Human Target, come back! I miss you!
According to that ever reliable source of information, Twitter (no really!), tomorrow is the day that Matt Miller, show runner for Human Target makes his big pitch to the Fox Network's big wigs for a third season. I won't mince words here: I'm fucking bricking it!
I know, I know, as a mere fan of the show and author of many well-intended, but probably mediocre, fan fics, I probably have as much impact on the future of my favourite show as my cats do. And seeing as my cats are lazy, temperamental, demanding creatures, it's a pretty appropriate comparison. But what I have that my cats don't is an absolute passion for Human Target. Okay, the cats are pretty crazy about catnip, but in that case Human Target is my catnip. I crave it. I want more and I want it now. (Also I might chew through a plastic bag to get at it, but the less said about that the better.)
The actors are spectacular. I spend a lot of my time writing fan fics set in the Human Target world, but no amount of words in any conceivable configuration ever do justice to what Mark Valley can convey with a single look. Seriously, the guy is the king of non-verbal communication! How is a lowly fangirl ever supposed to capture in words a look that conveys idealism, regret, remorse, self-destruction, self-deprecation, a glimmer of hope and amusement, all at the same fracking time? I'm telling you, it can't be done! At least, not by me anyway!
Jackie Earle Haley is a thief. He steals every damn scene he's in whether he speaks or not! He makes Guerrero an absolute joy to write, but again. what he can achieve with a look or even a grunt goes far beyond what I can get across.When I first started writing Human Target fic, it was Guerrero's voice that I heard the clearest and loudest. He wasn't so much as a muse as a benevolent demonic possession! My crazy-obsessive little fangirl heart does a little dance for him every time I hear or see the word 'dude'! THAT cannot be healthy, but I love it. I love that there is that one word that will always trigger a little Guerrero geek-gasm for me!
Chi McBride is just epic. Winston doesn't get the kind of love that Guerrero and Chance do from the fans, but he is the third side of a perfectly balanced triangle. He is the solid foundation on which the team was built, and although he was shackled to the role of the voice of reason in season one, in the second season we saw his obsessive-to-the-point-of-self-destruction side too. He has heart, and the reason I believe in him as a character is all down Chi McBride. Winston is the normal guy in the mix. He wasn't a hacker, or an assassin, or thief, he lived by the normal rules of society, hell, he enforced them, and yet he is every bit a team player for a chaotic, almost lawless team that by rights he should have been locking up! But although Winston in many ways can be seen as the ordinary guy in the team, Chi McBride never plays him as anything but the extraordinary man he really is. I always feel I let Winston down when I write him. My Winston always comes across as grumpy and sullen. I can never quite get that slightly put-upon dark humour that reminds me so much of a dad being pushed to his limits by his teenage children who behave badly but still expect him to cough up an extra fifty quid on top of their usual allowance.
I guess I should write something about Ilsa Pucci and Ames too, but to be honest they aren't part of what makes me feel so passionate about Human Target. They make me laugh sometimes, and I occasionally feel sympathy for their problems and predicaments, but they still feel like visitors to the Human Target world. Ames is like an intern; she'll have to start showing some initiative and learning some new skills if she is to be up-graded to full team member status. Ilsa is more troublesome. At the moment she feels like dead-weight. She's of no operational use, and although she has cash and contacts, she feels more like a recurring character rather than one of the team proper. The team may make use of her from time to time, but she doesn't have the skills or the temperament to really be a team player. I have no problem with a bit of will-they, won't-they flirting with Chance, but she really doesn't have what it takes to sustain any serious interest for a prolonged period of time. To be blunt, Chance would get bored, and so would I, for that matter.
The characters are the soul of the show, and they are what let me believe in Human Target, to lose myself so utterly in its world, but they are only a part of what makes the show so outstanding. The stunts are ambitious, beautifully executed and totally believable. A lot of that is due to the fact that Mark Valley is the perfect Christopher Chance. He has the perfect build, and apparently the willingness to get involved in the stunt work to a degree that always lends an authenticity to Chance's fights and action sequences.And yes he is incredibly attractive and I could wax lyrical about those blue eyes for a couple of thousand words easily, but I'm trying hard not let this turn into a squee-fest! Yes, I would love to get my hands (amongst other things) on him, but I'm a married woman, and not currently delusional enough to believe I could have him, so let's leave it at that shall we? The same goes for Jackie Earle Haley too.
I love Human Target. That much should be obvious by now. I do what little I can to stir up the fans and encourage people to show their support for the show, but really there is little I can do to really affect the outcome of Fox's decision to renew or not. I'm not even in the US, which makes my opinion doubly worthless to them. But Human Target has opened up a whole new world for me. Before I started writing Human Target fic, I found it hard to complete even very simple short stories. I had some ideas, but they were never very coherent and I lacked the self-discipline to really develop those ideas and see a project through to the end. Now? Well to date I have completed 25 Human Target fics, I've archived somewhere in the region of 210,000 words on ff.net and I've still got a couple of multi-chapter fics on the go, one of which has already passed the 42,000 word mark! Now I'm not saying that quantity is the same as quality, but this is something I simply couldn't achieve before Human Target and its characters captured (but at the same time unlocked?!) my imagination.
Even if Human Target is not renewed, it has given me a gift that the network can't take back. It taught me to write, to persevere and believe in what I'm doing.
It's all down to Fox now, I guess. My thoughts, prayers and all-round positive mojo are all pointed at Matt Miller and the Human Target team. Bring us our season three! And if they say no? Well I'm sure the fans would all chip in to hire a real-life Guerrero to visit their homes and explain the situation...
I know, I know, as a mere fan of the show and author of many well-intended, but probably mediocre, fan fics, I probably have as much impact on the future of my favourite show as my cats do. And seeing as my cats are lazy, temperamental, demanding creatures, it's a pretty appropriate comparison. But what I have that my cats don't is an absolute passion for Human Target. Okay, the cats are pretty crazy about catnip, but in that case Human Target is my catnip. I crave it. I want more and I want it now. (Also I might chew through a plastic bag to get at it, but the less said about that the better.)
The actors are spectacular. I spend a lot of my time writing fan fics set in the Human Target world, but no amount of words in any conceivable configuration ever do justice to what Mark Valley can convey with a single look. Seriously, the guy is the king of non-verbal communication! How is a lowly fangirl ever supposed to capture in words a look that conveys idealism, regret, remorse, self-destruction, self-deprecation, a glimmer of hope and amusement, all at the same fracking time? I'm telling you, it can't be done! At least, not by me anyway!
Jackie Earle Haley is a thief. He steals every damn scene he's in whether he speaks or not! He makes Guerrero an absolute joy to write, but again. what he can achieve with a look or even a grunt goes far beyond what I can get across.When I first started writing Human Target fic, it was Guerrero's voice that I heard the clearest and loudest. He wasn't so much as a muse as a benevolent demonic possession! My crazy-obsessive little fangirl heart does a little dance for him every time I hear or see the word 'dude'! THAT cannot be healthy, but I love it. I love that there is that one word that will always trigger a little Guerrero geek-gasm for me!
Chi McBride is just epic. Winston doesn't get the kind of love that Guerrero and Chance do from the fans, but he is the third side of a perfectly balanced triangle. He is the solid foundation on which the team was built, and although he was shackled to the role of the voice of reason in season one, in the second season we saw his obsessive-to-the-point-of-self-destruction side too. He has heart, and the reason I believe in him as a character is all down Chi McBride. Winston is the normal guy in the mix. He wasn't a hacker, or an assassin, or thief, he lived by the normal rules of society, hell, he enforced them, and yet he is every bit a team player for a chaotic, almost lawless team that by rights he should have been locking up! But although Winston in many ways can be seen as the ordinary guy in the team, Chi McBride never plays him as anything but the extraordinary man he really is. I always feel I let Winston down when I write him. My Winston always comes across as grumpy and sullen. I can never quite get that slightly put-upon dark humour that reminds me so much of a dad being pushed to his limits by his teenage children who behave badly but still expect him to cough up an extra fifty quid on top of their usual allowance.
I guess I should write something about Ilsa Pucci and Ames too, but to be honest they aren't part of what makes me feel so passionate about Human Target. They make me laugh sometimes, and I occasionally feel sympathy for their problems and predicaments, but they still feel like visitors to the Human Target world. Ames is like an intern; she'll have to start showing some initiative and learning some new skills if she is to be up-graded to full team member status. Ilsa is more troublesome. At the moment she feels like dead-weight. She's of no operational use, and although she has cash and contacts, she feels more like a recurring character rather than one of the team proper. The team may make use of her from time to time, but she doesn't have the skills or the temperament to really be a team player. I have no problem with a bit of will-they, won't-they flirting with Chance, but she really doesn't have what it takes to sustain any serious interest for a prolonged period of time. To be blunt, Chance would get bored, and so would I, for that matter.
The characters are the soul of the show, and they are what let me believe in Human Target, to lose myself so utterly in its world, but they are only a part of what makes the show so outstanding. The stunts are ambitious, beautifully executed and totally believable. A lot of that is due to the fact that Mark Valley is the perfect Christopher Chance. He has the perfect build, and apparently the willingness to get involved in the stunt work to a degree that always lends an authenticity to Chance's fights and action sequences.And yes he is incredibly attractive and I could wax lyrical about those blue eyes for a couple of thousand words easily, but I'm trying hard not let this turn into a squee-fest! Yes, I would love to get my hands (amongst other things) on him, but I'm a married woman, and not currently delusional enough to believe I could have him, so let's leave it at that shall we? The same goes for Jackie Earle Haley too.
I love Human Target. That much should be obvious by now. I do what little I can to stir up the fans and encourage people to show their support for the show, but really there is little I can do to really affect the outcome of Fox's decision to renew or not. I'm not even in the US, which makes my opinion doubly worthless to them. But Human Target has opened up a whole new world for me. Before I started writing Human Target fic, I found it hard to complete even very simple short stories. I had some ideas, but they were never very coherent and I lacked the self-discipline to really develop those ideas and see a project through to the end. Now? Well to date I have completed 25 Human Target fics, I've archived somewhere in the region of 210,000 words on ff.net and I've still got a couple of multi-chapter fics on the go, one of which has already passed the 42,000 word mark! Now I'm not saying that quantity is the same as quality, but this is something I simply couldn't achieve before Human Target and its characters captured (but at the same time unlocked?!) my imagination.
Even if Human Target is not renewed, it has given me a gift that the network can't take back. It taught me to write, to persevere and believe in what I'm doing.
It's all down to Fox now, I guess. My thoughts, prayers and all-round positive mojo are all pointed at Matt Miller and the Human Target team. Bring us our season three! And if they say no? Well I'm sure the fans would all chip in to hire a real-life Guerrero to visit their homes and explain the situation...