Human Target, Fox's newest high-octane venture centers around Valley's character Christopher Chance (yeah, I know, apparently Derek Danger was taken) as he acts as a pseudo-bodyguard who specializes in getting his clients as close to killed as possible without actually getting them blown up in a train (or a plane--as we'll see next week). Maybe the conceit is Valley badassily protecting people on some sort of fuselage shaped vehicular conveyance... boy, that's deep (in that I suspect week 3 will have a submarine as its A-plot). Valley's character (I just can't bring myself to call him Chance. It's just too lame) apparently aims to lure would-be assailants into the open and thereby exposing who it is that's trying to kill his client. So... you're going to use me as bait, huh? Is that what I'm understanding? Gee. Thanks.
Speaking of deep, if that's what you're looking for, I suggest you look elsewhere. The pilot made some allusions as to why Valley's character would put himself in harm's way day in and day out, nearly getting himself killed at every turn, and while I'd like to believe this who will become a more cerebral psychological profile of fate tempters and risk takers, I'll believe it when I see it. So far? This show is your basic shoot 'em, blow 'em up, derail 'em up action piece that focuses a lot more closely on the fighting and pyrotechnics than on anything else. Which is fine, if that's what the show is going for, but unless it adds some more depth and substance, I'm afraid I'll get bored. The story of the week will involve some client or other who needs protecting and then we'll never see that person ever again. Hence, even though the A-plot might be entertaining in its own right, I have a hard time caring about people or characters who don't matter in the grander scheme of things.
With that in mind, it's pivotal that that the audience care about Valley a whole hell of a lot and almost instantaneously. Valley (most recently seen on Fringe, and who's married to Anna Torv) plays your typical arrogant cad and does very little to reinvent that particular wheel. He's not unlikeable, but I'm just not sure how much appeal he's going to warrant down the road... (I've never been a big Mark Valley fan so the fact that I didn't hate him in this is a good sign, I suppose). Now, it was a decent pilot, but I'm not particularly invested in Valley or anyone else in the scant supporting cast at this point. As near as I can tell, the show only has three series regulars: Valley's James Bond-y, Michael Westen-y, Kevin Costner-y (oh, come on, The Bodyguard? Yeah, you're right, strike that) badass protector guy, Chi McBride (eee! Emerson from Pushing Daisies!) as Winston, the curmudgeonly client-relations organizer guy who tries to keep Valley from getting killed, and Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach from Watchmen) as, uh, well... he's kind of the tech guy and kind of the
underworld contact all at once. His character is named Guerrero and he looks like he's wearing a wig and fake mustache, although I don't see why that would be the case. At any rate, it was distracting and I kept expecting him to pull it all off at the end to reveal-- I have no idea, but something.I think the show is going to have a hell of a time keeping the storylines fresh and engaging with such a meager cast. The show has been adapted from a comic book, however, and the writers of the comic seemed to make it work. I'm not sure it will fare so well on TV though. It's the same problem countless other programs have run into. Most recently, I'd say Eleventh Hour suffered (all the way to its death) by only having two or three regular characters in the show. I realize that the procedural is all the rage these days and that most shows have an A-plot that won't really even matter next week and with a range of people we'll never see again, but those shows also have at least 5 or 6 series regulars to keep things interesting. I'll give the show a few more weeks to flesh out these three in a way that makes me actually care, but at the moment, I'm just not all that concerned if Valley survives and the supporting cast isn't diverse or engaging enough to compensate. We all know A-plots just don't do it for me alone (generally speaking), so here's hoping my prejudice agai
nst Valley can be outweighed by my adoration of Chi McBride (that man plays curmudgeonly like nobody's business).Speaking of A-plots, the pilot featured a rather ambitious set up on a bullet train with Valley protecting Tricia Helfer's character. It seems a shame that an actress as awesome and accomplished as Helfer would find herself in just the pilot alone, but near as I can tell, that's where we are. The A-plot hinged on Valley being a master of all trades in Michael Westen-y fashion. It would have been nice if the pilot had given us even the slightest inkling how Christopher Chance came to know everything there is to know about everything, but I'm okay with not knowing. If they had launched into ten minutes of plot exposition about his background I'd have been much more annoyed, so I guess this is better. (I think my only concern in this case is that I'm not totally sure the writers have thought of a reason yet and that's irksome... Odds are the comic book writers did, so we'll see how faithful a translation this is...) For this particular assignment, Chance must speak Japanese fluently, be skilled in hand-to-hand combat and advanced weapons training, be hyper-observant, oh, and know how to construct a parachute out of a tarp and a seat belt. Clearly this is one of those concepts that you just kind of have to go with, and I'd be happy to do so if it weren't quite so riddled with fridge logic. There are certain shows where fridge logic doesn't bother me all that much (you know, all that stuff that doesn't really make any sense at all but that at the time seems fine--Leverage, I'm looking in your direction), but with Human Target, I found myself unraveling the fridge logic way too quickly to be fine with it. For example, to badassily save Tricia from being poisoned by an assassin posing as wait staff on the train, he notes that the ice in her drink is cubed, but not in anyone else's. Wow, how life-savingly hyper-observant of you! Thank god we have such James Bondy badass on our team! That's how the initial impression on audiences is supposed to go, but then the fridge
logic hits you. So wait, are you telling me the assassin brought his own ice on the train? Why the hell would that be necessary? Were the ice cubes themselves what were poisoned? That's... really stupid, yet somehow more plausible than the assassin bringing his own wet bar onto a bullet train. Wouldn't he just bring a vial or pill or baggie of powder with the poison in it, prepare a drink for her as anyone else on the wait staff would, then add the poison? I suppose the train could have had an ice dispenser that allowed for either crushed or cubed and the show is implying that the assassin didn't notice that the ice was crushed, but he would have had to have specifically changed the setting on the ice dispenser and been oblivious to the three hundred other drinks on board. As I'm envisioning a party on a train, I see buckets of crushed ice at the bar that apparently the assassin completely ignored. Anyway you slice it, this assassin seems to be trying way too hard... Seriously, if you come up with a way in which this plot point wasn't stupid, please let me know. That was far and away one of the most egregious fridge logic offenses, but it was kind of pivotal to the story and managed to taint most of the rest of the pilot for me... The rest of the fridge logic (Why the hell would the assassin have chosen the train debut for the kill? Why wouldn't the assassin have just rescheduled the hit after the drink didn't work? Why didn't they stop the train after the guy who did drink the poison collapsed? Yeah, that's right, after assessing that Tricia's drink was poisoned, he put the drink back down on the table for someone else to take! Way to protect people, dumbass. I guess he only protects them if they pay him...) would take days to recount, but rest assured, it was annoying.The pilot eventually devolved into Mark Valley beating the hell out of the bad guy and then splattering him on the wall of a tunnel. Um, yay? After that, it's discovered that the train can't stop (because the brakes are out, of course), so Mark and Tricia fly to safety with aid of a homemade parachute that Valley McGuyvered in like a minute and half. Oh yeah, more fridge logic coming at you--so they all ditched the train, but the damn thing is still going to derail pretty soon, but apparently no one really cares. I, uh, assume they warned the people down the line? I sure hope that train doesn't go anywhere near any buildings or people or anything... No one really seems all that concerned about the train... Whatever.
What on earth were Chi McBride and Jackie Earle Haley up to all this time? I'm not totally sure, but I'm pretty certain I didn't really care. McBride seemed busy middle managing and muttering while Haley
was making phone calls. Sounds boring, doesn't it? Well, it was. I realize the need for that kind of aspect to the show and that kind of character around to figure things out, but it was handled in about the most lackluster possible way. Haley figured out that Tricia had cheated on her husband some time ago and pieced the whole thing together just in time. He actually had a House moment when some guy he was talking to said something and he literally stopped and said, "What did you just say?" Oy. The only way it could have been lamer or more textbook is if they had done the whole, "No, no, before that!" Mercifully, they did not, so that totally wins them back a few points. What did all this effort and fighting and gum-shoery figure out in the end? The husband did it. Well hell, I could have told you that 42 minutes ago.It wasn't a terrible pilot, but it should have been a better. I think that's where I'm coming down on the pilot pretty hard. The writing should have been tighter, the narrative should have made a lot more sense, and the interplay between all the characters should have mattered a whole lot more. Tricia was seriously the most well-rounded, engaging characters in the pilot and we'll never see her again. Writers have more time, more money, and more leeway to do as they please with a pilot, so I kind of expect them to be better than this. I know that sounds counter to my philosophy that you can't judge a show solely by its pilot (and really, you can't), but for this type of show, it should have given viewers a lot more. In the same vein as Alias, Spooks, and Burn Notice, I want to be sucked in, mesmerized, and completely blown away by the pilot and with Human Target, I left feeling a bit underwhelmed and not exactly chomping at the bit for next week. (And yes, I realize it's kind of paradoxical to be "sucked in" and "blown away" by something. It's like Bart's rules of physics.)
The production value was solid and the bare bones of the show have a fair bit of potential, but I got the feeling the writers didn't really work out all the logistics before they put this all together. I enjoyed the action and the fight
sequences on the same level that I always do, and the acting was solid, but at the end of the day, I'm just not sure I really cared about these people or what was happening to them. If they want to make this show work, I'd suggest they bring in a couple more characters, they refine their A-plots so that they matter in the grander scheme of things, analyze their fridge logic and remove it, give the show more substance and psychological depth, and create a dynamic among characters that makes me actually care if they get blown to bits or not. It's hard to feel connected with characters after only one episode, I'll admit, but I was desperate to find out what was going to happen to Sydney Bristow, couldn't wait to see how Micheal Westen would get his life back, and was on pins and needles hoping Tom Quinn would come out on top. Christopher Chance? I, uh, guess it would be pretty unfortunate for the maintenance workers, if they, uh, had to clear away his remains... and that would be bad, I guess...I'm not saying this show can't make it (a number of classic shows have had less than classic pilots), but so far? I'm unconvinced.
Pilot Grade: C+
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