Sadly this is progress right now

I like the show Leverage. In part because I like "team" shows, like The A-Team. Where each person fills a different role, and their personalities clash.

Also because I find it oddly progressive.

It's about an ex-insurance investigator who's hired to do a job, along with 4 other people who are all thieves. They make so much money on this first job that they decide to keep doing jobs together, but they can do Nice Things for Nice People cause they don't need the money.

So the "brains" is just ordinary white dude hero typical tv guy. Kinda dull.

Cat burglar on the left, grifter on the right.

But the grifter is a woman, she's English, she's beautiful but isn't sex-on-wheels-eye-candy, and she though she has a history with Brains guy, she doesn't just exist as a romantic foil. She's necessary to their operations (she does a lot of the conning) and she's funny. (She's trying to have an acting career outside of grifting, and she's terrible.)

Shockingly sensible burgling clothes!

The other woman is a cute blonde, but she's the sociopath. (Blew up her father's house when he wouldn't return her stuffed animal as a child.) She's the cat burglar, and though she's always wearing tight black clothes for rappelling and such, once again--not a sex object. Plus she scares everyone.

Psych

I'll also note that though the show isn't as funny as my fave, Psych, they one-up it in the female character department. Psych has a female detective, and a female chief of police, and they're competent; but they play the Straight Man character. Whereas the male detective, our hero, his sidekick are all Characters. Even the generic cop underling has a more distinct personality. In Leverage, however, the two women have just as distinct and funny characters as the men, from the pilot on.

The tough guy is a white dude with Fabio hair, and he's on the short side. At least for a tv dude. Now... this is the funny/smart bit... they found a better way to do the A-Team thing, where there's all this violence but no one dies. Our tough guy hates guns. He beats everyone up by hand, and always removes the cartridges from the guns after.

Finally there's The Black Guy. I'm often disappointed by this role. For example in New Girl's first episode the character was a coach, and he shouted all the time--he was funny, he wasn't a cliché. By the next episode they'd changed him out for a cool basketball player. Le. Sigh. But the character on Leverage hasn't disappointed me. Though he talks street, he's explicitly not from "the hood." He's not comfortable fighting and shooting, and he isn't uneducated--he's the computer whiz. And as he keeps pointing out to the others, this is the age of information, so his role is key.

Gus in Psych

Similar to Psych, where the black friend sidekick is very funny, and not a cliché either. You can't pigeonhole him as The Cool Black Dude, or the Angry Black Man or whatever. He's a rounded character.

It's sad that this all comes out to "progressive" television, cause it's pretty bland. It really should be the norm by now.

"Did you just kill a guy with an appetizer?"


"At least Eliot gave me a hug."


"You fell for that."