The Drew Carey Show

This show, as you may be able to guess is based mostly about Drew Carey. He is a low level executive stuck in the same position for years and years. The show started in 1995 and ended in 2004 with a total of 233 episodes.

The show has plenty of twists and turns with plenty of relationships for everyone at some point or another. But the main thing is Drew with his three best friends drink too much, hate their jobs, and enjoy various high jinks with each other. The show has some basic side characters which become main character for some seasons, then fall away back to side characters. There are some main characters who leave the show forever later in the series (mostly to start on the show Scrubs). 

Drew is constantly complaining about girl problems, but actually ends up having quite a few girlfriends, some of them fairly long-term ones throughout the series. These include 2 of the main female characters for the show. The only character who actually appears to be as lonely as he constantly professes is Lewis played by Ryan Styles. He ends up with only one serious girlfriend that lasts more than one episode, given she is a labrat kind of character for a drug company. 

The show has a whole bunch of side things, like dance numbers, music videos, episodes with mistakes in them as April Fools Day bonuses at the time that they were shown on tv, and improve episodes where they bring in a whole bunch of the actors from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and then they play some of those games on the show. Many of these are absolutely fantastic, and thoroughly hilarious. 

I enjoyed the show, though sometimes it was a bit repetitive and had some of the same plot lines. Plus the final season is completely different and often times kind of annoying. That last season changed the entire dynamic of the series by making a 2 year old suddenly an 8 year old. The relationship between Drew and Mimi is suddenly cohabitational. But I digress. 

In the end I must give The Drew Carey Show a total of 8 out of 11. There are some parts that are some of the funniest things on television, or the most clever. But others that are simply a show trying to be funny and sometimes failing miserably.

Leverage

Leverage is a modern day Robin Hood like show where the team steals from the big corporations, or corrupt business people, and give back to those that have been hurt by these richer people.

The show started back in 2008. The show continued until Christmas Day 2012, with a total of 77 episodes. Each episode is about 42 minutes long. The show is made up of 5 main characters. Our Hitter, Elliot Spencer (He's the guy in the vest), is also a retrieval specialist. The Hacker, Alec Hardison (The black guy). Grifter, Sophie Devereaux (not that is actually her name...also she is the brunette). Parker (The blonde) is our resident Thief. And finally our Mastermind, Nate Ford (the guy sitting down). 

All these characters were people who only worked alone as thieves and whatnot, taking things they wanted or were hired to take. Other than Nate Ford who was a Insurance Fraud Investigator. At some point or another he chased all of the other 4. 

This show is a perfect mix of comedy, action, intrigue, and bate-and-switches. There are plans that fail, others that go too easily and turn out that they had the wrong idea about who was the bad guy. There are certain lines/things that are used in most episodes. For example Elliot constantly talks about how certain haircuts, shoe prints, physical stance, gunshot sounds, the whoopa-whoopa of a helicopter are all very distinctive of a specific type of person or gun or whatnot. Ford ends up saying "Lets steal us a..." That dot-dot-dot could be mountain, a bank, an IRS building, a close encounter, or even a potato.

In the end I loved this show. It was a great show with impressive interactions between characters. They take down politicians, CEO's, coaches, insurance companies, and more. I enjoyed the playful nature behind much of these kinds of take downs. Especially those that take a significant turn in the middle. I give the show as a whole a 10 out of 11.