- The Boys in Rewind - Michael Courtney/FOX
Concerns for new cast members, the ongoing buddy relationships, and showrunners past and present weren’t the only things on the press and fan agenda in the Human Target press room and panel at San Diego Comic Con 2010 this July. There was interest in what new showrunner Matt Miller had in store for the show.
“I’m gonna flip it,” Matt said glibly from the stage. To which, Chi McBride quipped that the team would be working a combine on a farm.
Despite that jokey answer, Miller is intent on allowing the HT team to have tensions within the team. “The idea would be this season,” he said, “every case that would come in to us, especially the first five or ten, it’s not just about that person who’s in danger that week but how the case teaches us something we didn’t know about one of the principals.” He is adamant that there should be conflict and emotion from one of the leads – each week.
For example, that could be a case where Winston has to help solve a crime in order to take on those who had him kicked off the force when he was a cop. Hence, he’d be solving the ‘A’ story of the week while he helps resolve some of the issues from his past.
“There’s an episode we’re gonna do early on where Chance has to protect a woman whose life is in danger and what we find out is that sevenyears earlier, he’d killed her husband. So basically, he has to protect a woman from his past. He’s basically responsible for protecting a woman whose life he’s ruined.”
More Screen Time for Guerrero?
In the same vein, Miller promised there’d be more expansion of Guerrero character on his watch. In his mind, Guerrero is not a full-time member of the team, because Guerrero’s most interesting when shrouded in some mystery. “I promise you the less you know about that guy, the more interesting he becomes.”
Miller did, however, echo Jackie Earle Haley, when he said that Guerrero will be called on every episode, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be hanging around in the office, waiting for new cases. Miller also indicated they plan to do an episode where Guerrero comes in and throws down a paycheck on Ilsa’s desk. “She says, what is this for, and he says, I get paid in cash. This is a guy who doesn’t have a bank account. He doesn’t have IRAs. This is a guy that lives off the grid. So as much as possible, we want to keep him somewhat of an anomaly.”
In the press room, Miller was asked about using elements from the comic books, but he hedged, saying he didn’t want to give the wrong answer. “So until I know what we’re doing about that, I don’t want to say anything. I imagine we probably will. Yes. But I don’t want to get into specifics until I know. I don’t want to give you the wrong thing.” This led to another question about whether he’d hire the comic book writers to do HT scripts, to which he responded, “Absolutely.”
Human Target Resembles Elmore Leonard Thriller
As to what kind of sample script would make a suitable audition piece for a writing spot on Human Target, Miller said the show is most like Elmore Leonard’s novels in terms of grit, comedy, character work, and compelling A stories. He added that Jackie Earle Haley felt that Guerrero stepped right out of a Elmore Leonard novel.
Mark Valley suggested to the press that having the two female regulars on the series will put less pressure on the antagonist of the week to carry the show, especially when the men and women will not immediately take to one another. This led to another amusing banter exchange between Valley and McBride:
- Chi: And then Winston’s gonna have his ex-wife. Nothing makes a guy happier than dealing with his ex-wife.
- Mark: Hijinks ensue.
- Chi: Yep. Sparks fly and what have you. And he’s got a brother on the wrong side of the law. A lot of interesting stuff for these guys. Yeah, pretty cool.
- Mark: Looks like I’m getting some time off.
- Chi: Yeah, there you go. Well, he does so much of the heavy lifting that we don’t mind at all when he gets a day or two off to recoup.
- Mark: Neither do I.
McBride indicated that it wouldn’t be a good thing to have The Human Target limping around with a bad leg. Valley went on to compliment the experience and training of HT’s stunt fighters and stunt coordinators. When asked how much of the stunts he does himself, Valley said, “I tend to go through fights myself. Then the stunt coordinator goes through them as well. It’s pretty exhausting so we tend to switch back and forth.”
While Valley was saying this, McBride grabbed a plastic water bottle and unscrewed its top. “Don’t let him fool you, man,” he said. “Mark can kill you with this.” He held up the bottle cap. At Valley’s laugh, McBride continued, as he continued to hold out the bottle cap, “This right here, you say the right ten words and he’ll…” as he screwed the cap back onto the water bottle, “…use this to kill you.”
All of them agree that the first season of the show was phenomenal. What they want to do for season 2 is use season one as a template and build off it to make it even better. As Miller said when he first sat down with the press, “No way am I coming into the show and looking to alienate the people who stuck by the show and loved the show for the first season.”
Season 2 premieres Friday, Oct. 1 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
Crystal Taylor - I'm a writer of TV one-hour scripts, screenplays, novels, short stories, articles, and poetry. I'm most proud of a story (episode outline) ...
