Prospective viewers can get insight into the intellectual quality of this new action series on Fox by thinking for a small moment about its title: “Human Target.”
It sounds like a new Jean-Claude Van Damme movie ““ wait, no, I’m just thinking of his 1993 title “Hard Target” ““ in that there’s absolutely no wit to this title, just as in most passe action movies or Fox TV shows in the action or thriller genres (“24,” “Prison Break”) these days. In short, “Human Target,” which takes its title from the graphic novel upon which it is based, indeed turns out to be just as vacuous, and also as ironically good, as anything made by Fox and/or starring Van Damme.
The show centers on Christopher Chance (Mark Valley, “Boston Legal”), a handsome, wisecracking and uber steely bodyguard who can sleuth and stealth his way in and out of the stickiest situations while absorbing zero casualties of innocents. He gets contracted out by Winston (Chi McBride, “Waiting”) to wealthy clients who know that they are marked for assassination ahead of time.
He collects background information on his targets and possible assassins with the help of a hacker going by the name of Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley, who was the standout from “Watchmen” in the role of the tortured Rorschach).
The first two episodes deal heavily in sabotage of mass transport vehicles and twists that make the all-but-certain capture or killing of masterminds and henchmen quite satisfying. These exciting elements make it hard to render a satisfactory verdict. Those who are looking for several multi-minute sequences of hand-to-hand combat and sizeable explosions will find the show they’re looking for with “Human Target.”
The show also nails the tried-and-true background story of ongoing dysfunction among the main crime-fighting group a la the “Lethal Weapon” and “Die Hard” series. Chance and Guerrero both drive Winston to whine and make chuckle-worthy retorts that keep the show chugging along smoothly during some plot development scenes.
A final bonus is that the writer and executive producer Jonathan Steinberg (“Jericho”) sometimes even manages to sneak some decent political satire into the show’s pilot episode, which details a state mass transit project.
On the other hand, “Human Target” suffers fundamentally from injecting itself with a copious amount of annoying, apparently “emotional” moments that are worthy of the signature tick-tock melody from “Jeopardy!” The themes that these moments help to develop are also inconsistent. Even those who somehow find the personal issues of such a dispassionate man as Chance stimulating will be frustrated by the lack of focus on his many issues.
The show also has an irritating way of incorporating varying levels of logic underpinning the problems facing Chance and the solutions he comes up with. Everyone knows that at this point, and in the first season at that, he’s going to be able to get himself out of any potentially lethal situation that presents itself ““ I would just like the solution to be something that doesn’t bend the laws of physics or chemistry and that can be explained clearly.
So what you have in “Human Target” is a “drama” series that fails miserably at actually being dramatic or realistic. It’s a series that goes for cheap laughs and fairly cheap thrills. That said, if you know what you’re getting into, it can still be very entertaining and compelling.
““ Ross Moody
E-mail Moody at rmoody@media.ucla.edu.