Wednesday night, Mr. I Screen and I were nestled on the couch watching TNT's lightweight but thoroughly enjoyable caper show "Leverage," when something dawned on me. I can't believe I didn't see it before, but the character construction (and often the plot construction) of "Leverage" is amazingly similar to that of the 80's classic "The A-Team."
Think about it. "Leverage's" Nathan Ford is the smart, shape-shifting ringleader of a motley crew of renegades, much like one John "Hannibal" Smith. Like Hannibal, he enjoys planning, costumes and abusing substances (in Ford's case, it's alcohol he enjoys abusing, not cigars. Though, he Hannibal ever actually SMOKE those cigars, or did he just chew on them? Oh well -- I digress).
Then you have Eliot, clearly the BA of the group. He glowers, beats people up and has a questionable hairdo. Unlike BA, Eliot doesn't seem to have a real weakness (last season he boarded an airplane without the aid of clandestinely administered pharmaceuticals), but he does have a soft-spot for underdogs. Very BA-like.
Parker, obviously, is Murdock, as she is Howlin' Mad. And, though she doesn't fly planes, choppers and the like, she does sail from building tops with the aid of grappling hooks and wires, so it's sort of the same skill set.
Sophie is Templeton "Face" Peck, as she's sort of the looks and charm of this outfit. Though she does slightly resemble Hannibal in her love of show business.
I'm not quite sure where Hardison fits into all this, because "The A-Team" didn't have a hacker. The closest thing they had was Amy, the journalist who occasionally joined them on missions. In the 80's, I guess, bands of rag-tag renegades didn't NEED a hacker in their midst. In today's world, it's a requirement (see Flinkman, Marshall on "Alias").
When I sorted all this out, two things immediately became clear to me.
1) I had just spent far too my time analyzing "Leverage," a show I enjoy mainly because it DOESN'T require a lot of analysis.
2) I know WAY too much about "The A-Team." Way, way, too much.
