(Um, it’s the series finale. See the note added to the end of this post.)
We at TVWriter™ started out as big LEVERAGE fans. It was fast, it was fun, and the cast totally captivated us. Over the show’s 5 seasons, however, the pace has slowed, the fun has become verbal instead of visual, and the actors have seemed bored with the stories and themselves.
This season the show has been at a real nadir. Dumb meaningless goody-two-shoes storylines told with huge gaps in plot logic have prevailed. So much so that almost every episode has smelled suspiciously like a bottle show. In other words: Either somebody yanked a ton of bucks away from the budget, or the actors are being paid so much that the show can’t afford to have them, well, do anything.
Last week’s semi-final episode showed a change, however. Timothy Hutton and company seemed more engaged than they’d been in a couple of years, and the story, although tediously educational at times, was for the most part brisk, logical, and funny. Things were looking up.
Now, though, come indications that this week’s season finale episode may, in fact, be the finale for the entire series. Showrunner/co-creator Dean Devlin has hinted at this before, and in a recent Hollywood Reporter interview he told the trade mag, “I wasn’t expecting when we started the show to have [so much fan] support. So that fandam is always in our minds when we’re making this show and we just had this horrible feeling. What if this ended up being the last year and we didn’t put the baby to bed?”
This pretty much tells us that the season finale was created to be a series finale as well, which is why “…we’re going out with a big bang…I hope that [fans] feel this is the right way to end it,” Devlin is quoted as saying.
As far as we’re concerned, this show definitely has run its course. We’re sorry that Devlin and the rest of the cast, crew, and staff are – probably – about to be unemployed, and we look forward to the projects to come from everybody involved. But this series died at the end of Season 3, folks, and has just been zombie-ing forward ever since.
Still, if last week’s episode was any indication, the LEVERAGE team has its A-Game on for a powerful ending, and we’re going to steep ourselves in every delicious minute.
We hope.
EDITED TO ADD: This just in. Dean Devlin and TNT have announced that LEVERAGE has been cancelled and that Tuesday (Christmas) night’s season ender episode is indeed the end of the series as well. Thanks, LEVERAGE gang, for giving us so much pleasure over the last 5 years!