was a blind woman living by herself. As with the issue of the Asian manager, I’m not really qualified to judge this representation, but I did notice that they repeated the “heightened senses” gag and made it sound as if blind people necessarily had a hard time finding lovers. I’d love to hear some thoughts on this; I just know I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it.

They also repeated the “heightened senses” gag in “Bloodshot”, where Jane loses his eyesight, leading to all sorts of blind jokes, and the fake-disability gag was used in the episode “Flame Red” where a man pretends to have a learning disability, and again in the episode “Miss Red”, where a con man pretends paraplegia to seem more trustworthy to a company. It’s news to me that disabled people apparently find it so much easier to find employment…

So what’s the verdict? Well, it’s an entertaining enough show. You don’t have to swallow a lot more bullshit than you do with pretty much all crime shows, but the bullshit is not non-existant. The main character’s psychology is interesting and could do with more exploring. There is Cho. Some episodes give you the satisfaction of figuring it out just as Jane does just by following visual clues. I failed to make an emotional connection with it, though, and that is really what is required for the full enjoyment of any show. If you manage that, you’ll love this show. If not, it’s still a good mostly mindless diversion.

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* This was first pointed out to me by Spacelogic, and it will never stop astonishing me how correct she was.

****~ (4/5)

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Note: I link to a fan Wiki above because I don’t trust network websites to stick around nearly as long for cancelled shows.
Warning: The review below contains profanity, spoilers and triggery subjects such as politics, sexism, cissexism, racism, ableism and fat phobia. I assure you I personally am against all the things on that list, except politics. Well, sometimes politics too. It’s also rather long.

Marathoning our way through the five seasons of Boston Legal, the cry most likely to be sounded by myself and my girlfriend Gilly was “Oh, Denny!” – in various tones of exasperation, amusement and (particularly in Gilly’s part) adoration. We made a lot of sounds, come to think of it – groans, howls of laughter, screams of joy and a fair amount of squealing and whimpering. On occasion I had to hide my face. You could say it reached us.

Boston Legal is about the law firm of Crane, Poole and Schmidt. Denny Crane (William frickin’ Shatner) is a fading star lawyer, a gun-toting Republican from a bygone era, who’s becoming more eccentric and less reliable as age and Alzheimer’s precursors eat at mind. Edwin Poole (Larry Miller) shows up to work without trousers or drawers on in the first episode of the show and is quickly carted off to a mental health clinic. Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) is not only sane, but brilliant and tough as nails. Alan Shore (James Spader) is an upstart in the firm, a successful sleaze, an engaging combination of amoral and highly moral – perhaps the term is differently moral? He will resort to blackmail to win his cases, but also argue with true passion when he believes his cause is just. Denny, Alan and Shirley are the three pillars of the show. The rest of the characters, though many are compelling, flit in and out of the picture. Alan and Denny, two very different people, are also both some degrees in love with Shirley, but their best and truest relationship is with each other.

This show was a lot of fun. There was a lot one had to overlook, and I’ll touch on those points in a moment, but, you know what? If you can overlook them, this show was just buckets, oodles and piles of fun.

It’s hard for me to stay objective on the subject of this show, so let me first tell you my love story and get it over with. Like most love stories, it’s not free of moral turpitude.

I first met Alan Shore in the eighth and final season of The Practice. I had watched and been disturbed, amused and educated by David E. Kelley’s shows Picket Fences and Ally McBeal before coming across The Practice, which I never paid a great deal of attention to, but enjoyed, especially the moral dilemmas faced and ignored by lawyers who defended – and got off – the worst kinds of criminals. I began to notice the pattern that is evident in just about every case-by-case cop or law show, and beyond: that of presenting a moral dilemma and discussing it in a way most likely to be agreed with by the target audience. Moral dilemmas are easy hooks – we always find them interesting, because they always concern us and our opinions on some level, even when they appear to be about Random Criminal or Victim of the Week, or Boring Regular Cast Member Who Is There To Ask Questions And Not To Have a Personality. The difference between a David E. Kelley show and, say, CSI or Law & Order, is that his shows are always character-driven. You had the case, but the regular cast were important, not to mention interesting, and actually had stories and character arcs of their own that didn’t have the feel of being pasted on. There are other staples: skinny lawyer girls, funny judges, workplace romances/sex, characters with various social dysfunctions or ticks, involving politics and current events, etc.

But I’m wandering off the point, which is Alan Shore. He showed up in The Practice and installed himself, explaining his old firm has a bit of a problem with his embezzling. I instantly hated him and was intrigued by him. The moment that the hate turned into fascination and something approaching, well, total fangirling, was when he told a man who likes to clean toilets to not be ashamed of his fetish. What of it? said Alan Shore.

I don’t think you’re sick, Mr. Fosterling. I think you’re peculiar, but . . . a lot of us are quite peculiar. And maybe with a little help, you could find a way to continue to enjoy yourself that doesn’t make you hate yourself.
- The Practice, Episode  Season 8 Episode 5, ‘Blessed Are They’

At this point, while I still thought Alan Shore was a sleaze, I suddenly loved him. This would set the tone for my relationship with Boston Legal.

The Practice was cancelled and Boston Legal green-lighted and I continued to watch, for Alan Shore. I got to know Denny, fall for Shirley and, at some point, stopped watching, because life got in the way. I have no idea what happened. This was years ago. I remembered the show fondly, though, and when my girlfriend fell for William Shatner (I have had to learn to put up with these things) I said, hey, did you know he was in a show called Boston Legal? We bought a season and so it all begun again.

We laughed, we groaned. We fell in love despite ourselves. I guess all it takes is to make a girl laugh, and maybe show some intense male bonding that calls to the slasher in every – well, most fangirls. In our case, it didn’t hurt that the shows politics were liberal and the moral dilemmas tended to be ones we could identify, or, of course, that it starred William frickin’ Shatner – and James Spader, who’s been making my bits flutter since I was really too young to be fluttered. I am not particularly proud of this bit of shallowness, but there you have it. What cinched the deal was, as you might expect from a David E. Kelley show, the characterisation. Alan starts out as a great, cold, witty character, who warms considerably throughout the show. He loses some of his thrilling amorality in the process, but he can afford to do so, for I’m still in love, and it’s what I wanted for him anyway. Denny is intense and larger than life and just gets more outrageous as the show progresses, but is at core also a tragic figure, the twilight of a king. Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s in his twilight that makes him likeable – in real life, I’d find him a terror and a menace, especially if he was at the top of his game. And Shirley, oh Shirley. She gives as good as she gets and then some, beating Alan’s famous wit on her first appearance. ILU SCHMIDT. …Ahem. The others, the disappearing associates, also have some true gems among them.

So what is it that you have to overlook to love this show? The worst of it arises out of the sexist, racist, thoughtless, violent, pro-war patriotism of Denny Crane. This is actually quite insidious. Denny is a sympathetic character, even though Boston Legal‘s politics – which show! – are against him. The show took blatant pot-shots at George W. Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin and many others, argues against the death penalty and for woman’s right to choose (not without some quibbles, though – the position seems to be that fathers should get a say in it too, despite the issue in question not involving their bodies in a life-threatening process, but whatever), for women’s rights in general, for protection of the environment (especially salmon) and for government and corporate responsibility. In comes Denny, then, and says McCain should be president because women are easier to get into bed during a Republican administration – after all, they’ve given up on their rights and are more likely to be depressed. Denny makes a sex doll in Shirley’s image, Denny shoots homeless people with paintball guns, Denny wants to get in the military because it makes his penis feel bigger, Denny fires a fat woman for “being fat”, an excuse as he’s actually firing her for not having sex with him. Denny is outrageous. The others are outraged. But they love him really, the silly old coot.

The insidious thing about this is that by having Denny say and do these extreme things, you tend to overlook it when someone else says something less bad – as if it wasn’t still bad!

Examples:

Denny grabs opposing counsel’s ass. Alan uses sexual talk to discomfit her and gain an edge.
Denny fires a woman, claiming her being fat as the reason (despite being fat himself). Alan defends the action in court by referring to the good old “fat people are hard on the economy” schtick.
Denny says midgets are sexual dynamos and into group sex. Everybody else pretty much gets to say whatever they want about little people after that.

You end up getting the impression that the milder versions of racism, ableism, sexism etc. are really okay and you don’t have to be ashamed of them – after all, you’re not sexist, not like Denny Crane. That sweet, silly, old-fashioned man.

Let’s highlight some of the issues a bit more.

Racism
When Denny uses “he doesn’t sound black” as a positive, Shirley is shocked and has a talk with him, and it becomes news and puts the firm in a bad light, but in the end the episode ends up defending this kind of casual racism – “because black talk exists”, “privileged folks aren’t mean if they don’t know they’re being offensive”, etc. Somebody missed out on Racism 101 (see points #8, #10 and #11, for starters). I also notice that the show has only one black regular who lasts for more than one season (Clarence Bell – more on him later), who was also the only male one, and also the only fat one. In fact, there’s only been one other non-white regular – Whitney Rome (Taraji P. Henson) in Season 4. The others, the pretty black girls (Vanessa Walker, Chelina Hall, Sara Holt), show up for a few episodes and then mysteriously disappear. Alan Shore comments on this in one of the last episodes of the show, ‘Thanksgiving’, by referring to the firm’s racist bias, raising Shirley’s ire. Oh, and according to the series two-part finale, Chinese corporations are evil. I’m sure there’s a hell of a lot more that could be said about this, but let’s move on.

Ableism
Dwarfism: The introduction Bethany Horowitz (the wonderful Meredith Eaton) opened the door to a lot of dwarf jokes, the most persistent being Denny having a conversation about Bethany with someone else and not noticing Bethany’s standing between them because of her height. Bethany’s a wonderful character. She’s outspoken, unrelenting and pretty much wipes the floor with everyone in the show, but she also inexplicably dates Denny (I’ll get to the subject of inexplicable attraction the show’s women feel towards men who behave like pigs later), and her objections are sometimes presented as reactionary rather than reasonable, such as her suing Denny for public defamation when he blurts out “midget!” on their first (blind) date. Does this make up for the fact that her height is a source of comedy? You know what, it kind of does. The sad thing is, as far as I can tell, this is far better than little people in television or movies can usually expect.
Asperger’s Syndrome: Though they include pleas for understanding and respect for the “odd ticks” of the sweet, brilliant Jerry Espenson, a sympathetic character, it’s laughs he mostly gets. In addition to this, his condition is seen through-out the show as a burden, something to be controlled and directed with “life-saving” medication to help him adjust to the neurotypical environment he must move in, when many autistic people would reject this pity-approach and demand abled people are the ones who should do the adjusting.

Cissexism
When Clarice Bell walks in the first time and complains that her workplace won’t give her maternity leave to adopt a child, she’s greeted with stunned stares. What “everyone” is thinking is voiced by Claire Simms (Constance Zimmer): “My God! He’s like a total transvestite. Are you kidding me? It’s a big black man in a frock.” (Season 3 Episode 2, ‘New Kids On the Block’) The fact that it’s later revealed that Clarice is just the first among several personas put on by Clarence Bell, a shy man who has trouble dealing with the world as himself, doesn’t actually change the fact that Denny, Alan and Claire all saw female-presenting Clarice and dismissed her gender as fake. And no, the fact that Claire later starts to teach him self-confidence by practically bullying him into being Clarence, and then becomes his girlfriend, also doesn’t help. It really does not.

Sexism
For me, this is kind of the big one, which might just be because while I’m not a person of colour, disabled or transgendered, I am a woman. There is no end to the degrading, objectifying remarks Denny and Alan make on a regular basis. They themselves say that they objectify women, and that their first thought upon meeting a woman is “Would she? Would I?” Alan often makes the excuse that this is how all men think, and he is at least honest about it. Whereas Alan is capable of listening to, respecting and appreciating women, however, Denny’s brain goes whizzing into space at the first appearance of a woman he finds attractive, which is pretty much every female. The love of Denny’s life is Shirley Schmidt, and he doesn’t even listen to her. Shirley repeats herself, explains herself patiently, shows Denny in various ways what she means, and yet all Denny can see is: “She wants me.” Granted, that’s Denny’s usual code for “I want her,” but that still doesn’t tell me why Shirley hasn’t shot him in the gonads with one of his paintball guns yet.
Also, see what I did there? Alan treats every woman as available, uses sexual advances as a way of gaining power over women, but, hey, at least he’s not Denny Crane. What’s worse is that Alan sleeps with almost every woman on the show except Shirley Schmidt. One of his constant pick-up lines/unwanted advances is “Secretly, you want me.” And what makes this an issue with the show rather than a sample of Alan’s characteristic sleaziness? They do. Even Shirley. If the issue with that is not obvious, let me put it another way: I find this a case of blatant Marty Stuishness that enables in a lot of other sleazy guys their favourite fantasy: women find creepiness hot! And in case it’s still not obvious, let me lay it all out for you: no they fucking don’t.

Fat Phobia/Shaming
Denny calls Lori Colson (Monica Potter) “chubby” (she’s nowhere near), later says he likes “chubby sex”, and a fat judge is paraded as grotesque and lazy on the “fired for being fat” case. Admittedly the relationship with weight on the show is ambiguous. In one case, Alan accuses the makers of fatty, sugary treats of selling harmful, addictive substances that endanger a person’s life; on another he calls for organized fat shaming in order to reduce the number of obese people. On a third, a girl is sued for having a pro-anorexia website. Denny’s comment to the girl? “You’re too skinny. Eat.” One obvious fact of the show is that there are no overweight female regulars on the show; in fact some, like Lorraine Weller (Saffron Burrows) are downright skeletal, but no comment on that is made. There is a profound irony in Denny, a fat man, allegedly firing a woman for being fat, but it kind of fits with the make-up of the show: women are there to be thin and hot (to who?), men to be interesting.

Dear me, it sounds like I hate the show now, doesn’t it? And yet, I somehow manage to overlook (though not ignore) all of the above.

One flavour of intolerance the show does not seem to engage in is homophobia. There are no regular gay characters on the show. There are visiting lesbians and one gay male antagonist, but aside from objectifying the lesbians (which I think is more of a sexism issue), being gay is assumed to be okay, and media homophobia is attacked by Alan in court. Denny declares himself homophobic early on, but for once no-one then jumps up with a milder anti-gay sentiment. Plenty of humour (especially varieties #3 and #4 on Humon’s gay joke type break-down) is wrung out of perceived male homosexuality which is also presented as not really real, such as Alan’s sexual teasing of the straight-laced Brad (Mark Valley) in the first season and later the exponentially increasing intimacy between Denny and Alan, who even refer to themselves as married to each other – they love each other, talk about loving each other, hold hands, sleep in the same bed sometimes, and pretty much have an epic love story with just that one tiny final squibble of not having sex together. Well, I guess they wouldn’t want to lose the ratings.

I said once above that my love of Alan Shore is reflected in my relationship with Boston Legal. I love Alan Shore because he seems cold, numb even at times, apparently heartless, and then he turns around and crusades against “windmills”, as Shirley Schmidt puts it: getting fired up for the rights of the abused, the disenfranchised, the weird, battling ideologies as much as the cases. He cares a hell of a lot, which is why he puts on that sleazy demeanour, deadens his feelings and backs down from now one. A villain on the surface, Alan Shore is a man of passion, pain and compassion, fragile and hard and bending in turns, and he does not judge, whatever your kink or dysfunction. It seems to me he makes a distinction between sin and evil, believing in the latter, but not the former. He’s the product of an unhappy childhood spent with cold parents and cruel schoolmates, who fought his way into his own power through his intellect and force of personality. The fact that he finds unquestioning companionship and love with Denny, only with the threat of Denny’s deterioration hanging above them… I want to hug him. Even if it’d just make him skeeze.

And Boston Legal? The lawyers of Crane, Poole & Schmidt bond with and care for each other, help each other, take on crazy cases, tolerate and even celebrate each other’s oddities, push the envelope, address pretty much every issue that’s been in American newspapers during its run, and do it all with a big wallop of humanity, never forgetting to celebrate human kindness. Boston Legal? After five seasons of screaming and laughing with it, I want to give it a big hug. Even if it’d just make it skeeze.