Tuesday, December 09, 2008

LEVERAGE: The Homecoming Job - 12/9 - 10pm

Yes, it wasn't a bad Monday, particularly the 18-49 numbers. Although now, of course, you have to wait for the live +3 numbers, which don't come in for a week. All our metrics now are ... tricksy. It's worth noting that when I started in this industry, pre-ad-supported cable, anything under a 15-share was instant death.

Anyway, tonight's the regular time-slot, so if you dug the premiere watch us new at 10pm tonight. It was intended as a "soft relaunch" to establish the regular location of the show -- Los Angeles -- the crew's cover story/offices, etc. Tonight also has a spiffy Apollo-Robbins choreographed three-person pickpocket done all in one continuous shot.

Alert viewers will be able to trace most of the writing inspirations from current news events. All the veterans in the hospital scene are actual vets, btw, including our guest star Jake McLaughlin, who was stop-lossed for his fourth year in Iraq. Jake's a ridiculously good actor with a great, quiet presence, and I look forward to being able to brag I hired him early in what will be a very fine career.

Most fun during the shoot? Robert Pine plays one of our villains. That meant CHiPs stories. Wild, wild CHiPS stories. Peyote and a naked Erik Estrada wrestling a bear ...

I'm talking to TNT later about maybe releasing scripts, for the Spec Monkeys and educational purposes. Also, Downey and I shot some two-minute "From the Writer's Room" bumps that ought to be up soon. We're not as interesting as the actors, but we ... squint more. No, seriously, I can't imagine why you'd watch them, but apparently people do.

P.S.: There's also an online game, with a $100,000 grand prize. That money was supposed to pay for my swank office, so I'd like to see one of my readers win it to at least partially justify why I ate lunch in my car for four months. Go get 'em.

81 comments:

R.A. Porter said...

I think I like this episode even better than the premiere. I have a question which I'll try to ask without spoilers: did you all get a chance to drive it?

Unknown said...

No, but we got a chance to ride in it. The one in the ep is the prototype. Dean actually has #19 off the assembly line.

R.A. Porter said...

Very cool.

I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions, even the goofy Supes vs. Hulk one. I must say, Dean's answer to that is one I've never gotten from anyone else before.

Unknown said...

I have to say that, as much as I like the show, I like the effect the show's casting has on the new WaMu commercials even more. (Aldis Hodge is in both, for those who don't know.)

Anonymous said...

It's a great show - and what's even better is that we could follow its making for a long time now.

Scripts would be awesome indeed! Read the pilot which was almost as much fun as the actual show. So - keep going!

Anonymous said...

The premiere was great. It was a bit more camp than I expected at the start, but that levity made the group banter much more enjoyable. I've passed the word around to coworkers and friends.

Jay said...

Premiere was fantastic. My wife said, and I quote, "I loved it! And it was so much better than Fringe."

One woman's opinion, but she's a tough critic.

Let me know if you need hobbit guest stars! ;-)

Steve Peterson said...

Many congrats! This series feels like a success.

Re: Live+3

I've noticed that the only thing I watch live after getting a DVR is CNN. Even if I'm watching at almost the same time as the show being recorded, I'll go to the recording so I can pause.

Side request -- could you do a post or two on writing heist stories? Ideas on structure or what you think about when putting them together?

Unknown said...

Congratulations Rogers. You all did a great job. You all had a great Sunday night judging from the numbers on both Leverage and The Lirbarian.

So now I have to find a way to make sure I catch eps during production.

Unknown said...

And that should read The Librarian. Obviously as only being a spec monkey I cannot spell.

Unknown said...

Really enjoyed the premiere ep, lot of fun. Looking forward to tonight's episode.

Great job, I'll be sure to tell all my friends to watch.

Lee said...

Do you get 'credit' if we watch it after the fact via Tivo?

Unknown said...

yes if its within three days.

Anonymous said...

Happy to hear the home of the show is going to be LA, as I just moved here last month. And this non-spoilery thing about a prototype car makes it even more interesting :-)

OK, THIS IS WEIRD---------> the word verification for me today is "singe", which means Monkey in French. Was that on purpose or is it the biggest coincidence of our lives?

Geoff Thorne said...

::little squeaky voice::

The numbers, they are good?

wcdixon said...

Well done Mr. Rogers (re: getting that first one out the door and on the air)...hopefully soon some net here in Canuckia picks up the series so we can all enjoy 'Leverage' as well.

And I am hearing things...but nothing firm.

Anonymous said...

I really liked the pilot. I liked how the each side that works against each other is shown to be progressively smarter than we thought they were. I liked the banter and the light atmosphere of the introductions of the characters.

One thought. Even though the atmosphere of the show is blessedly missing the dark, brooding cynicism that might have dominated a show about criminals, it seemed all of Ford’s recruits turned around to the whole Robin Hood paradigm awfully fast. It seemed a little jarring. This is not a complaint. I’m half expecting to find out within the course of the season that at least one of our merry band of outlaws joined up hoping to get another bite at that “shattering amounts of money” apple…or perhaps they have a convoluted scheme. Only time will tell.

Anonymous said...

Script releases would be wonderful. I can't get closed captions - for various reasons I won't go into here - and so sometimes I have to rewatch scenes multiple times to get the gist (I'm hard of hearing). Having the scripts to fall back at some point would be fantastic.

John said...

I'll have to watch 01x02 tomorrow night - I have a painfully early conference call tomorrow morning - but in re: the pilot, let me just tell you, Rogers:

The line about "rules for dealing with foreign nationals" had me absolutely howling with laughter. As someone who works at an aerospace company (thankfully not the one pilloried in the pilot) the rules for even being in the same ROOM as foreign nationals are obscene in their complexity.

As verisimilitude goes it's a small thing, but I thought it was a nice touch you guys made sure to even get the lingo right.

Rock on Leverage. Looking forward to tonight's ep (when I get home from work tomorrow).

Unknown said...

As verisimilitude goes it's a small thing, but I thought it was a nice touch you guys made sure to even get the lingo right.

One of the benefits of having friends with security clearances.

It'll be interesting to see how many things we do in the show that people will assume we're just making up, when I'd say 99% of even the most preposterous-seeming details are true.

Mike Cane said...

Did you check your 21st Century ratings? Pirate Bay seeders? You've got great numbers there -- and many formats are covered too!

Of course, I looked For Research Purposes Only.

As I did, ahem, months ago.

Unknown said...

You ate lunch in your car, Rogers, to escape the rest of the writing staff for at least one. blessed. hour.

And you know it.

Anonymous said...

Couldn't wait for the stream and decided to go to Amazon Unboxed. (Alternate Revenue streams, indeed.) And enjoyed the hell out of it. Dug the plotting. Dug the way you layered in Hutton's backstory without rupturing the light hearted tone. Really dug Joe Deluca's 70's tinged score.
REALLY dug Parker! Seriously, I hope Ms. Riesgraf is ready for the onslaught of geek love heading her way.
And finally, a suave, mack daddy african-american geek to wash the taste of Urkel from our mouths.
All in all, a fun looking show. Looking forward to seeing the rest.

Anonymous said...

John Rogers, you are on my television telling that pretty lady that she should take a phone call.

Incidentally, you are destroying my productivity. I have a stack of quizzes to grade and your show is thoroughly distracting me.

I blame you for the downfall of our educational system.

Unknown said...

Everything was aces until some guy with a beard came on. Kept waiting for him to take a swig of some scotch he had hidden under his desk.

Nice one. Very nice.

And the Tesla is very nice. Try working on Benjamin Button though and all those classic cars. But FD4 made up for everything.

Unknown said...

It's all good, John, even your little cameo, but damn if the voice sampling wasn't awesome, too.

I'm pulling for you, the cast, and the crew, as this shows got some solid promise. Damn enjoyable, even gives me some nice character ideas for games. ;)

Anonymous said...

Who's sitting next to you in that scene? Is that filthy assistant?

Unknown said...

On a side note: Not only would I love to have driven in it, but I wish to all that is holy, even some of which that is not so holy, that I could afford one of those.

I am sure Dean knows exactly how jealous many people are of him...that's a sweet ride.

Greg M said...

John: Premiere was FULL OF WIN. I convinced my roommate to watch, and I think he's hooked. Have newest ep on the DVR, but haven't seen it yet.

Corby Kennard said...

Great second episode. Timely and important without being preachy. Nicely done.

Anonymous said...

The Premiere was awesome! I love seeing Chicago used as a set piece. There's many a time that I have walked past the real 'Bering' corporate HQ, as well as through that very spot in the park. It made the con so much more real for me.

Sadly, I missed the 10/9 central timeslot last night. How do I get my viewership counted without a DVR? I didn't see anything on TNT's site, and would rather not pirate if there's a legitimate way.

Ian said...

Is this on Canadian TV at all? I looked for it last week to record it, but couldn't find it anywhere.

Anonymous said...

I have been looking forward to Leverage since I started reading all of the production posts. I was not disappointed, the first two episodes were fantastic.

Anonymous said...

When is he gonna say "I love it when a plan comes together"?

Unknown said...

As an ex-Alaskan, I thoroughly enjoyed the dig at fmr. Sen. Stevens. Also, as a security geek, the RFID cloning was a nice touch.

Unfortunately, I don't think that continuous pickpocket shot ended up quite as continuous as you suggest. Would've been nice.

Possibly the worst thing about this blog is that I can't watch TV anymore without thinking about shots and cuts and act breaks and.... I've caught myself multiple times, after some obvious setup line, thinking "Aaand smash cut to...."

Bump from a comment on an older post: Can you confirm or deny that the staggeringly large checks at the end of 1x01 said "Credit Dauphine" on them?

Anonymous said...

So John- Nate is an awful lot like George, Eliot an awful lot like Lloyd and Parker an awful lot like Pam. Who's Sophie?

Loving the show - it reeks of you.

Judy (from the old Physics days - check facebook)

Chris said...

I was laughing like a loon during most of it, but one line had me pause the show so I didn't miss a thing:

Hockey!

Oh yes.

I'm so glad to see a good caper show on TV and I can't wait to see next week's show.

depressoboy said...

So what I'm getting from this is that for my Tivo numbers to count, I need to watch any given episode within 72 hours of recording it. I shall make the attempt to do so.

It's an excellent show. I'd hate to not do my part to keep it on the air.

Kevin said...

So we're watching episode 2 last night and we get to the end of Sophie's audition. And Peggy says "I killed WHO?"

Wonderful. Although we owe you a short, sharp kick in the shins after freeze-framing on the 10 digit combo from the pilot. She was singing the song all night. Your birthday at the end?

A curiosity, being careful with spoilers - we were questioning the legitimacy of the scam which got the congressman you-know-where at the end of the show. Who would go to that location to pick up what he wanted, instead of having it delivered? I'd be interested in your commentary.

- PCat

R.A. Porter said...

@Kevin, no. Please tell me I didn't miss the joke with the 10-digit code. I'm nowhere near a copy of the episode right now, but did it start "8675309"? Is that that what you're implying?

If so, damn me for being so focused on seeing if it was WOPR's launch codes that I missed a beautiful joke.

Kevin said...

It did indeed, R.A., followed up by (iirc) 768. I wouldn't be surprised if that's John's birthday. I hadn't expected it, and we couldn't help but laugh.

Gah! I'm singing it again!

Anonymous said...

I did kill my first husband, it's true. That's why Kev is so very, very nice to me. He knows what's good for him.

And the last three digits end up being 764. It flips just before the frame moves.

Why yes, I am a geek.

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