TV is the New Reading

‘Human Target,’ ‘Ugly Betty’ bid fond farewells

In this week’s topic, so long, farewell, vaya con dios and goodbye.

Four years ago ABC took a chance on a reimagined Colombian telenovella about an awkward young woman, daughter of immigrants, working so hard in her classes and schoolwork she never gained an especially compelling social life, and taking an opportunity she has little interest in – an assistant’s position at Mode magazine and the world of fashion – so as to gain the experience she needs to move up in the publishing world.

Once in that world, Betty, played exuberantly by the effervescent America Ferrera, finds that it’s filled with petty intrigues and oneupsmanships. As assistant to Daniel Meade, editor-in-chief of Mode magazine, Betty is in a position to foil many of these little schemes. This does not endear her to the schemers she’s thwarting. Throughout her first two years on the job she is in a make-it-work situation with Amanda the receptionist and Marc the assistant to the creative director Wilhelmina Slater, who is a power hungry tigress hungry for Daniel’s job.

The show is a complete soap opera, where who’s on the cover of what magazine and whose ideas are chosen over whose are over the top life-and-death dramas which help carry the little show along. Developed as a fairly consistent side plots are strong examples of minorities as small-business owners, public officials and corporate officers, work ethics like getting ahead by staying focused and being really good at your job, and probably the most exhaustive exploration of the gay experience in primetime network television. This past season has focused on Marc’s bad experience coming out to his family and the consequences in a string of poor and exploitative relationship choices and Betty’s nephew, Justin, coming to terms with his own sexuality and his family’s almost boisterous acceptance of it, all through the unique cultural prism of an immigrant family – to be sure, a not 100 percent legal immigrant status, which was brave – with all of their hopes, dreams and aspirations.

There were several odd and inconsistent storylines along the way. What happened to Faye Sommers. Daniel’s involvement in a death cult. Claire’s bipolar character propping up whatever they needed her to be this week – publishing magnate, wilty, boozy violet, convict on the lam – really, whoever she shows up as. And it always seemed like they were going to go somewhere with the character of Betty’s mother and then they just … forgot. Speaking of forgetting, it’s not the first time I’ve mentioned it in a show as self-consciously Hispanic how at varience the entire Suarez family’s acceptance of Justin’s probable homosexuality is with the family’s presumed Catholicism. Throughout, however, it was clear that whatever they felt about the choices he was making, they were 100 percent in love with him. Which probably answers that on its own.

Storylines may have come and gone with seemingly little lasting consequence, but one element of character development remained consistent. By the end of this final season, Betty had grown from this completely out-of-hand nerdy ball of incoherent color, plaid and prints to a young lady not entirely out of place working in a fashion magazine. As she learned more about editing, she also learned about editing her own look. The glasses became understated, the hair became stylish and she made healthier food choices. Even by the end, Amanda, now her friend, was still making fun of her weight, but it was impossible to ignore how much less she had to make fun of.

This show, while ridiculously over the top with intrigues and murders and embezzlements and coverups (the show featured at least two men being “outed” as heterosexuals!) provided a backdrop against which we could watch Betty move from dependence to independence, from shy to assertive, from defining herself by the gentleman she was dating to being at peace on her own. From a lowly assistant to head of a brand new magazine. And in the closing moments of the show, from Ugly Betty to just, Betty.

Well, I hope this isn’t the last we see of Michael Urie, who was a standout fop as Wilhelmina’s assistant Marc. If only for his appearance as Betty at a Halloween party, the man has been utterly fearless in his presentation and the choices he makes in being so ridiculously over the top. I also enjoyed Becki Newton’s vibrant and consistent presentation of Amanda Tanen, and would love to see her in absolutely anything. And naturally the award-winning America Ferrera has been brilliant throughout. I wish the cast and crew nothing but the best.

Now …

Human Target

FOX optimistically called this week’s finale the “season” finale, suggesting it’s coming back. Much as I love Mark Valley doing anything he does – I enjoyed him in “Keen Eddie,” “Boston Legal,” “Fringe” and now this thing, I really wonder if this comic book hero – can’t really even call him a superhero except that he draws on exactly the resources he needs to get out of absolutely whatever situation he gets into – provides enough depth for even this guy, who God love him I suspect would play Hamlet with exactly the same emotional investment as he plays Christopher Chase.

There’s not a lot of “there” there. Christopher Chase is given a task and he does it. He’s a superspy, he’s a bodyguard, he’s a tracker, he’s anything he’s told to be and he’s got a Steven Seagal level of detachment about it. He may have had a more compelling backstory as a Iraq war veteran in Boston Legal that actually guided his character’s decision making and it seemed occasionally like the actor, Mark Valley, was aware of that.

Don’t get me wrong. You aren’t cast opposite Anna Torv as Olivia Dunham’s boyfriend if you are a stupid, incapable actor. However, your lack of engagement as an actor and the fact that you are technically blown up in the pilot episode helps matters, when in flashbacks and on-screen appearances you are at least, on some level, the undead.

Valley is more than a pretty dumb guy loping into bad situations and saving the day through whatever the script said I can do this week. But you couldn’t prove it from “Human Target.” To date, his nimblest character presentations have been on “Keen Eddie,” now something like seven years ago, and he had Colin Salmon, Sienna Miller and Julian Rhind-Tutt to play off of. Between his low-key sardonic reactions to all the crazy, goofball characters popping up all around him and the photographer’s penchant for MTV-style camera editing and sound direction, you really can miss how emotionally absent he was allowed to be throughout that 13-episode FOX series.

In “Human Target,” he is joined by the laconic Chi McBride and the taciturn Jackie Earle Haley, so you’ve got three guys wandering around not saying any more than they have to. That leaves the targets, presumably on some level concerned for their lives and safety, to scream and carry on and question and get into even more trouble by being stupid and frankly that is not, to me, an especially compelling show. Add to that the fact that they seem to so rarely actually get paid anything and this show is actually depressing.

Here’s the problem. It’s an hour long. An hour of American television is 42 minutes long. Chase can solve any problem he’s aware of in about five minutes, usually by targeting the bad guy, when he himself isn’t somehow the bad guy, and wow has that been a difficult read, especially with Haley running around being morally ambiguous throughout. So really, what the hell do we do with that other 37 minutes? I mean honestly, this is one of those shows where the trailer is better than the show because they show everything that actually happens, and in the show you have to sift through 37 minutes of dust and fake tension.

And this is something FOX wants to bring back. Well, I wish them well, and honestly, everyone is probably doing everything they can with the scripts that are handed to them, but when a show is billed as an action adventure, I guess I’d enjoy seeing any of either.

Doctor Who

Speaking of action adventure, new episodes of “Doctor Who” premiered this weekend on BBC America. Matt Smith debuted as the twelfth Doctor – you heard me, I was paying attention when the tenth Doctor, David Tennant, regenerated back into David Tennant after that thing with the thing, so Matt Smith is the result of his eleventh regeneration and long-time fans still have the Valeyard to look forward to, unless they decide that’s not actually important. The Valeyard, played by Michael Jayeston, made an appearance in sixth Doctor Colin Baker’s “Trial of a Time Lord” and identified himself at that time as in fact a distillation of the Doctor’s own dark energy from between his twelfth and final regeneration and … oh God, sorry, wow, is it possible to tweak fanboi on this nonsense.

Anyway, Smith got going right out the gate with 20 minutes to save planet Earth. Really, he has to save us so much from every single thing you’d think he’d go back in time sometime and just make all of these attacks on Sol Three impossible with the installation of, I don’t know, sharks with laserbeams on their heads swimming around on Europa.

OK, fine, he’s the eleventh Doctor. Have it your way. He’s the new one, and he’s on BBC America saving the world, probably in a rerun next weekend as well, so … enjoy!

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