The team takes down a fake psychic and deliver another solid episode
Grade: B
By MARY BRYAN (Source)

The LEVERAGE team unravels a scam most of us have heard of – fake psychics – in this week’s episode “The Future Job.” Dalton Rand is a faux psychic with a local television show with his eye on the prize of a network deal, using his abilities as a con man to cheat his way to fame. When a concerned brother of one of Rand’s customers tells Nate (Timothy Hutton) about what’s been going on, the Leverage team devises a plan to bring this man down.

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TV Review: LEVERAGE – SEASON TWO – ‘The Zanzibar Marketplace Job’

By Mary Bryan (Source)

An old enemy is back seeking help from the team in yet another amazing episode Grade: A-

HDTV caps from Leverage 2.10 The Runway Job are up!

First, apologies for forgetting the turn of the maintenance mode once I was done!

Here’s a review of Leverage 2.10 The Runway Job. Caps and clips are coming, but I want to see first if I can get a better version of the episode to work on.

Leverage: “The Runway Job” Review

Team Leverage returns to create Pilgrim Sheik.

by Matt Fowler (Source)

January 14, 2010 – With Gina Bellman’s Sophie jaunting around the globe, avoiding Nate’s (Timothy Hutton) frustrating pride, set on finding herself, Team Leverage was short a grifter. I suppose I can buy that fact that Sophie needed to take a cold hard look at her life after having to fake her own death in the excellent episode “The Two Live Crew Job” from last summer, but having her globe-trot seems a bit unnecessary. Especially since she still keeps in regular contact with the gang via video conference. I do like seeing Sophie appear in Paris however, complete with red beret and Eiffel Tower in the background. Likewise, whenever Sophie shows up via satellite from a foreign land she’s hilariously wearing the stereotypical cultural garb with some ridiculous landmark in the background. It’s good fun.

But I think that I’d rather see Sophie take a full leave of absence from the show (while actress Gina Bellman takes care of her pregnant self) altogether. That way, when she returns to the fold, it will truly feel like a return. If she keeps in touch with the gang on a regular basis then it won’t ever feel like she left. It will hurt her return and it will hurt Jeri Ryan’s assimilation into the group. Ryan’s Tara is a good addition to the team and I know we’re not really supposed to believe that she’s a permanent replacement, but I think it would work a lot better if we actually thought she was.

“The Runway Job” spends a lot of time dealing with Tara and Nate butting heads and trying to figure out a way to blend her into the team. She’s a strong personality, who expects to be paid for her work and doesn’t appreciate taking a back seat to Nate. That’s an interesting dynamic to explore – and it’s also a tried and true TV cliché. Now, normally the new person in the gang would signal the dying embers of a series – the fresh new, sassy character that’s supposed to breathe life back into the series that’s run its course. But this is only Leverage’s second season, and since I know that Bellman will be back eventually, I don’t exactly find it all that worthwhile to spend this much time acclimating the “temp” into the group when she’s just going to leave.

I’m not saying that the show can’t and won’t find a way to make this situation more interesting. A few twists and turns and things could get overtly dangerous, but that’s not how we’re meant to feel after “The Runway Job.” We get a very “this could be the start of a beautiful friendship” vibe at the end that doesn’t really work to spice up the proceedings much. I would have much rather been left feeling like Tara was still a dangerous puzzle piece. She still could be turn out to be something more refreshing (villain, lover, etc) but as of right now she’s a bit underwhelming.

The rest of the episode was fine; nothing spectacular, but still filled with the little kibbles and bits that makes Leverage an enjoyable show. As the team works to swindle a heartless sweatshop owner with secret aspirations of being a high end fashion mogul (Grace Hsu playing a hack designer obsessed with large black Pilgrim buckles) and her ruthless husband (Tom Choi) they all get caught up in various silly fashion show hi-jinx. Hardison (Aldis Hodge) makes fun of Elliot’s (Christian Kane) guy-liner, Parker (Beth Riesgraf) winds up taking an impromptu, and disastrous, catwalk trek, and Nate got to add a new ridiculous character to his assortment of comically bad disguises – the nebulous, effete Euro-dreg. As “heightened” as some of the cons can be on Leverage, I always find Nate’s characters to be the most glaringly clown-ish.

As “let’s steal us a (fill in the blank)” antic-filled episodes go, “The Runway Job” was pretty good. I just wish that the show would take a more definitive stance when it comes to the characters of Sophie and Tara. They’re both half-in/half-out of the gang and makes it hard for us to invest and engage in their stories.

“Leverage” (Wednesday 13 2009, 9 p.m. on TNT): In order to take down an oppressive sweatshop owner, the Leverage team infiltrates the fashion world. Jeri Ryan (“Star Trek: Voyager”) guest stars.

By Will Harris (Source)

Interview Date: 12/16/2009-

Run Date: 01/11/2010

Jeri Ryan’s most iconic role – Seven of Nine, the human-turned-Borg on “Star Trek: Voyager” – is many years gone now, but even without her former character’s ubiquitous corset, she’s still looking damned gorgeous, as you’ll be able to see when she joins the cast of TNT’s “Leverage” on January 13th. As Tara, Ryan is filling a temporary void on the series – Gina Bellman’s pregnancy necessitated that Sophie be written out of the show for awhile – but you’ll be quite impressed with the way she deftly steps into the shoes of a profession conman…or conwoman, whatever. Bullz-Eye chatted with Ryan about her experience working on “Leverage,” and we also asked about her time spent as a former member of the Borg collective, found out what it was like teaming up with James Woods on “Shark,” and got her feelings about the experiences of working on “Dracula 2000,” “The O.C.,” “Dark Skies,” and “Boston Public.”

… read more »

According to tvbythenumbers.com, Jeri will guest-star on Psych:

PSYCH broke all records as the #1 original series premiere in 2006 and has since become a cult favorite starring James Roday as young police consultant Shawn Spencer who solves crimes with powers of observation so acute the precinct detectives think he’s psychic.  Dulé Hill stars as Shawn’s best friend and reluctant sidekick, Gus and Corbin Bernsen as Shawn’s father, Henry.  Timothy Omundson, Maggie Lawson and Kirsten Nelson also star. PSYCH returns with seven new episodes on a new night beginning Wednesday, January 27 at 10/9c.  Shawn and Gus will find themselves in precarious yet funny situations when they tackle investigations involving the Army, the CDC and rafting on white water rapids.  Shawn stars in his own Hitchcock episode as he is targeted by a killer using classic scenarios from the master of suspense in “Mr. Yin Presents,” co-written and directed by Roday.  Guest stars include WWE superstar John Cena, Stacey Kiebler, Sarah Shahi, Craig Sheffer, Jeri Ryan, Michael Hogan, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy returns as the Yin Yang Killer.  PSYCH is one of the seven original series that made USA #1 in basic-cable for four years in a row.

SpoilerTV posted stills from upcoming episodes of Leverage; I added the ones with Jeri to the gallery!

Voyager’s Jeri Ryan Returns to Leverage

by Cynthia

This January, Leverage returns with six new episodes starting where they left off with the introduction of Jeri Ryan’s character Tara. The actress who is best known for her role as Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager is filling in for Gina Bellman who left the show to have a baby. On screen, Tara is filling the grifter shoes of Sophie who has gone off to Europe in order to sort out her feelings for Nate.

In honor of the show’s return, Jeri Ryan sat down with reporters to talk about being the new kid on the block, her love of TV and the most adventurous thing she’s ever done. Listen in.

What was it like stepping into Leverage mid-way through the series?

Jeri: I grew up as an Army brat, we always moved around, I was always the new kid. So this is kind of old hat for me. I joke that I’m the designated pinch hitter for TV series because Shark is the only show that I’ve ever been with from the very beginning, from the pilot. My first series was Dark Sky that was added in the middle of that season. Boston Public I was added Season 2, Star Trek Season 4. So this was, you know, it’s nothing new for me to walk in, in the middle of a thing.

How did the cast respond to having a new member of the team?

Jeri: They’re so warm and funny and just a bunch of goof balls. And so it’s amazing that we actually got anything accomplished ever because all we did was sit around and laugh at each other. You know, this is a group that’s very tightly knit and they’ve been together for a year and a half at that point already. And, you know, obviously you can’t replace a character. You can’t – and we weren’t looking to. This was, you know, a temporary substitute while she was going on maternity leave.

You’ve worked on a lot of TV shows. Do you prefer doing TV over movies?

Jeri: I’ve done a couple of features and I’ve got to say it was tough. The pace is kind of mind numbing because in TV I’m used to doing – especially back in the day when I was on Star Trek those were seven and eight page days – script pages. That’s a lot. A feature film is about two pages a day. So you’re basically working on one scene all day long whether that’s a 14 hour day or a 16 hour day. It’s one scene.

And so I remember asking Renee Zellweger when we were shooting Down With Love and we were, you know, sitting around between takes one day and I said how do you do this if you’ve got a big emotional scene? And she said you just have to sit in it. You just live in it all day. You’re in your trailer by yourself and you just have to stay in that space. And I was like okay, yeah. I like the pace of TV. It’s a lot more comfortable for me. And I know that’s hard for feature people who are so used to doing features.

When they come into television they can’t stand it because they feel like it’s too fast and you don’t have enough time to whatever – enough different takes and enough time to explore things. But that’s the pace that I’m used to and I’m more comfortable with it.

Your character is pretty adventurous. What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?

Jeri: Oh, I’ve got to admit she’s a lot more adventurous than I am. The most adventurous thing I’ve ever done – I guess it’s not that adventurous by most people’s standards but I’ve cooked in a restaurant kitchen during service behind the line during dinner. And that was the single biggest adrenaline rush I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. It was amazing. In every way terrifying, absolutely terrifying and so exciting and exhausting and muscles hurt that you didn’t know you had. By the time you finished service and it’s, you know, four or five hours of straight intense, hard, fast work you are – I was bouncing off the walls. I mean it was midnight, 12:30 and I was literally I was so excited I couldn’t even sit down. It was really fun.

So I presume that you enjoy cooking?

Jeri: I love it. But cooking at home and cooking in a restaurant are two entirely different beasts. I mean, the stress level – it’s really intense in a restaurant kitchen because it’s speed. Everything has to be done, done, done, done, done really fast. And of course it has to be perfect because it’s going out to the public. But it was so exciting. It was so much fun. So I actually did that every Sunday just for fun while I was working on Boston Public. That’s how I met my husband in fact. Yeah. I did that for a year. I cooked every Sunday in a restaurant kitchen just for fun. So that’s about as adventurous as I get.

Any chance we’ll ever see you go back to doing Sci-Fi again?

Jeri: Yeah. I think there’s a chance you’ll see me do Sci-Fi. (Sounds like there was a wink in that last answer.)

Catch Jeri Ryan, Christian Kane, Aldis Hodge, Tim Hutton, Beth Riesgraf on Leverage. The second half of the season begins on Wednesday, January 13 at 10:00 on TNT.

Photos: TNT /Darren Michaels

(Source)

Leverage will return on January 13, 2010. You can see a trailer with Jeri at http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=370450860191&ref=nf