Human Target: First Episode Judgement

Human Target is a new prime time show which just aired its first episode this last weekend. The premise is that our hero, played by Mark Valley, runs a firm which specializes in flushing out would be assassins. He does this by impersonating someone innocuously close to the target, to avoid spooking the killer, and then subduing them once they've revealed themselves.

Thankfully this first episode doesn't do a lot to set up our hero's origin, there's no flashback scenes to his military service in Afghanistan or a Batman-esque origin a CEO who's entire family was killed in an attempt on his life. He's just introduced as the solution to your assassin problems, and then they run with it.

The action was intense with the main plot involving a train scene which was very much trying to emulate the first Mission Impossible movie, and succeeding. Fight scenes were also very well choreographed, and featured a certain playfulness that I hope they manage to carry throughout the series.

Supporting our hero from the sidelines are his manager, Winston (played by Chi McBride, essentially reprising his role as Emerson Cod from Pushing Daisies), and the vaguely psychopathic Guerrero (played by Jackie Earle Haley, who played Rorschach in the Watchmen, who is bring just a little of that into this new character).

Bottom line is that it's a lot of fun, and I'm definitely in to watch some more of it, I only hope that they didn't blow everything on the first episode and that they can keep that pace up. All the characters seem to be in safe spots, established actors playing established archetypes, but really, this show isn't about seeing great characterization, it's about having a blockbuster action flick in your living room every Sunday.

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