tek's rating: ½

Human Target, on FOX
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This is based on a comic book, which I've never read. And apparently, there was a previous TV adaptation that I don't think I ever saw. But the basic situation you have here is an hourlong action movie every week. I'm not the biggest fan of action movies, mostly because they don't tend to have much of a plot. I mean, yeah, they're sort of about something, but it's all just a framework for the action. Still, they're generally fun to watch, even if they require an enormous amount of suspension of disbelief. Lots of ridiculous and wildly improbable things can happen. But if it's fun, it doesn't really matter. This show is fun, and getting a new story every week allows a chance to build up a decent ongoing story, by letting us get to know the characters better.

Of course, there are just three regular characters (at least in the first season), and very few recurring characters. The main character is Christopher Chance (Mark Valley). He seems to be pretty smart, has a wide range of knowledge, as well as being good at fighting. He also seems to possibly have a death wish, and of course he's pretty flippant. In any event, he has a private business in "protection," which means he integrates himself into the life of his client, flushes out whoever wants that client dead, and does whatever he has to to take them down, including putting his own life very much on the line (hence the title). He has a business partner named Winston (Chi McBride). It seems like he knows more about actually running a business than Chance does. He also seems more concerned about keeping Chance alive than Chance does. And he's good at finding information, putting things together, and whatnot, to aid Chance in his jobs (we eventually learn Winston used to be a cop). Then there's Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley). He actually kind of reminds me, here, of his character in Watchmen, in that Guerrero (like Rorschach) is kind of nuts and willing to do whatever it takes to get a job done, and has little regard for anyone else. Winston generally can't stand him, but he's apparently friends with Chance. He also seems to be a former bad guy of some sort, even if he's working with the good guys, now. But he still has shady contacts, who can be useful in providing information that could help Chance. He also has a dark sense of humor, which I quite enjoy. (Guerrero is my favorite character on the show.)

So, anyway, as I said, the series is mostly a different story each week, which is cool. But there is the ongoing mystery of Chance's past. I don't really want to spoil anything about that, but we learn bits and pieces throughout the first season, and the season finale reveals a great deal, ties together some of the pieces we'd learned about throughout the season. And it ends on something of a cliffhanger, with Winston being kidnapped. Chance and Guerrero rescue him early in the second season premiere, after which Chance disappears, believing he's gotten too close to his partners, and not wanting to put them in more danger. However, a wealthy woman named Ilsa Pucci tracks him down and convinces him to help protect her from whoever had killed her husband. So, he reunites with Winston and Guerrero, and at the end of the episode, she offers to bankroll their protection business, so from now on they'll have access to a lot more resources. Also in the second season premiere, the team meets a thief named Ames, and she ends up joining the team. Not sure what else to say about season 2, though mostly I thought it was inferior to season 1, it still had its good points. In the season finale, more is learned about the death of Ilsa's husband. I thought it was a pretty decent episode. I wouldn't have minded a third season, but there wasn't one, and I'm not really upset about that.


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