Leverage (2008-2012)
Leverage follows a five-person team: a thief: Parker, a grifter: Sophie, a hacker: Hardison, and a retrieval specialist: Eliot, led by former insurance investigator Nathan Ford, who use their skills to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens. They pull elaborate scams targeted against the greedy and the corrupt to help people. Nate was inspired to begin his con business when his former employer refused to pay for treatment that could have saved his son's life. After meeting the client, the Leverage team researches the villains to find a weakness to exploit. Each con, either as originally planned or as complications develop, typically requires the specialized skills of all the members of the group. Towards the end of each episode, the villains seem to get the upper hand, only to be outwitted by the team. Because most of the narrative has seemed to follow the team's point of view, the audience is momentarily uninformed as to exactly how they have succeeded in their con. A flashback then reveals how they did it.
Subplots include Nate's struggle with alcoholism, his complicated relationship with grifter Sophie Devereaux and the budding romance between hacker Alec Hardison and thief Parker.
Timothy Hutton as Nate Ford, Gina Bellman as Sophie, Christian Kane as Eliot, Beth Riesgraf as Parker, and Aldis Hodge as Hardison.
IZombie (2015-?)
Olivia Moore (Rose McIver), an over-achieving medical resident gets invited to a boat party, where all hell breaks loose. Somehow, she wakes up in a body bag and discovers later that she has become a zombie. Within six months of the incident, her whole life has changed. She dropped out of college, broke up with her fiancé, Major Lilywhite (Robert Buckley) and took a job up at the coroner’s office as an assistant to the medical examiner, Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) . Determined to pass as human despite her pale appearance and newly listless demeanor, she can secretly snack on the brains of corpses delivered there. Soon discovering that she absorbs the memories of those she feeds on, she finds new purpose by posing as a psychic and working with a detective to help solve their murders. Ravi eventually knows of her secret and helps her keep it, along with attempting to make a cure.
This show is quite unique as she also takes on the personality of the person whose brain she consumes and McIver really shines in the various roles she plays as Liv Moore.
Kojak (1973-1978)
The series was set in the New York City Police Department's Eleventh Precinct (the building shown was actually theNinth Precinct), Manhattan South Patrol Borough.
The show revolved around the efforts of the tough and incorruptible Lieutenant Theofilides ("Theo") Kojak (Telly Savalas), a bald, dapper, New York City policeman, who was fond of Tootsie Roll Pops and of using the catchphrases, "Who loves ya, baby?" and "Cootchie-coo!" Kojak was stubborn and tenacious in his investigation of crimes—and also displayed a dark, cynical wit, along with a tendency to bend the rules if it brought a criminal to justice. He frequently ribbed his subordinates, especially the rotund Stavros, whom he referred to as "Fatso". Foot chase scenes involving Stavros also brought on the same type of physical humor. However, Kojak was especially abusive toward criminals, often stretching the truth, one of whom Kojak said he witnessed them do something he did not actually witness (setting a bomb), to get them to talk. Kojak was so abusive, Mad magazine carried a TV satire titled, "Kojerk".
He’s an honest character, tough but with feelings—the kind of guy who might kick a hooker in the tail if he had to, but they'd understand each other because maybe they grew up on the same kind of block. Cynical but upbeat, Kojak not only has a talent for detecting, he also is blessed with perfect parking - he is always able to find a parking space right at the crime scene, even in Manhattan. Now that's power.
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