Not your normal day at the office.
Breaking In is a show similar to Leverage or The A-Team, albeit with a more overtly comedic tone. It is about a college student who is employed by a firm that breaks into companies to test their security. FOX swiftly canceled it
due to weak performance for a show airing after American Idol. It was Uncancelled when FOX renewed it for a second season, but was cancelled again on April 12, 2012.
This series provides examples of:
- Aborted Declaration of Love: Played with for Cameron and Melanie. Cam really does confess his love, but then blames it on hallucinations from the heat.
- Played Straight - Melanie says she usually likes bad boys.
- Arc Words: Cameron's "It's the least I could do."
- Catchphrase: Tons.
- Oz's "I'll allow it."
- Cash's "Boom goes the dynamite!"
- Lampshaded by Oz: "You just got Oz'd. (Beat, takes out voice recorder) Possible catch phrase."
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: In the pilot of season 2, Josh has disappeared without explanation. Dutch is gone too, but they at least Handwave it as his having been arrested for selling clean urine to airline pilots.
- Divorce Assets Conflict: Apparently averted with Oz and his wife Amy.
- Exposition Diagram: One is usually presented for the characters via TV screen, but we get to see them execute it themselves.
- Freudian Slip: Cash in the following exchange with Anna:Cash: I love you. I mean, I don't love you that way, I just say that a lot. Because I live with my mom. (Beat) Dammit.
- Gilligan Cut: Cameron wonders out loud how hard it can be to strap a hood to a car. Guess what happens next.
- Impossible Mission: Every mission seems easy at first, until complications pile up into this. Oz usually has a way around or through it, though.
- Ivy League for Everyone: Justified in that Cameron hacked his way into college.
- MacGyvering: Oz expected the team to be able to corrode the locks with the acid from tomato sauce in the lasagna he left them. Then again, he was lying about being in any real danger.
- Put on a Bus: Melanie in season 2 left Contra because she was afraid of getting too close to Cam.
- Raging Stiffie: Cameron, courtesy of Cash slipping viagra into his coffee as a prank. Of course, right as it afflicts him Melanie seeks refuge under his desk from Dutch.Melanie: Really?Cameron: I got it from Cash!
- Shout-Out:
- Creepy Carol puts on her lipstick just like Molly Ringwald does in The Breakfast Club. (Badly.)
- Melanie's father's cover name, Gordon Shumway (the real name of the title character from ALF).
- For the Comicon mission, Josh disguised himself as a Na'vi
- Cash's crush is named An(n)a Ng
- The Indiana Jones' tribute.
- Thanks to appropriately-named guest characters, an episode titled Heathers (They even had a Veronica already)
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Oz's response to Cameron asking how he monitored his internal temperature:Oz: I certainly haven't implanted a chip in you if that's what you're insinuating.
- True Art Is Incomprehensible: Invoked. A million-dollar painting the team attempts to steal is a blank, white canvas.
- Uncancelled: Returned to the air in March of 2012.
- Unusual Eyebrows: Josh gets his singed off and then drawn back on by Dutch in a 'surprised look'. He's not surprised, he's interested.
- Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Oz is seen at times with samurai swords, bows and arrows, the works. Justified in that his heist business would most likely reap a lot of rewards.
