Human Target

Thanks to increasingly high audience impatience and financial pressure to perform, TV shows have been getting off to stronger starts these past five or so years. Where it was once understood that pilots would be kind of awkward but just enticing enough to convince viewers to give a show some time to find its legs, the average program now has to hit the ground running in order to have a fighting chance - and most of the good ones still don't survive. Human Target, one of the newest residents of the airwave jungle, has hit the ground running through a U.S. Army obstacle training course with flying colours. What I'm trying to convey with that clumsy analogy, which probably came from having just read a chapter about boot camp in the memoirs of Major Richard Winters, is that the first three episodes of Human Target to go to air have been some very good TV that seems to be doing its best to avoid being a genre cliche.

The premise of Human Target is a very easy one to cliche, as it revolves around the business of a small private security company whose M.O. is to use their high-end clients as bait in order to draw out and apprehend their would-be assassins, robbers, whatever. Staffed by an operator (Chi McBride), a freelance information specialist (Jackie Earle Haley), and, of course, the field operator who acts as an unconventional bodyguard (Mark Valley), they're a legal business, not off the grid like the A-Team. They're also, as demonstrated to solid comic effect in the third episode, very well-connected. Although his history is still a bit spotty, it's been implied that main character Christopher Chance (Valley) has a CIA and/or U.S. Army Special Forces background, and that his past work has earned him a lot of favours in high places waiting to be called in, which also helps with legal side of things.

What is so far making Human Target work, strong acting and writing aside, is its eschewing of standard "special agent for hire" conventions. For example, on basically every other show in the genre, Guerrero (Haley) would be an omnipotent computer geek inept in every other aspect of life. On Human Target, though Guerrero knows his way around a computer and then some, he really is, as I referred to him above, an information specialist. He has contacts, he does legwork, he finds the missing pieces of the puzzle through a wide variety of means for Chris and Winston (McBride). And the best part is, neither him nor secret agent man Chris are omnipotent. They're smart, resourceful, and very well-rounded, but they don't know everything. In the second episode, when a fire in a plane's cabin put the pilots out of commission with smoke inhalation and Chris had to step in and help out, he may have a pilot's license but had, reasonably, never flown a 747, which meant he didn't know squat about its landing gear...but he did know where the cockpit manual was, and consulted it. Later in the same episode, when faced with a problem in the plane's wiring, he went to the pilot for help instead of phoning his tech expert, because Guererro's no expert on 747s - the pilot is. What makes Chris such a great character is that he knows how to use resources, and what makes Guerrero a great character, aside from not being an all-knowing, magical instant problem-solving computer nerd, is that he also knows how to use resources. This team is not an isolated one, which is very refreshing (not to mention plain ol' good storytelling). In the third episode, Guerrero had to keep an eye on someone who'd been poisoned with something that would eventually stop his heart, and his first move was to try to get a hold of his local contacts with medical training. When that fell through (one in prison, the other dead), he went to find a defibrillator, and while sitting around waiting for the need to use it, he read the manual. That's right, he didn't already know how to use a defibrillator, but as he reminded a high-strung Winston, they put those things on school buses. He can figure out how to use one. I would never say anything bad about MacGyver, but I'm glad that the characters on Human Target are not his inferior wannabes.

The three main characters have distinct personalities, interact well together, and, most importantly, each have a different role to play (no pun intended). Guererro does legwork in his capacity as an information guy, and he gets stuff done, but he's no field operative - that's Chris's job. Winston doesn't seem to do much leg work at all, which is fine as he's well suited to and very good at his role as operator and coordinator. As for personalities, Chris is no James Bond or Sam Spade, nor is he a lone wolf or infalliable. He's successful because he doesn't work alone. And Guererro is no awkward wallflower. He's successful in his field of work because he's confident, aggressive, kind of scary, and knows how to deal with people, and has a great tick of calling everyone "dude" without sounding contrived. He's easily shaping up to be my favourite part of the show.

The other major point in Human Target's favour is excellent action, stuntwork, and fight choreography. It also helps that Mark Valley has not only done stuntwork before, but is a West Point graduate and veteran of Desert Storm, and the show makes good use of his physical talents. There's plenty of proper dirty fighting going on, in which Chris makes reasonable use of his surroundings, and the show's even had him fight two women without getting all Mr. and Mrs. Smith stupid (though they couldn't resist using the standard cheesy tango music to accompany a co-ed fight at a black-tie function). This show probably also has a bit more financial freedom for its all-important action sequences due to the fact that their excellent "B-list" main cast probably comes with a reasonable price tag, and you know what? The solution to that equation is high-quality fun that keeps a decent distance from sensationalism.

Due to the unwritten rule that you are no longer allowed to have a cop/buddy cop/spy show with an all-male cast, they have introduced a sexy FBI agent to whom Chris has deliberately made himself accessible, and although his business operates more or less above board and he has friends in high places, he's still broken plenty of federal and international laws over the years - if someone can find him and make a charge stick. His fingerprints are on file, along with over a dozen aliases, but is otherwise blank, and now he's given someone in law enforcement a face to go with the names. I can't imagine what they plan to do with Lady Agent, but I do hope it doesn't involve her joining the team (which has a rock-solid dynamic and is just fine as it is) or adding an unecessary and cliched plot tension involving trying to arrest Chris.

It would seem that Fox has high hopes for Human Target, because where I live it's currently serving as the lead-in for 24, a great way to build an audience and ensure stable ratings. This one may actually be around for a while. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.