Hitter, Grifter, Hacker, Cancelled
Jan. 1st, 2013 06:43 pmHave you watched Leverage? You should. Or should have; it was cancelled (or at least officially ended) on Christmas Day (those bastards). So closed five seasons of one of the best con/heist shows on tv. Basically Robin Hooding as done by a smaller cast of Ocean's Eleven.
Tv shows come and go all the time, and they at least operated under the assumed fact that they would never get another season at almost every finale (this was altered if they knew before writing the last script of the season that they were continued).
This pisses me off, not just because it was my favorite show currently airing, but because it kinda killed a little of my want to go back to Portland. Not that I don't want to still, but Leverage being filmed there was a big push. Because, like a lot of writers, I too wished to sell a script for my favorite project.
Egotistical yes, but one I still kinda fume over. I had good ideas damn it, why didn't it wait for me?! Okay, that was much, but still.
So, being as they'd go to waste anyway, here were my ideas:
1) The P.O.V. Job
"The -blank- Job" was a title tik of the show. Bascially in every show, it was a five-act breakdown; intro and info on the con, beginning grift, hook and push of the mark, things go wrong, and the wrap up. Basic, but it was it was done that kept it from being boring.
My "great" idea, at least for this episode pitch, was screw all that to hell. While the fun of the show was seeing how these thieves con deserving people out of money/objects/companies they don't deserve, making it very much about the journey than the destination, I wanted to see things from the view of the person they were scamming. Hence the POV; the show, at least until the fifth act, would follow closely things from the mark's point of view. The five main cast would appear only in-character as whoever they were pretending to be.
High concept for a show that had a fairly well grooved formula, but something they may have needed; shake things up to keep the audience invested. Several things would need to be handled, by those fair more talented for the medium than I; making a con that put all five MCs to use, seeing as two were very much behind the scenes kinda of skill sets, and making sure they were used to a full extent. But that's what I kinda wanted, see these people as they make themselves; for a whole episode they appear only as these people they aren't, talking and acting as helpful, and then suddenly you're arrested and looking across the street at who you thought were on your side, only to see them silently gloating at your doom.
The basic con would have been a corrupt mega-church pastor, using the faith of his flock to scam them out of their savings/morgages/anything they could liquidate. Neil Patrick Harris was my first choice as the mark, that fun mix of smarmy, cartoony, and still threatening when serious. Zooey Deschaniel if the character needed to be female, or as a possible sister.
2) The Big Five-Part Finale: The Hitter Job, The Grifter Job, The Hacker Job, The Thief Job, The Mastermind Job
I wasn't stupid enough to believe the show would go forever. It had a finite shelf life before it would have to end; I just didn't think it was only five season. Now I'm sad again.
Anywho; my plan was to make sure, should the man from the mountain finally say it was, that the show ended as big as it could. Final. Epic. Grandious. And by that, give each character an episode to shine to the best of their abilities. Go by the show's tag line ("hitter, grifter, hacker, thief", the breakdown of the jobs of four of the cast; "mastermind" or "brains" was never part of the catchy quip), and work until it ended at "mastermind" the big conclusion that brought them all together, as they did in the pilot.
How? The hell if I knew, I'm big picture here, not details. It wasn't like I was counting on throwing out this idea to get me hired, I was gonna work "POV" up there for that. This was gonna be my addition to a writer's room pitch, work the seed for later when the inevidible happened. It Leverage was going to end, by god I was gonna have it go out as loud as it could!
...and then it ended. I knew a few days before the finale - I can actually say I know a guy and not have it be stretch - but luckily the press release had already gone out so he shouldn't be in any trouble. Also, thinking about it, they'd have known before that, so I was actually late to the game. Huh.
"The Long Goodbye Job" was the final episode, concluding both the season arc of secret-hush hush teasing and the five season "will they/won't they" romance of two of the main characters. I take that back; they very much "will", it was just taken to the next step. And there was the final seconds punt, throwing out a hail-mary pass to get a spin-off series; I'm told it didn't take. Sad.
Tv shows come and go all the time, and they at least operated under the assumed fact that they would never get another season at almost every finale (this was altered if they knew before writing the last script of the season that they were continued).
This pisses me off, not just because it was my favorite show currently airing, but because it kinda killed a little of my want to go back to Portland. Not that I don't want to still, but Leverage being filmed there was a big push. Because, like a lot of writers, I too wished to sell a script for my favorite project.
Egotistical yes, but one I still kinda fume over. I had good ideas damn it, why didn't it wait for me?! Okay, that was much, but still.
So, being as they'd go to waste anyway, here were my ideas:
1) The P.O.V. Job
"The -blank- Job" was a title tik of the show. Bascially in every show, it was a five-act breakdown; intro and info on the con, beginning grift, hook and push of the mark, things go wrong, and the wrap up. Basic, but it was it was done that kept it from being boring.
My "great" idea, at least for this episode pitch, was screw all that to hell. While the fun of the show was seeing how these thieves con deserving people out of money/objects/companies they don't deserve, making it very much about the journey than the destination, I wanted to see things from the view of the person they were scamming. Hence the POV; the show, at least until the fifth act, would follow closely things from the mark's point of view. The five main cast would appear only in-character as whoever they were pretending to be.
High concept for a show that had a fairly well grooved formula, but something they may have needed; shake things up to keep the audience invested. Several things would need to be handled, by those fair more talented for the medium than I; making a con that put all five MCs to use, seeing as two were very much behind the scenes kinda of skill sets, and making sure they were used to a full extent. But that's what I kinda wanted, see these people as they make themselves; for a whole episode they appear only as these people they aren't, talking and acting as helpful, and then suddenly you're arrested and looking across the street at who you thought were on your side, only to see them silently gloating at your doom.
The basic con would have been a corrupt mega-church pastor, using the faith of his flock to scam them out of their savings/morgages/anything they could liquidate. Neil Patrick Harris was my first choice as the mark, that fun mix of smarmy, cartoony, and still threatening when serious. Zooey Deschaniel if the character needed to be female, or as a possible sister.
2) The Big Five-Part Finale: The Hitter Job, The Grifter Job, The Hacker Job, The Thief Job, The Mastermind Job
I wasn't stupid enough to believe the show would go forever. It had a finite shelf life before it would have to end; I just didn't think it was only five season. Now I'm sad again.
Anywho; my plan was to make sure, should the man from the mountain finally say it was, that the show ended as big as it could. Final. Epic. Grandious. And by that, give each character an episode to shine to the best of their abilities. Go by the show's tag line ("hitter, grifter, hacker, thief", the breakdown of the jobs of four of the cast; "mastermind" or "brains" was never part of the catchy quip), and work until it ended at "mastermind" the big conclusion that brought them all together, as they did in the pilot.
How? The hell if I knew, I'm big picture here, not details. It wasn't like I was counting on throwing out this idea to get me hired, I was gonna work "POV" up there for that. This was gonna be my addition to a writer's room pitch, work the seed for later when the inevidible happened. It Leverage was going to end, by god I was gonna have it go out as loud as it could!
...and then it ended. I knew a few days before the finale - I can actually say I know a guy and not have it be stretch - but luckily the press release had already gone out so he shouldn't be in any trouble. Also, thinking about it, they'd have known before that, so I was actually late to the game. Huh.
"The Long Goodbye Job" was the final episode, concluding both the season arc of secret-hush hush teasing and the five season "will they/won't they" romance of two of the main characters. I take that back; they very much "will", it was just taken to the next step. And there was the final seconds punt, throwing out a hail-mary pass to get a spin-off series; I'm told it didn't take. Sad.