the bottle job

(S02E11) Leverage has the thankless task of walking one of the most difficult tightropes in television writing.

How do you keep an audience interested in a show that they already know how it will end? The good guys always win and have so far for TNT's favorite scheming do-gooders.

The show runners must have a whole bag of plot tricks and devices they use to keep the show interesting and last night's was one of the most interesting diversions to keep our minds off the fact that good is about to triumph evil.

My TV has been waiting for a show like Leverage. It's also been waiting for a new TV stand and a more slender, attractive person to look back at, but it's not getting either until it drops the attitude.

It's one of those few shows that blends together the things that make other TV shows so great. It's got the action packed, tense drama of an episode of 24, the wry and sharp wit of Frasier and the complex and twisted plot logic of any episode of Lost.

The only difference is unlike 24, the action doesn't overtake the front seat from the drama at gun point. Unlike Frasier, it doesn't find comedy by talking so far over the average audience's head that frost has to form on their forehead in order for them to appreciate it. And unlike Lost, your head doesn't explode by the end of every episode.