‘Human Target’ more focused after dodging bullet

At least something good came out of the debacle known as "Lone Star."

When the Fox con-man drama became the fall's first casualty only nine days into the new season, it left the network's schedule in disarray. "Lie to Me" was called up from a midseason Wednesday berth to fill in for it on Mondays. And the clever action drama "Human Target," which was mere hours away from beginning its near-certain death march on Fridays, was given a reprieve with "Lie to Me's" original, far more desirable slot.

In its first season, "Human Target" (8 p.m. Wednesday, KVVU-TV, Channel 5) was the rare show I watched every week despite wishing it were better. Its characters were fun and unique, and they played off each other well. The storytelling just seemed a little ... off.

But now, the graphic-novel-inspired series is making the most of its second chance with a reboot of sorts, reintroducing the tale of unorthodox bodyguard Christopher Chance (Mark Valley) and his team for viewers who missed its 12-episode run this spring. And, so far, the results seem more focused.

New executive producer Matt Miller ("Chuck," "Las Vegas") dispatches "Human Target's" season-ending cliffhanger -- in which Chance's business partner, gruff former police detective Winston (Chi McBride), was kidnapped as part of some convoluted burglary tied to Chance's past -- with relative ease in Wednesday's opening minutes. And he doesn't look back.

"I know that Christopher Chance isn't your real name," this week's client, billionaire philanthropist Ilsa Pucci (Indira Varma), declares early on. "I know that you used to be an assassin. And I also know that you're the person people come to as a last resort." And that's pretty much all the back story new viewers need.

Oh, sure, fans learned last season that as a young man, Chance was adopted into a group of assassins. That he killed whenever and whomever he was told -- until he fell for Katherine, an innocent target he tried but ultimately failed to protect. And that it was that heartbreak, six years ago, that led Chance and fellow assassin Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley) to change their ways and team with Winston to try to atone for their sins.

But all that's just gravy with the arrival of "Human Target 2.0."

Ilsa is quickly taken with Chance's brand of protection: He gets close to his clients, then makes them as visible as possible to flush out and eliminate the threat. As he puts it, "We'll throw a party and pray somebody tries to kill you."

Impressed by his effectiveness, as well as his desire to make amends, she soon offers her vast fortune to help him help others. "Think of me as a benefactor," she tells Chance. "Someone to bankroll your redemption." That means access to private jets, fancy cars, high-tech equipment and swanky digs -- all a far cry from January's debut that saw Chance and Winston relying on the barter system for payment in order to stay off the radar.

The estrogen injection provided by new series regulars Ilsa and top-notch thief Ames (Janet Montgomery) isn't the new regime's only change. Gone are the Bond-on-a-budget set pieces that never quite rang true. Chance fought bad guys while trapped on a train, on a plane and in a high-rise. Mercifully, "Human Target" has stopped lifting scenarios from late-'80s, early-'90s action movies before Chance found himself trying to clean up a rough-and-tumble roadhouse or ended up being chased by a Predator.

That's not to say "Human Target" has given up its action sequences. To the joys of glassmakers everywhere, a typical fight scene this season feels more destructive than ever. Only now that they're not so grandiose, the brawls seem more realistic.

At its heart, though, "Human Target's" greatest strength is still its characters.

Roget hasn't compiled enough adjectives to do justice to the awesomeness that is Haley. He's tiny -- wee even -- despite his cowboy boots, but his dude-speaking Guerrero packs more menace than the entire terrifying cast of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey."

"I believe in every human being's right to being tortured democratically," Guerrero tells a young woman he's about to interrogate, offering her the choice of being shot in the kneecaps or having her fingernails pulled out by a fishing lure.

And nobody on TV does the slow burn better than McBride.

But "Human Target" will live or die based on Valley's indisputable charm. Alternately childish and 007-suave, he's the rare leading man who can come off as both smug and self-deprecating -- often in the course of the same sentence.

I've been rooting for Valley since his stint in the mid-'90s as one of the many faces of Jack Deveraux on "Days of Our Lives."

It's hard not to, really. Unlike your typical Hollywood pretty boys, Valley graduated from West Point, for crying out loud, and he's a Gulf War veteran.

And after a couple of false starts -- most painfully Fox's cult favorite "Keen Eddie" -- that should have made him a household name, the role of Christopher Chance seems his best shot yet.

This season, Fox has given "Human Target" all the visibility it can. Now it's up to Valley and friends to save it.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com.