new(ish) show alert: breaking in (with caveats)

Dude, guys, did you even realize Christian Slater is back? And on TV? And still quite foxy, in a sort of scary way. Cher Horowitz knew it in the 90s and we know it now: nothing makes for mildly terrifying eye candy quite like Christian Slater.



See? Still, so so excellent.

Anyway, this show is sort of a done theme - criminals going straight in a roundabout way that still lets them feel like criminals - but I feel like it's done well. I know there's another show that came out recently that has the same basic premise, and it is somewhere on my list, but I can't remember it, and anyway, it's to this show what the Mentalist is to Psych: a more serious and polished version of something that's probably better as a sitcom.

The show just entered its second season, with the ABSOLUTELY GODDAMN DELIGHTFUL addition of Megan Mullally, whose presence in pretty much all things just makes me happier. [Spoilers for first season follow] She plays the new boss of Contra Security, which was purchased by a big conglomerate because Oz (see: Christian Slater, sexy, sexy Christian Slater (I know I have a problem, leave me alone)) sort of maybe accidentally bankrupted the place. She brings along a delightful British assistant whose OCD is a thing of beauty, but who is sadly socially adrift, in a sort of tragicomic way that just makes me sad, because she seems very nice.

Anyway, my caveat here is that it seems like they kicked off the badass lockpicking Melanie (Odette (Yustman) Annable) to make room in the boys' club for Veronica (Megan Mullally) and British Molly (Erin Richards), but actually she just switched teams to House. On the show, though, it plays out a little more like "We just got these two girls, so one of you has to leave, and it can't be comic relief HR lady!" Which is lame. Especially since it went from one white lady and half-Cuban Yustman to three white ladies. I mean, good for Odette, moving to a big game like House (though, come on, how much longer can we draw that out), but sad for Breaking In, which went from having two non-white major characters to just one (though that one is so, so excellent).

But, speaking of Cash (Alphonso McAuley), let's just talk about how much I would be best friends with this character if he were a real-life person. He's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge nerd, great at robotics, and way into sci-fi. Additionally, he's attractive. Do you know how often there are robotics nerds who love sci-fi who are also smoking hot with crazy abs? The incidence is low, is what I'm saying. Not that they don't exist, or that I don't know any (actually, I don't know ANYBODY who's that into robotics, which is just sad for my life, because I would love to have a robot).

The show started as ostensibly centered around Cameron (Bret Harrison), but I feel like the real reasons for watching the show are literally everyone else. The characters are mildly caricatures of themselves, but still feel like people you know, just augmented for TV. They're believable, is what I'm saying, and even though there are capers from time to time, I kind of prefer it when it's more of the in-office politics and things. It's like if you were watching The Office, except instead of selling paper they stole art to test for security breaches.

Generally, it's absurd without being absurdist, features a lot of weird technology that may or may not actually exist, and also features Christian Slater being the grown-up version of his character in Heathers, just with more money.

{watchable on hulu+