Hey TNT —
Following last week’s episode of Leverage, you were airing a promo for this past Tuesday’s episode, “The 12-Step Job,” which looked pretty damn impressive. Every so often the ad would run, and I’d think, “Damn! The next episode looks killer!” Maybe you’ve got nothing to do with the promo department, so here’s part of it for you again, embedded below.
Since you’ve seen the episode and the promo, I think you can see what I’m talking about. There are two key scenes here where you screwed with us to get us to think things were going to go down a lot differently than they did.
First, there’s Nate with Jack Hurley walking outside. They look completely vulnerable as Nate tells Jack not to worry. Guns are drawn, they’re told they’ll be killed in five seconds if they don’t hand over money, and then we cut to Nate’s reaction. What the hell? That’s not how it went down at all! In fact, it was Hardison and Spencer who were being threatened, and it wasn’t as nail-biting of a situation.
Next we see Hardison and Spencer talking about a bomb under Hardison’s seat in an SUV. They look damned worried as Hardison strikes two hot wires together, Spencer jumps away and, within a second, BOOM! From this scene in the promo, I’m thinking, “Whoa! How did they get out of that so quickly?” The reality is that NOTHING happened. They successfully disarm the bomb and even take it away with them as a freaking souvenir. In fact, the explosion we see doesn’t happen until much later in the episode in a completely different scene and setting!
Maybe I shouldn’t be annoyed at this and praise you for providing us with a teaser that’s deceiving and doesn’t spoil anything. I just feel like we were scammed, that you felt you had to “spice up” the ad to get new viewers to watch, even if they didn’t get what they thought they would.
Guys, the show’s good. It’s great, even. People are talking and the show even got a renewal for a second season. So stop pulling shenanigans on us; it’s going to get old fast.
Peace,
Keith
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Feb 05, 2009 @ 13:30 EST5EDT
Dude, the teaser says ‘we know drama,’ and that’s what promos are for, to stir it all up ;)
I’m so glad I don’t watch promos. Let me put it like this: my comment on this would contain a lot more cursing. This is why I hate teasers. And push up bras…
Many shows do this now. I was wondering who the hell Nate was shooting with a gun as well as the explosion. I don’t really put too much faith in previews anymore. They never turn out like you think they will. There is a really good interview at ifmagazine.com with the visual effects producer of Leverage. That truck explosion was done with miniatures. They show how they did that whole scene.
Now there is no reason to be upset with the promo monkeys. That is their job.
If you really expect a show to run just like the promos why bother watching the show when you can get it all condensed in 30-60 seconds.
who played the muse on the bertolli commercial she really made the bertolli interesting