A Reboot That Works

While the first season of Fox's Human Target had an amazing pilot, later episodes ran the gamut from "damn good cup of coffee" to "eh, is this all you got?" More often than not, they fell under the latter, with the primary reason to watch at all being Jackie Earle Haley's deadpan portrayal as the man of mystery with only one name: Guerrero.


However, the second season reboot - which added two new female cast members, more reliance on pop music in the weekly scores, and a international espionage spy hook - is overall a better show. Mark Valley has settled into the role as the wry Christopher Chance and now wears it with a mix of humor and "tormented hero with a dark past" that is very engaging. Chi McBride's Winston huffs and puffs, but peeks into his quirky private life have helped to humanize the character. Count me in as pleasantly surprised (although the "Guerrero as master torturer jokes" have outworn their welcome).

Of course, for the past two weeks, Fox has been running double episodes on Wednesday nights back to back, which is never a good sign (especially since the show has only a 13 episode order). This usually is a sign of burning off a series, and that has me worried about a third season.

In other words, watch it now ... while you still can.