“I’m going to give you a choice. Because I believe in every human being’s right to be tortured democratically.” – Guerrero
Michael did a poll recently, shouting out to favorite trios currently on television. I nominated and voted for Human Target‘s Chance, Winston and Guerrero … me and, um, two percent of you (really? Fringe?).
Regardless, I didn’t want anyone messing with my trio. I have issues when shows step out of the comforting formula that I love (see House — a place I didn’t welcome Chi McBride) and I even wrote last season about how nice it was that there wasn’t a regular female character for Chance to flirt with.
But Human Target just did it … they went ahead and messed with my trio. They just added two regular female characters to the cast for this season, including a new boss for the boys. And everything about it worked. Beyond that, I think the writers were very, very smart in making the decision to add some female regulars. No one watches male buddy shows these days. Terriers and The Good Guys (though they’ve got Jenny Wade) is being watched by no one, and the only reason NCIS: LA works is because of the ensemble cast surrounding Callen and Hanna. I can’t remember a buddy trio that’s worked since Magnum, P.I.
What is working are ensemble casts: Leverage, Glee, The Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist, and Modern Family, among others. The decision to add Human Target to the ranks of the successes is just fine in my book. Guerrero is still awesome, from the guy in his trunk that he just dumps to waltzing into the party with a machine giant gun, the exchange with Winston when he was trying to get Guerrero to help him capture the girl, ending with punching out the girl (his new cohort) — yeah, I laughed out loud both times I watched this episode.
Other moments of awesomeness:
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Nov 17, 2010 @ 21:00 EST5EDT
My only quibble….I want the season one credits theme baack, this new one sucks.
They unfortunately got rid of the amazing Bear McCreary – I agree his music was waaaay better. It gave the show a different feeling, and his music just fit so well.
*POST AUTHOR*
Agreed … not sure what the game plan was in changing that.
Debbie, I’m glad that you were able to enjoy the season two premiere, since you were a fan of the first season. It’s been maddening reading prominent online critics lauding the revamping, even calling it “vastly improved” over an unimpressive season one, only to admit that they had watched, at most, half of the episodes.
For me, the premiere was clunky, dissonant, and ham-fisted, although I can see how it could have been much, much worse. Still, it was such a disappointment that it shifted the show from “hurry home to watch live” to “DVR and try to watch it in the 1-2 weeks before the next episode airs.”
This really shows the difference when a new showrunner is promoted from within (Dexter, Supernatural (so I hear), even, I would argue, Gilmore Girls) and when he or she is brought in out of the blue to rejigger a show (In Plain Sight, and now Human Target).
First, they’ve never lacked for resources, contacts, or favors in the past, and suddenly they welcome a female Charlie? The entire backstory of the three main characters was rooted in their independence, their breaking away from authority/command structure, and their “little guys against the world” attitude, which was slowly parsed out over the previous twelve episodes. To have it completely reversed literally within the space of two conversations feels unearned. Winston’s conversion through executive travel and creature comforts was particularly odious given his issues with bribery and corruption while on the SFPD. I’ve heard this practice referred to as “lightswitching” in the Smallville fandom, and it seems poetically appropriate here as Chance sheds his deep-seated need for secrecy and obscurity in a grand total of five seconds by opening his blinds to let the light shine in.
Guerrero, however? Pitch-perfect, no matter with whom he was paired.
Hated Ilsa from the moment she loudly swept through the meditation grounds, uninvited to harangue/insult/banter with a stranger from whom she’d come to request his aid. From my reading of the scene, her visit was even the cause of Chance’s ejection from the ashram. Her exposition for new viewers of rattling off to Chance his own curriculum vitae to prove herself is a cliché that always makes me less favorably disposed to a character. Then, she capped it off by displaying an appalling lack of insight in calling Chance a coward, bait anyone with Chance’s background and experience would obviously be secure enough not to take. Even after she’s hired the best bodyguard in the world, she seems to take stubborn pride in doubting, ignoring, or doing the exact opposite of everything he tells her. After the fundraiser, I was hoping she’d die as a direct result of her own stupidity.
The pre-publicity blitz took pains to emphasize that Ilsa wouldn’t be merely a damsel in distress like so many of the season one clients. To me that’s exactly what she was: little more than baggage to be dragged about, and most of the previous non-FBI agent clients exhibited far greater spirit and independent thought in escape, evasion, or fighting back. When she’s approaching Chance in her party dress (and this show does not need the Bones/Castle dynamic in any way), I noticed the top of her head was being weirdly cut off more and more. It took me a moment to realize that the director was doing so to keep her partially-exposed boobs in the frame for purposes of teh sexy. Pandering that isn’t self-aware for comedic effect just cheapens the show and the character for me. It wasn’t until the 45-minute mark that she finally grew a backbone and became someone I could tolerate.
As for the other shoehorned, network-focus-grouped female lead, the spunky young thief was less irritating, but didn’t have enough quirk to make her instantly likable, so her angry bravado in the face of the calm Guerrero was more pathetic than impressive. After Ilsa, I was surprised we weren’t treated to a bra shot of her changing in the elevator, until her William Ware Theiss-like dress revealed the impossibility of that scene appearing on a broadcast network. Loved that Guerrero could punch her in the face without any misogynistic overtones. But once again, the actor’s performance is undercut by the awful writing:
Ames: Can I stay here? Borrow a gun? If I leave, I’m dead.
(Chance talks about taking her to Geneva.)
Winston: We can’t trust her.
Ames: Hey, slow cop! I could’ve been halfway home by now.
Me: *slaps palm to forehead*
Part of the problem is that both of the new characters were written into a single episode for the express purpose of joining the team, having never before been seen by the audience, and the inorganic quality of it was jarring. Autumn Reeser was already signed to ABC, but would Emmanuelle Vaugier or any of the one-off female clients have been so expensive to bring back?
The plots aren’t any worse this season (and there were some awful ones in the past), but there was a subtlety and avoidance of certain overused tropes (while reveling in others) that is sadly missing now. I hope the writers will be able to settle down now that all that clumsy character introduction is out of the way and let future episodes breathe. And to wrap up last season’s cliffhanger in the first five minutes was a criminal misuse of Timothy Omundson, who had better appear again with a hook for a hand capable of firing a gun. I’d rather they had just made the whole thing a dream sequence or a practical joke of the Old Man.
This music might have worked on Chuck, but was ear-bleedingly bad for this show, especially as compared to its seminal orchestral arrangements and character themes, which were composed even before the pilot was shot. The new opening music is a slap in the face. And cue the lazy writer’s crutch of the on-the-nose emotional indie song at the 54-minute mark like clockwork rather than actually bothering to write a scene and let the actor show us their feelings instead. If these taciturn, guarded men start spilling their emotional guts out at the end of each episode, even the Triumvirate couldn’t get me to stick around.
And we’ll have to see what happens now that the case in every episode is being mandated to be written to relate personally to one of the main characters, or reflect something happening in their personal lives. I want my light, fun, breezy, action-packed trio show to continue. If I wanted a grittier, more emotional and real (but mostly angsty) ensemble show, I’d spin the dial to any random broadcast channel in primetime Sunday through Friday.
Oh yeah, the good stuff. Thief chick was suitably hot. Tahmoh Penikett will not let the demise of Dollhouse prevent him from playing his Ballard character. Much like Stargate Atlantis, a talented cast with great chemistry can make even stale, hackneyed scripts watchable and enjoyable.
*POST AUTHOR*
It definitely depends where they go from here … there’s always room for screwing up. :-)
I look at it a little bit differently than you do, though. I do think they lacked for resources, and Winston was a vocal complainer about it last season. I especially remember it when they had to hijack the plane, I think.
Then, with Ilsa, I just look at it as her growth — yeah, she was way stupid to not listen to Chance, but the way she values him in the end, enough to be his benefactor … I think it has potential. After all the redeeming Chance has to do, I think it did him good to be trusted by someone, validated if you will.
I think the jury’s still out on the killing, but I LOVED Guerrero taking out two hands in one episode. I don’t want them to get soft, but this to me was a great example of Guerrero’s twisted brilliance.
If they do it right, it will work. If the best romance on the show remains Chance and Winston, then I’ll be very happy! :-)
The show creator, Jonathan Steinberg, had to go to bat for McCreary with the network in the first place, and using an orchestra to record the score was apparently quite expensive. With him gone, I imagine that was one of the first directives from FOX to cut costs.
The new showrunner, Matt Miller, has stated that the old score made the show sound like an “action-adventure movie” (which is what I thought was exactly what was desired), and that he wanted to contemporize the music and make it more suitable for the “needle drops” he was going to include. I’m choosing to believe that this was a network decision, not his, and that he was being diplomatic rather than tone-deaf in regard to ripping out McCreary’s Emmy-nominated main title theme. Or it could just be he wanted to work with an old friend, since he brought over Tim Jones from Chuck as the replacement.
I understand that the two new actors gave excellent performances on shows I haven’t seen, so perhaps they’ll also be able to rise above the writing as well as the main trio do. I should keep in mind that I thought the pilot episode was terrible last spring, with the train plot and Chance’s callous disregard for the lives of innocent bystanders, but the show improved quickly after that. Human Target could yet turn out like NCIS for me: still entertaining, just not as deft or skilled as I found it before the showrunner change.
Winston was always the voice of reason, but there were times I think he secretly enjoyed bitching about their shoestring budget. One of the reasons for that was that Chance was forever undercharging or refunding the people he helped (or using an expensive bottle of liquor as a Molotov cocktail), but the team always managed to scrounge something up, or call in a favor from the Secretary of Defense. And if I remember correctly, the plane hijacking was a spur-of-the-moment improvisation when the original plan went south.
If the offer of an absentee, silent, no-strings-attached benefactor were genuine, I could see Winston becoming grudgingly accustomed to the arrangement. But since none of those will be true, I expect him to at least voice his characteristic objections out loud in future episodes before settling into an amiable relationship.
Certainly Ilsa needed a journey, but for me characters must start from a minimum level of competence and likability or I tend to hold on to my disrespect of them afterward. Personally, I didn’t find her trust in Chance any greater than that of the previous clients he has saved (especially Katherine Walters); it’s just that she has the unlimited wealth and leisure time to hang around him afterward, whereas the others all have their own lives to which to attend.
Hey, I’ll never argue with you about Guerrero’s badassitude. ;)
If the best romance on the show, and I do believe you are correct, is Chance/Winston, then Winston/Guerrero remains the best sibling dynamic.
alex99, Penikett’s character was dead in the elevator, shot through the chest. I was merely joking that his performance here seemed to be the exact same one he used as an FBI Agent in Dollhouse. Agreed on the tattered, scuffed loft being far superior to the chrome and glass monstrosity pinched from Modern Living. And will Ilsa allow poor Carmine on those $5500 white leather Barcelona chairs? Actually, it would be great if the five of them come back after a harrowing mission, and Carmine has absolutely demolished the office and chewed all the bits into pieces. :)
Sorry, forgot to mention one last complaint out of all the thoughts percolating in my head. One of the refreshing things about Human Target was that the assassins Chance and Guerrero were deadly competent. If a gun battle broke out, they killed people quickly and frequently, often with precise single shots. You can even witness this in the “Previously on…” segment. So to have so many missed shots, wounding shots to the hand, and evil minions left alive in this episode makes the action seem to have come from an entirely different, and inferior, show.
In case you didn’t notice, I think Tahmoe Penikett’s character is dead. Wasn’t that him lying shot on the floor of the elevator after Ilsa was taken? If so, that’s fine with me. I like the actor just fine, but don’t think he belongs here, I found him a distraction in the scenes he was in.
Despite all the gloom and doom I read coming into the second season, I thought it was ok for the type of show it was… a fairly light action comedy/drama that really doesn’t warrant all that much analysis. I did find the new music a disappointment, and I much preferred the funky old loft HQ to this new modern stainless steel and glass thing (like the Hawaii 5-0 HQ, yuck!) they have now.
I keep forgetting one thing on these longwinded replies. Even with all of FOX’s advertising, the season premiere only got a 6.590m/1.8 in overnight finals, and will probably drop from that next week like any other show. With Fringe, Lie to Me, and Human Target all competing for 0-1 slots on FOX’s Fall 2011 schedule, I doubt we’ll be getting a season three. So I hope that the new cast and crew find their groove very quickly.
I started with Season 1 pilot without missing an episode. Thanks Fox for taking a sometimes witty, fast paced action thiller and turning it into standard overblown formula fare. Well they assured one thing and that is it won’t be around next season.
Mark Valley started out as a strong character in the Boston Legal cast until they watered down his character. They are doing the same thing to his character here. Ensemble cast? Ames and Ilsa need to exit the show and strong female characters like Tricia Helfer from the pilot need to reappear. Otherwise this show is headed for the dumpster. Keen Eddie gets the shaft again.
I loved Human Target BEFORE they brought on the women.
When Ms. Pucci tells the guys what to do and when to do it,
I shut the show off.
It is SO LAME to think that this rich b___h thinks she can tell them what to do. these guys are skilled in what they do and when
she makes “demands” I want to scream. Did I mention that it is
LAME? Not going to watch. …until someone tells me that the
women are OUT.