TV Tyrant

FOX Takes Down ‘Human Target’

May 16th, 2011 | by | fox, human target

May
16

By Stu Robinson,

FOX has canceled the action drama Human Target after two seasons.

The show featured square-jawed Mark Valley – brilliant in Keen Eddie, an earlier victim of FOX’s chopping block – as an assassin reformed by his own conscience. Using the name Christopher Chance, he partnered with ex-cop Laverne Winston (Chi McBride) and quietly creepy freelancer Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley) to protect clients by placing himself in the line of fire.

The show’s creators tried to boost ratings in Season 2 with a double dose of estrogen, casting Indira Varma as wealthy, widowed philanthropist Ilsa Pucci – who ends up bankrolling the business – and Janet Montgomery as a nubile young thief and conwoman named Ames.

The Ames character worked, providing additional plot options and a dose of humor. But the Pucci character never really fit: She didn’t mesh with the other characters, the subplot about her husband’s murder became a tedious soap opera and attempts to ignite romance between her and Chance were implausible at best.

I share the view of Entertainment Weekly critic Sandra Gonzalez that the Guerrero character deserved to live on:

“Much of the credit for turning that character into a fan favorite is owed to Jackie Earle Haley, whose unique combination of dry humor and pure badassery made Guerrero eclipse other characters without even trying. In fact, I’d pluck the character out of the Human Target universe and plop him into any show I currently watch just for a chance to enjoy him again every week.”

As for Valley, he deserves a hit show and might have had one had FOX given Keen Eddie more time. In that 2003 show, he played an American cop working with police in England and sharing a tension-filled flat with Sienna Miller. Perhaps there is still hope for Valley. After all, the CBS hit Hawaii Five-0 was Alex O’Loughlin’s third attempt at carrying a show.

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Women on ‘Target’: Only One Hits Bullseye

January 3rd, 2011 | by | fox, human target, tv shows

Jan
03

By Stu Robinson,

Six episodes in to Season 2 of FOX’s Human Target, it’s time to check in on how the big estrogen experiment is going.

The show centers on bodyguard Christopher Chance (Mark Valley from Keen Eddie and Boston Legal) and his support team comprising ex-cop Laverne Winston (Chi McBride) and quietly creepy freelancer Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley).

In its first season, Human Target demonstrated potential but looked to be in need of some time and tweaking tofind its stride. The biggest tweak for Season 2 was the addition of two female regulars: wealthy, widowed philanthropist Ilsa Pucci (Indira Varma), who takes over the business side of the operation; and nubile grifter Ames (Janet Montgomery), a trainee operative.

Ames is a hit. Not just easy on the eyes, she adds some comic relief that lightens the show. Her foils are Winston and Guerrero, two men very set in their ways. Ames chips away at their facades and drags them out of their comfort zones, forcing each to reveal a bit more than he’d like.

That said, the writers need to be careful here, particularly in regard to Guerrero. The key to Guerrero is his quiet malevolence – that fact that nobody really knows what he’s capable of, causing everyone to assume the worst. He needs to maintain the almost cartoon quality of being perfectly comfortable with whatever dirty deed must be done. It’s okay to give him some range, but be wary of humanizing him so much that he loses his edge.

Mrs. Pucci’s patronage enables the team to go wherever it must, armed with the latest technology. But she’s not really a team player. She may hold the purse strings, but she is vexed by her inability to control the rest of the cast. Whenever a scenario spreads outside her comfort zone – which is pretty much every week – she takes on a haughty, petulant tone that really grates.

When I first read about the Ilsa Pucci character, I imagined an absentee owner who wouldn’t be so absent – hence the dramatic tension. But I didn’t expect her to take up residence as the world’s classiest office manger. The fish out of water theme goes only so far. After six episodes, Mrs. Pucci is not fitting in.

The six Season 2 episodes that have aired so far have been a varied lot. While four have seen characters confronting aspects of their pasts, they have gone in different directions. Settings have ranged from the grittier parts of San Francisco, where the team is based, to a South American drug-trafficking zone to corporate suburbia.

The plots are engaging, and usually give the viewer an opportunity to determine the threat on his or her own. The guest stars, mostly journeymen actors who look vaguely familiar, have been solid.

As Human Target enters the second half of its second season, I’m still aboard. We’ll just have to see where this crazy train takes us.

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Stu Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations practitioner and social-media guy based in Phoenix.

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Actresses Take ‘Human Target’ in New Direction

November 27th, 2010 | by | fox, human target, tv shows

Nov
27

By Stu Robinson

Human Target returned to FOX last week, launching its second season with a double dose of estrogen.

This comes as no great surprise. In Season 1, Human Target demonstrated potential but looked to be in need of some time and tweaking to find its stride.

For the uninitiated, the show features square-jawed Mark Valley – brilliant in FOX’s late, lamented Keen Eddie but horribly miscast in ABC’s Boston Legal – as an assassin reformed by his own conscience. Using the name Christopher Chance, he partners with ex-cop Laverne Winston (Chi McBride) and quietly creepy freelancer Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley) to protect clients by placing himself in the line of fire. He usually does this with abandon, perhaps freed by the belief that he deserves to die anyway for his past.

Appropriate for a character born in comic books, Chance is drawn in bold strokes – an action hero from central casting who springs into action on behalf of justice and all that is good. Winston is the imposed-upon sidekick who manages the office and provides backup in the field. Guerrero, meanwhile, is the guy they bring in for special tasks – intelligence, technology, torture. The quieter he gets, the scarier he becomes.

The creators of Human Target were so eager to move in a new direction that they resolved last season’s cliffhanger in one scene – a bank shootout – after which Chance disappears. Guerrero tells Winston that Chance had become too attached and blamed himself for Winston being taken captive in Season 1′s final episode.

Cut to an ashram in the Himalayas, where Chance is in deep meditation until billionaire philanthropist Ilsa Pucci (Indira Varma) arrives by helicopter and convinces him to return to work – and to his colleagues in San Francisco.

This isn’t the first time the writers have tried pumping some estrogen into the cast. They added a woman to the team midway through the first season, but sexy computer geek Layla, played by Autumn Reeser, disappeared after a couple of episodes. Perhaps Reeser was too busy playing agent Lizzie Grant on Entourage.

The result of the Season 2 premiere : After being saved by the Human Target team, Ilsa decides to bankroll Chance and Winston’s protection business. Of course, she tells them she’ll be a hands-off, mostly absentee owner. Yeah, right. We’ll see about that.

In the process of saving Ilsa, the guys capture and eventually employ a nubile young thief and conwoman named Ames, played by Janet Montgomery coming off her own eight-episode run on Entourage. (Hey, if you want to cast actresses, there are worse places to look than the Entourage set.) Winston had arrested Ames numerous times as a juvenile and basically thinks she’s incorrigible. But Chance and Guerrero see potential in her and let her tag along.

The next episode set up some of the interpersonal dynamics going forward. Ilsa will challenge Chance on the moral implications of their work while bedeviling Winston in matters around the office. Meanwhile, Guerrero and Ames will provide comic relief as he tries to mentor his precocious protege. (Think Yoda and Luke Skywalker, but with Yoda cranky and malevolent and Luke replaced by a hot chick.)

Expect that Chance’s past will continue to intrude upon his present. In Wednesday’s episode, he finds himself protecting the widow of a man he killed seven years earlier.

So buckle your seatbelts. Human Target may be a low-key action series, if there is such a thing, but the show seems to be embarking upon Season 2 with a fresh burst of energy.

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Stu Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations practitioner and social-media guy based in Phoenix.

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The state of science fiction on TV

May 24th, 2009 | by | human target, new season, new shows, past life, schedule

May
24

As it is with every year, a whole bunch of science fiction-y shows were canceled at the end of the season, but I have to give it to the networks for trying a bunch of new ones next year.

It was so hard to keep track of the comings and goings during the upfronts, but SciFi Wire thankfully charted it all in a very understandable fashion.

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The clear winner, IMHO, is Fox.

Sure, Fox canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, better known as TSCC because it’s a lot freakin’ shorter. But it did keep Dollhouse around for at least another 13 episodes. (Side note: This comic is probably a bit too close to reality for comfort when it comes to how the decision was made.) I’m thinking that Fox didn’t feel like incurring the wrath of the Whedonverse again, whereas TSCC ended at a spot that could full well be the series’ end. (Not that I wouldn’t have loved to see where it would have picked up in the fall.)

Fox also kept Fringe, which is one of my favorite shows. So the net gets brownie points for that. It’s also picked up Human Target and Past Life, each for 13 episodes and for midseason.

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