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2|Cover story Team stands up for the little guy in 'Leverage' The new Merry Men By Andrew Warren TV Media B oth the big and small screens are filled with villainous characters that we love to hate.TV audiences feel a smug sense of satisfaction when the ploys of such iconic villains as J.R. Ewing ("Dallas") or Mr. Burns ("The Simpsons") are foiled, while, on the big screen, baddies like Han- nibal Lecter ("The Silence of the Lambs") chill our blood. Even reality TV has its share of bad guys, with three-time "Sur- vivor" contestant Russell Hantz being perhaps the most iconic of them all. But sometimes, if you just dig a little deeper, the bad guys aren't so bad after all. Like a modern-day Robin TV Media Weekly|July 21 - 27, 2012 CHANNEL GUIDE Comcast Walton Cable- Vision `uWTTV CW Indianapolis " WRTV ABC Indianapolis $ WISH CBS Indianapolis h WTHR NBC Indianapolis r WLFI CBS Lafayette y WFYI PBS Indianapolis d WPTA ABC Ft. Wayne g WNDY MNT Indianapolis WHMB IND Indianapolis WIPB PBS Muncie R WFFT FOX Ft. Wayne G WXIN FOX Indianapolis Arts and Entertainment American Movie Classics Animal Planet [A&E] [AMC] [AP] [BET] [CMT] [CNBC] [CNN] [COM] [DISN] [E!] [ENC] [ESPN] [FAM] [FOXN] [FSN] [FX] Hood,TV's most savvy group of outlaws has returned to its thieving, grifting and hacking ways in the fifth season of "Leverage," airing Sundays on TNT. This band of merry men and women isn't out for gold to give to the poor. Instead, they're out to right the wrongs that have been inflicted on the little guys by rich and powerful corpora- tions or by the government.The group uses their sets of unique skills to infiltrate, blackmail and bankrupt their deserving targets. The team is led by former in- surance investigator Nate Ford, who has found a new meaning to life in helping out the wronged and the downtrodden. In his previous career, he often ran against the tricks that grifters and thieves use in their scams, and he's been able to use this lifetime of knowledge to stay one step ahead of the au- thorities hunting his group of outlaws. Ford is played to perfection by the critically acclaimed Timothy Hutton. Hutton is an accom- plished actor who won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his supporting role in "Ordinary People" (1980),and he [HALL] [HBO] [HIST] [HN] [LIFE] [MAX] [NICK] [OXY] [QVC] Black Entertainment TV [BIGTEN] Big Ten Network [BRAVO] Bravo County Music Television Consumer News & Bus. Ch. Cable News Network Comedy Central [CSPAN] CSPAN [DISC] Discovery Channel Disney Channel Entertainment TV Encore Entertainment Sports Net. [ESPN2] Entertainment Sports Net. 2 Family Channel Fox News Channel Fox Sports FX Hallmark Home Box Office History Channel CNN Headline News Lifetime Cinemax [MTV] Music Television Nickelodeon Oxygen [SHOW] [SPIKE] [STARZ] [SYFY] [TBN] Beth Riesgraf, Timothy Hutton and Christian Kane star in "Leverage" In last week's premiere has done extensive work behind the camera, too.He made his fea- ture-film directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998, receiving standing ovations for his film "Digging to China." Hutton is clearly excited about the new season of "Lever- age," and he spilled the beans about it in an interview with pop culture website AssignmentX.com. "For Nate,the way his father died in the finale last year, I think it's made him less connected to the past and more connected to his future and present," he ex- plained."Also, the theme of the fifth season is trust among the team members and the interper- sonal relationships." episode, titled "The (Very) Big Bird Job,"we found the team of outlaws barely having time to settle into their new Portland, Ore., headquarters before they were swept up into a new job in- volving a tragic plane crash, cour- tesy of a conniving shipping exec- utive (guest star Carey Elwes). In a bid to prevent another airline tragedy, the crooks dreamt up what may have been their most daring con ever — stealing the legendary Spruce Goose. Of course, Ford couldn't be ex- pected to pull off the theft of one of the most famous aircraft in the world all by himself. His team is an eclectic group of criminal misfits who nonetheless [TMC] [TNT] manage to work together and use their unique sets of skills to pull off their legendary heists. Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bell- man) is an enigmatic and beauti- ful grifter who has aspirations of being an actress. On stage or in auditions, she is a hilariously bad performer, but in the real world, when she's in the middle of a con, she can transform herself into a completely different per- son and pull the wool over any- one's eyes.The romantic sparks that have been building between her and Ford promise to heat up this season, but the rest of the team is reluctant to trust her too far — they aren't even sure if So- phie Devereaux is her real name or if it's just another alias. [TOON] [TRUTV] [USA] [VH1] 4 6 7 12 8 20 10 21 11 9 39 43 30 32 67 55 59 36 34 50 14 28 38 49 70 26 27 44 52 53 54 65 700 40 35 29 730 31 37 61 Quality, Value, Convenience 18 Showtime Spike Starz Science Fiction [TBS] WTBS Atlanta [TLC] The Learning Channel The Movie Channel 750 57 650 56 Trinity Broadcasting Network 13 41 47 Turner Network Television Cartoon Network TruTV [TWC] Weather Channel USA Network Video Hits One [WGN] WGN Chicago Local Programming 785 42 45 66 25 24 33 22 3 The group's hacker is Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge),a com- puter and technology genius.The man is a miracle worker when it comes to planting bugs, hacking into accounts and creating iden- tities, but he's not yet used to the more dangerous encounters that the team can often find itself in. For those situations there's Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane), the group's "hitter."The brawny man is a master of several martial arts styles, and he can identify the make and model of a firearm just by hearing the sound it makes.He 11 24 18 14 33 27 21 9 5 24 15 37 30 35 36 9 2 7 14 34 37 24 33 9 19 17 35 26 36 22 20 29 9 10 26 29 4 6 8 13 22 2 Indiana 4 6 8 Sammo ns of 13 22 20 21 7 12 10 18 3 40 41 Tipton Cable TV 4 6 8 13 2 12 3 5 10 11 35 26 Oak Hill Cable 4 6 8 13 2 32 10 40 21 12 28 15 4 6 8 13 2 22 10 55 53 12 41 30 44 34 3 32 20 35 23 28 25 33 26 38 17 27 31 36 21 39 27 16 28 22 18 30 25 23 24 3 22 38 18 47 14 28 34 21 20 3 26 33 16 39 30 19 7 16 31 24 18 29 34 14 32 15 30 29 17 31 20 42 18 32 7 33 5 16 14 27 2 7 42 19 46 5 39 16 50 14 27 48 17 29 15 35 23 31 40 9 35 4 6 8 13 20 10 40 11 166 795 252 155 650 181 525 216 202 140 230 120 302 134 619 606 178 210 734 128 176 270 203 360 502 314 368 9 145 151 560 112 250 108 325 225 124 518 180 99 has a softer side, too, and, surpris- ingly, is a whiz in the kitchen. Beth Riesgraf plays Parker, the team's resident professional thief. The tiny woman has a warped view of the world, thanks to her troubled childhood as an orphan, but when it comes to doing something daring, like rappelling off of a roof, she's utterly without fear.Audiences can look forward to Parker and Hardison taking their blossoming romance to the next level this season, revealing what promises to be a softer side for both characters. Swayzee AT&T U-Verse

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