HUMAN TARGET 1.6 - "Lockdown"

WRITER: Josh Schaer
DIRECTOR: Jon Cassar
GUEST CAST: Autumn Reeser, Kevin Weisman & Mitch Pileggi

[SPOILERS] I had a lot of fun watching this episode, which was one of the best straight hours of TV action in awhile, if nothing memorable in terms of its frivolous plot and archetypal characterizations. Human Target predominantly exists to entertain as visual bubblegum, and it's doing so with a confidence that's appealing and a talented cast who know the score.

Thing is, it's a struggle to review episodes of Human Target without repeating myself every week, so maybe it would be best to scale-back on the word-count and be briefer. To that end, "Lockdown" involved the liberation of a computer geek Martin Gleason (a typecast Kevin Weisman) from a government contractor's building outfitted with the state-of-the-art security, as he's being forced to create a dangerous plasma cannon for the military. Chance (Mark Valley) has been hired to spring Martin from what's essentially a high-tech prison, by parachuting onto the building's roof (its only weak spot, natch), going undercover as a janitor, and preparing to base-jump Martin to safety out of an office window. Things obviously don't go according to plan, so the rest of the hour finds Chance having to put contingency plans into action, to avoid capture by the stern head of security (Mitch Pileggi, the second X Files alumnus in as many weeks) and his sexy surveillance technician Layla (Autumn Reeser).

There's a skydive, corrosive acid, crawls through air vents, dangerous jumps, pressure-sensitive floors, toxic gas, elevator shaft pursuits, shootouts, building-wide searches using heat-sensitive cameras, exploding water coolers, you name it. This was an extremely fast-paced and entertaining hour that embraced clichés while tweaking others, utterly content to give us effective thrills with no fat. It probably helped that Jon Cassar (formerly of 24) was orchestrating the action as director, because he has plenty of experience creating filmic action on a small budget and seemed to relish the chance to distil his 24 training into something altogether simpler and breezier.

And it's still fun watching the subplots with Winston (Chi McBride) and Guerrera (Jackie Earle Haley), that could so easily be dull, but rarely are because their characters are uncomfortable in each other's company and clash amusingly. Here, they have to force the FBI to storm the building, but the only way that's legal is if the Feds are convinced it's a matter of national security, so Winston has to pretend he's a detective who's picked up Guerrero as an informant who claims there's a situation that needs Federal attention.

For mytharc lovers, a few extra clues are dropped about Chance's shadowy past, too: he effectively joined Winston's operation as a means of escaping his old boss, who we'll assume was using Chance's obvious skills for nefarious means. Chance's boss appears to be the season's "big bad" now, insomuch that we learn he has feelers out to try and locate his absconded employee.

Overall, Human Target isn't concerned about trying to rewrite the rulebook when it comes to action-adventure shows, but the manner in which it's updating tropes of '80s fare like McGyver and The A-Team can be great fun if you're in the mood, or you're a 14-year-old boy/tomboy who responds well to TV shows that open with a man skydiving onto a roof.

Asides

-- I can't believe they did the scene where two geeks (forget the physical disparity between Weisman and Reeser) found love blossoming after one shared scene near the end. "Hi, I'm the woman who spied on you and was complicit in your incarceration all these months". "Oh, hi, implausibly-hot-surveillance-girl, meet my pet goldfish I keep in a baggie -- let's date."

-- It's kind of fun how Human Target often avoids showing close-quarters violence like gunshots and blood. I think we need a few jeeps being flipped upside-down, only for the bad guys to scramble out of the windows soon, too.

17 FEBRUARY 2010: FOX, 9/8c