tek's rating:

Breaking In, on FOX
IMDb; Sitcoms Online; TV Tropes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Vudu; YouTube

I wasn't particularly expecting to like this, though the previews did look kind of funny. And it stars Bret Harrison, who I liked in Reaper. Plus Christian Slater, who's always fun. Um... so anyway, I found the pilot funnier than expected, so I kept watching. Although I missed the last episode or two of season one. The show then apparently got cancelled after seven episodes, but was later renewed for a second season. I meant to get around to watching the last episode (or two, I'm really not sure), as the whole first season was online for quite awhile. But it had been taken down by the time I decided to watch it. Dammit. Anyway, it's not that important.

It's about this company called Contra Security. They sell their services to corporations, testing security systems by... breaking in, so the flaws in those systems can be corrected. Anyway... the leader of the team is a mysterious and manipulative guy called Oz (played by Slater). He recruits a hacker named Cameron Price (Harrison) for his team, by blackmailing him. There's also a lock-picker/safe-cracker named Melanie Garcia, a genius named Cassius "Cash" Sparks (who's into lots of geeky stuff like Star Trek, Star Wars, etc., but who I think is actually pretty cool and funny, and who also pulls epic pranks), and there's another guy named Josh Armstrong (who sees Cameron as a rival, but I'm not sure what else to say right now). Anyway, they're all fairly odd, I guess. Cameron seems like the most normal person there, but on the other hand, his hacking skills allowed him to live a pretty carefree life, until Oz recruited him. In his own way, even Cameron isn't exactly "normal." Oh, and I should mention he's interested in Melanie, though she has a boyfriend named Dutch (played by Michael Rosenbaum, though I didn't recognize him at first).

Anyway, the show was quirky and amusing and I liked Cameron, Oz, and Cash. Unfortunately, the second season turned out to be drastically retooled, and I didn't like it nearly as much as the first. I don't remember if I saw Dutch at all in season 2, and I'm sure Melanie wasn't around long. Oz ended up having to sell his company to a woman named Veronica (played by Megan Mullally), who took much more control of things than Oz liked. She brought with her an assistant or whatever, named Molly (Erin Richards, whom I'd later see in Gotham). I don't think we actually saw much of anything in the way of jobs for the team to work on, it became much more of an office comedy kinda thing (whereas it was, I think, more of a balance between those two aspects in season 1). It was again cancelled pretty quick, this time for good.


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