I Heart Human Target

I'll start with the negative, New Girl. I don't like New Girl, and I have no idea why they felt the need to add her. Well, I'll take that back. I have a guess that someone wearing a too-expensive suit, with an office that's way too nice for how little they probably do piped up in a meeting and said that this all-testosterone show needed a female as a series regular in order to appeal to a wider demographic. Well that idea sucks. New Girl's added energy and irritating naivete clashes with the more cynical, world-weary veterans of Chance (Mark Valley, Awesome!), Guerrero (Jackie Earl Haley, a creepy, psychopathic geek, Also Awesome!), and Winston (Chi McBride, Pushing Daises Ruled!). And yes, I realize that this too was part of the point of her character, to give "new energy" to the show by adding a newbie to the cast's dark world, but it just doesn't work. The only thing that would make her remotely interesting to me is if she turned out to be working for the mysterious Old Man that Chance and Guerrero used to work for.

Other than that, I really have loved this show. Every episode is like its own self-contained action movie whittled down to an hour (with commercials) which means that the most boring parts of action movies (set-up, exposition, conversations meant to build up characters, horribly forced love stories) are limited or just gone. They've already done Die Hard at a monastery, an episode on a hijacked plane, and a somewhat rip-off of The Gauntlet (which itself was much better when remade as 16 Blocks).

The show is now getting more into a recurring storyline of Chance and Guerrero dealing with their former, nameless employer (Chance and Guerrero aren't their "real" names, either, f.y.i.), but I'm not so sure they need it. I know why they would want it: to keep casual viewers coming back every week with a continuing storyline, but I liked the way it was before and I think enough other people did too (last night's show somehow dropped in their so-called target demographic according to Nielsen, but kept high ratings, proving once again that Nielsen is a lousy way to judge ratings).

I do like how the show is now having scary Guerrero and leader Winston do more than sit behind the scenes and set up the situation so Chance can do something unbelievable. Yes, I realize that that's another reason why they added New Girl, but that's another reason why I don't like New Girl. Those techie/ lab geek characters on these kind of shows/ movies that never seem to do anything tend to bug me because they're just scenery and they leave me wondering why are you even here? Why do you get lines and screen time at all? Can't we write around you? I mean, you just sit there typing while others risk their lives, for Gods' sakes, C'MON! When robots with advanced A.I. become common, these characters' roles will be some of the first jobs to go.

I guess now I need a conclusion.... ummm... Human Target's awesome. That's it.