Flipping Channels

Quick hits, thoughts and news . . .

•TNT premiers its newest show, Leverage, at 10 p.m. Sunday (it'll then move to its regular time of 10 p.m. Tuesdays). Timothy Hutton (the guy who had the crush on a waaaay-too-young Natalie Portman in Beautiful Girls) stars as the ringleader of an Ocean's 11-type crew of con men who only rip off bad guys who deserve it. Sounds good, huh? Actually it was good, the first time I saw it . . . when it was a BBC show called Hustle. Though it doesn't bill itself as such, Leverage is just another Americanized version of a cool British show. Hustle is a stylish, breezy, caper show — similar to Burn Notice —well worth checking out. All four seasons are available on DVD, and you can catch reruns occasionally on AMC. It's almost certainly better than Leverage, and they speak with way cooler accents.

•The demise of Pushing Daisies may be good news for Heroes. But is it already too late? Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller is on the verge of signing a deal to return as an executive producer for Heroes, which he worked on in its brilliant first season. His return won't do much for the current season, which is already mostly written. But maybe he can help next season not suck so badly. The quickly sinking Heroes has already fired two co-executive producers this season, and it was only a month ago that Heroes creator Tim Kring called the show's remaining fans "saps and dipshits." It's not enough to draw back this sap, but the addition of Fuller sure can't make the show any worse.

•Sci Fi Channel this week green-lit 18 episodes of Caprica, a Battlestar Galactice prequel series. The two-hour pilot has been shot, and production on the season will start next summer. Look for the show sometime in 2010. And to quench your BSG thirst between the show's spring finale and Caprica, a standalone move called The Plan will be coming sometime in the interim. Modeled on last year's BSG standalone Razor, The Plan will focus on the Cylons' master plan and will take place between the series' first and second seasons. And starting Dec. 12, Scifi.com will roll out 12 webisodes leading up to BSG's premier on Jan. 16. Personal revelations regarding one character are promised.

•A pair of second-season premiere dates have been announced: The CW's the-devil-made-me-do-it-(no-for-real!) supernatural comedy Reaper will return on March 17, and HBO's Flight of the Conchords, following New Zealand's fourth-most popular comedy/folk band, is back Jan. 18. For a sneak peek at the entire Season 2 debut episode of Conchords, it'll be posted online at Funnyordie.com starting Dec. 17.