By Any Means

From the makers of Hustle which may have inspired Leverage a few years later in America.

Now this is a combination of Leverage and Hustle (with many of the same visual tricks used.)

Warren Brown plays a kind of a cop whose team takes down criminals and other assorted bad guys in ways the normal law enforcement agencies cannot.

Each week a mysterious Gina McKee would hand over an Ipad containing a dossier of the latest target for the gang. Each week Warren Brown would take the Ipad and fail to return it!

The series will not be returning to the BBC because of low ratings. Where Hustle was sharp, entertaining and had a good team that gelled.

This was bland, a bit boring and Warren Brown is no Adrian Lester. The rest of the team were no match for the Hustle gang.

Maybe, this series should had waited for a few years while our memories of Hustle faded. The format needed more work.

As it is this was average with little promise, hence no renewal.

This was the starting week for many series in USA and UK. Not any real diamond among them. Most of them are bad to mediocre but so far "By Any Means" is the worst.

There are many problem with this TV-series.

First and most important all the actors and actresses lack charisma. I don't know what they have done before B.A.M. but they are totally forgettable, performance wise, even their faces. The team of 3, have the usual snob/hype attitude, common in many series, but just doesn't suits them. No charisma at all.

Second and equally important the plot. Is about a "special team" and blah-blah, blah-blah, one of them is a hacker (!), the girl is the ...locks expert, the last one is the street smart and blah-blah, blah-blah, *YAWN*. And they will catch the bad guy in a mildly smart way.

Third the pace, editing, transitions between shots, photography, music and (obviously) directing are simply annoying. (If you now a things or two about editing there is something called "light spills" that is overused here.). To put it in 2 words: Poor execution.

There is an arrest (in the pilot) that introduces (kind of) to the team stolen directly from an Al Pacino movie were the criminals think they are going to participate in some sort of Sports event. I saw it and keep asking my self: Are these people the Special team? That's how uncharismatic they are.

Anyway this has nothing to do with other BBC series like "Sherlock" in terms of fun or intelligence and you can do perfectly well without it.

Overall: Better to avoid it. (Or you will lose 57' of your life)

As other reviewers here I've never written a review for any series. But what I read here made me get behind the keyboard. Clearly all the low voters have never had to endure public or commercial TV in other European countries. This show is part of Britain's BBC heaven. En indeed not every show is entitled to occupy center stage in the programming, but it definitely has the right to get shown. It's different, funny and generally fast paced. The young actors must have had a good time making it, and I certainly have a good time watching it. Yes indeed, sometimes it is somewhat taxing on your intelligence, and I would hope that the writers are less easily satisfied at a next occasion. For instance that fact that in one episode our dream team apparently has never heard of mobile telephone triangulation, only to apply it themselves in the next episode as if they've never done anything else. Please writers, don't do this to us. It puts us off from a show that is otherwise a pleasure to watch when we got nothing better to do, and, as said, many shades better than the skin cringing stuff we see elsewhere on TV screens.

Briefly, I'd like to say that I agree with lots of the points raised in more negative reviews; By Any Means reflects styles that we've seen before, much of the content is quite lightweight and there have definitely been higher spec productions. However, because I enjoy the program I tend to view those as positives.

I've enjoyed some of the techniques previously seen elsewhere and hopefully if they opt for a second season they will refine them rather than overuse them. I think there is not just space but a continuing need for material that is lighter in tone within the TV schedule, to maintain a full range of options for people. Regarding the production quality, if you enjoy a program you make allowances at the same time as you suspend your disbelief and focus on the story; if I'd been forced to sit through the episode and had found it annoying from the off then every little thing would have compounded the frustration, but happily I enjoyed it.

Less rambling. By Any Means has characterisation that is writ large, the nods to recent events are fairly unsubtle and you can rely on the twist. It is what it is, which is a police procedural with flavours from a number of family friendly programs (most obviously Hustle, I am also put in mind of the sense of adventure fun in the earlier seasons of Primeval and Robin Hood, although that may be influenced by certain actors!) Simplest way to work out if it is of interest would be to watch an episode. If you start feeling the urge to rant about licence fees part way through, or the state of the BBC, how the world was better when you were 12 and so forth, I'd stop part way through and have a cup of tea :)

Yes, honestly, who pays these guys to have them say the show is bad? I want a cut, because otherwise I'm giving it at least 7 stars.

I felt the need to come here and post this review after I saw that literally everybody on this page gave it no more than 2 stars. Come on people, how close-minded can you be???

The show is like a British version of Leverage, and it is great and funny. Charismatic actors, good solid scripts (it ain't Doctor Who, but it does a very good job) and a very nice atmosphere make from this recipe a very entertaining series.

Disregard the people crushing it with their comments. They're just very bored people who probably love to watch soaps and stuff.