Albert Stroller (Robert Vaughn) – Gentleman con from the States, Mickey’s old mentor, alternating between con man wisdom and a childish delight in the score.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nThe show is stylish, echoes of the Ocean’s Eleven<\/em> jazz, Euro-classiness, in music and look and guys smoking and slinky dresses and snazzy music …<\/p>\nWhile the straight-up drama (and humor) is great, there are occasional stylistic elements that make you blink and then enjoy.\u00a0 The cons occasionally break the Fourth Wall, whether to give a smile and a wink to the audience, or to give the viewers a lesson in The Con.\u00a0 Other times we end up with a 30s musical number or a 20s silent film scene.\u00a0 It’s used sparingly, but enough to catch the eye and the imagination.<\/p>\n
I love con\/caper films and shows.\u00a0 The Sting <\/em>is, of course, a classic — and, remarkably, the show (in its typically short British 6-episode season) makes frequent reference to it, including some major plot elements in both the first and last eps.\u00a0 But it remains an original, even as it pulls bits and pieces from other sources.<\/p>\n(For those who are “MI-5” — in the UK and Canada “Spooks” — fans, much of the show behind the scenes is done and written and produced by the same crew.)<\/p>\n
So how does it compare to “Leverage”?\u00a0 Well … it’s very British.\u00a0 It’s less tech, it’s more stylish, it’s harder-edged and less commercial than American TV.\u00a0 With, occasional, partial nudity.\u00a0 And while there’s often a neat wrap around each hour-long episode, the plotting (and metaplotting) feels less structured, less manipulative than the American style of telly.<\/p>\n
That said, given a choice between watching one or the other, I’d probably go with “Leverage” — the characters are more “characters,” and perhaps more fun for all that.\u00a0 But I’d really rather not have the choice; both shows do the Big Con in their own fine ways.\u00a0 “Leverage” is in its third season; “Hustle” has six done; a seventh is apparently in the works (there are four on DVD here in the US).<\/p>\n
Good stuff. I plan on getting more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So as I was poking around about one of my favorite TV series, “Leverage,” I started reading about a series called “Hustle.” And so I tried out the DVD set for the first season. “Hustle” is a BBC series, premiering in 2004, about a “family” of cons and grifters, and both their internal dynamics and … Continue reading “TV Review: “Hustle” (Series 1)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-tv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31840,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/19\/complete-with-doing-the-hustle.html","url_meta":{"origin":17854,"position":0},"title":"Complete with doing the "Hustle"","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Dec-12 6:04am","format":false,"excerpt":"Margie and I finally finished watching our DVR backlog of the BBC series, \"Hustle\" -- a great drama series about a gang of London con artists (and the inspiration for, though somewhat\u00a0different from, another of my regular favorites, \"Leverage\").Each show was about a long con against a deserving high-end mark\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9804,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/31\/doctor_who_the_rise_of_th.html","url_meta":{"origin":17854,"position":1},"title":"Doctor Who: “The Rise of the Cybermen”","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 31-Oct-06 7:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"Sat down and watched last Friday's DW. I'm beginning to get a feel for what I do and don't like about this particular series (vs. Series 1). The episode,...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30078,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/04\/con-men-grifters-and-capering.html","url_meta":{"origin":17854,"position":2},"title":"Con men, grifters, and capering","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-Sep-12 11:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Through a happy happenstance, we're playing DVR catch-up on both \"Leverage\" (current series on TNT) and its BBC forebearer, \"Hustle\" (later seasons on AvX). The con is on! Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39230,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/17\/mickey-beignets-are-decent-bu.html","url_meta":{"origin":17854,"position":3},"title":"Mickey Beignets are decent, bu…","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 17-Oct-13 5:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Mickey Beignets are decent, but a pale shadow of the New Orleans Fritters of the past. #Disneyland","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31875,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/20\/free-mickey-mouse-in-2018.html","url_meta":{"origin":17854,"position":4},"title":"Free Mickey Mouse (in 2018)!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 20-Dec-12 2:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting article about how Big Content is getting worried enough about copyright skepticism that it's beginning to pay for \"law articles\" advancing the idea that copyright is a natural right (not just something \"to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts\" as the US Constitution has it), that intellectual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14860,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/05\/24\/hidden-mickey.html","url_meta":{"origin":17854,"position":5},"title":"Hidden Mickey","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 24-May-09 4:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Pavement, just outside Harambe Village, DAK.","rel":"","context":"In "Travel - WDW 09"","block_context":{"text":"Travel - WDW 09","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel\/travel-wdw09"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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