Publicity shot of the first Leverage cast.

I seem to spend more time talking about the television I watch than the books I read, but… I guess that’s the way it is right now. And I am here today to lament the reboot of Leverage, one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the original show featured a bunch of crooks who banded together, initially unwillingly, to right a wrong. And then they made a career of it. The hitter, the hacker, the grifter, the thief. And the mastermind.

I loved that show. My favorite character was Parker, the thief, who unabashedly loved money and was so funny and innocent but also amoral: the perfect pickpocket and lockpicker. Together, though, these people could do anything, con anyone.

And I guess the management team at Electric Entertainment, which produced the original program, thought a reboot would be even better, so they brought back most of the original cast and shot a bunch of new episodes, now called Leverage: Redemption.

Friends, I am not happy. If I hadn’t seen the original, maybe I’d say there’s nothing wrong with the reboot. Most of the original cast returns. They’re still lovable. The new cast members are fine. The essential Robin-Hood-esque plot types are intact.

But to me, it’s a little bit off. The actors are a decade older. The handstands and backbends and splits that Parker did ten years ago to avoid laser alarms now look contrived. The giddiness of “Let’s steal an island!” seemed to fit better with younger characters. The new story lines have more explosions and chases. The fights go on longer. The cons don’t seem as intricate, and the storylines that compelled you to care (“They dumped toxins and my child got cancer; now they won’t pay for treatment”) are now bigger and more abstract. The beneficiaries are “thousands” of hungry children. I worry about hungry children in real life, but in a story, it helps to focus on just one.

I’m not into it.

It’s got a 9.1/10 rating on imDB, and every review I’ve read seems to love it. What about you? Have you seen the Leverage reboot? What do you think?