Its no longer a slight to note that a new piece of entertainment is a hybrid or synthesis of works that have come before it—our culture reflexively churns what has come before into something, hopefully, recognizably new. But cable television is awash this summer with offerings that recombine the elements in familiar ways—originally isn’t everything, after all. Some succeed while some never get do much more than color in the lines.

Leverage, The Beantown Bailout. Photo: Erik Heinila

Leverage, kicking off its second season, is for shorthand’s sake a high-tech Robin Hood (or a far less hippy Mod Squad) set in contemporary times. Timothy Hutton as Nathan Ford leads a group of ex-criminals who are using their hacking, conning and cunning skills to right the wrongs of the big guys and get the dirty money back.

As we enter this season with an episode dubbed “The Beantown Bailout,” Ford is considering going straight and staying away from booze until another job crash lands in his path, literally. Before you know it, the gang is back together and unraveling another injustice. But this season, the show (which is shot, somewhat unbelievably, in Portland, Oregon—sweet microbrews, dudes) aims for the topical. The bad guys in the season debut aren’t ordinary mobsters, they’re…take a wild guess, who…motherfriggin’ bankers—that’s who—making off with government bailout loot dontchaknowit. I don’t want to spoil it. Let’s just say the script targets our anger and powerlessness in the face of the financial meltdown in a manner that wouldn’t have been possible a year or two ago. Leverage won’t blow your mind or mess with the caper genre’s template—sometimes it’s not altogether sure whether it wants to be an action serial or something smarter than that—the show finds its depth almost exclusively in Ford’s backstory and Hutton’s character as the reluctant hero.

Largely, it’s a successful update on a well-worn format that’s likely to continue kicking ass in its time slot. Leverage returns July 15 at 8pm Central.

Remember the warehouse where they stick the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? Also entering the summer cable fray on Tuesday, July 7, on Sci Fi, Warehouse 13 is more obviously a hybrid or familiar sci-fi franchises. Add one bit X-Files, a dash of opaque backstory, a little bit steampunk of the original Wild Wild West stripe and perhaps a slice of The Librarian (a family-friendly made-for-TV movie with Noah Wylie) and you get? Well, a sci-fi show that’s nothing new and unproven. The pilot for Warehouse 13 is ultimately slightly less than satisfying. Its set-up involves bringing Secret Service agents to work for an odd wing of a government agency out West—an agency that seems horribly understaffed for the tough work of protecting and recovering objects with fantastical powers. There are lots of doors open for introducing clues to how the Warehouse came to be, what’s in it and what its caretakers are capable of—if Sci-Fi can get this one off the ground, it could run a long time, but at first brush, there’s not a lot there to make it fly.