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{{work}}
''[[Human Target]]'' is the story of Christopher Chance, a bodyguard and private detective for hire who impersonates his clients in order to draw out whoever is threatening them and 'eliminate' them. It has its roots as a comic book, and has been adapted as a TV series twice: once in Summer of 1992 on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], and another that premiered in January 2010 on [[
The 2010 series was cancelled after two seasons.
{{tropelist}}
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* [[The Other Marty]]: The pilot was originally filmed in 1990 and costarred Clarence Clemons and Frances Fisher. By the time the show was picked up, both of their roles were recast and their scenes reshot.
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* [[Action Girl]]: Ames is suppose to be one but currently she's on a fast track into [[Faux Action Girl]] territory; perhaps justified in that she has a background as a thief. {{spoiler|Ilsa, on the other hand is, judging by the fight she puts up in "Communications Breakdown" most definitely an [[Action Girl]]... though given that she lacks even the rough and tumble past of Ames, being an [[Action Girl]] means a [[Heroic BSOD]] since she's forced to kill someone and most of the fight is less her fighting and more her basically being unwilling to be killed quietly.}}
* [[Actor Allusion]]:
** Chi McBride gets to use his [[Catch Phrase]] from ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' in "Salvage and Reclamation."
{{quote|'''Winston:''' No. Aw, no. ''Hell'' no!}}
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*** And of course in "Imbroglio", the only way the mooks are able to capture Guerrero is literally just jumping on top of him until he's trapped under their bodies.
*** In "Cool Hand Guerrero", he brings up laws and civil liberties (mostly, people infringing on his) with the same ready knowledge and pointed tones of voice as he does with various bad guys the team encounters.
* [[Affably Evil]]: Baptiste has this in spades
* [[Affectionate Pickpocket]]: Ames
* [[Air Vent Passageway]]: They try to use this to escape in the pilot, but meet the guy they're fleeing, who's trying the same thing.
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* [[Cable Car Action Sequence]]: The climax of "Sanctuary" is a fight on top of a gondola.
* [[California Doubling]]: Human Target was filmed in British Columbia, Canada.
* [[Caper Crew]]: Ames (acting as The New Kid and The Burglar) gets roped into one of these; her job is to snake her way through the airducts & disable the security system. Chance goes in too, taking the place of "Mr. Chicago" - who he later discovers is the "cleaner." It's his job to kill everybody involved with the heist so the Mastermind doesn't have to pay them anything.
* [[Career Killers]]: Chance and Guerrero used to be assassins. Baptiste is a very efficient one.
** Maybe not so "used to be" in Guerrero's case. The nature of his side jobs is left ambiguous.
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** [[Power Trio]]: Chance (Ego), Winston (Superego), Guerrero (Id).
** [[Five-Man Band]]:
*** [[The Hero]]: Chance
** [[Guest Star Party Member]]: Emma Barnes, originally introduced in "Embassy" returns for "Baptiste", opening the doors for other one-shot characters to possibly return.
*** Layla from "Lockdown" is also present in the same episode.
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** Also, when he shows us the importance of home-base advantage in the first season finale.
** Don't forget about Baptiste. As Chance put it, "He's planned for every contingency you could imagine, and probably some that you can't"
** Guerrero also counts. When he isn't helping on a case or doing a side job? He's doing surveillance on the rest of the team (save Chance) in order to collect blackmail information.
* [[Cultured Badass]]: Guerrero is an opera enthusiast.
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: Chance's forte.
* [[Curse Cut Short]]:
** "You can take that flight attendant uniform and shove it up your--!"
** "I swear to--" Said while in the presence of about thirty monks.
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* [[Easily Forgiven]]: Averted at the end of "A Wife's Tale". Despite Chance saving her life and showing he was literally willing for her to kill him to earn forgiveness, Rebecca still loathes and doesn't forgive him for killing her husband back when Chance was an assassin.
** Though she does forgive him enough not to call the police on him. There is no statute for murder after all.
** While Ilsa Pucci thinks that Rebecca is being an [[Ungrateful Bastard|Ungrateful Bitch]], both Chance and Winston feel that she is right to still hate him for it.
* [[Embarrassing First Name]]: Winston's first name is...wait for it...Laverne.
* [[Everyone Knows Morse]]: Or at least Chance does.
** So do Guerrero and Winston, and FBI Agent Vance, in "Imbroglio."
* [[Fake American]]: Ames is played by British Janet Montgomery.
* [[Fake Brit]]: Most of the Brits in episode 11. But who cares if [[Hey, It's That Guy!|Todd the]] [[Stargate Atlantis|Wraith]] really sounds Irish? He (the actor) also played/plays Bigfoot, and Druitt (Jack the Ripper) in Sanctuary.
* [[Faking Amnesia]]: Inverted. A client who has amnesia takes part in a sting to trick the bad guys by pretending not to have amnesia. To do this he has to convince them that he was faking it. It makes sense in context.
* [[Fan Nickname]]: G-Man - Guerrero.
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** Because, unlike Guerrero, she's willing to take a check. Nevertheless, being that she was a notable thief before joining the team, paying taxes was probably something she conveniently forgot to do.
* [[Heroic Sociopath]]: Guerrero, though he's not so much heroic as he is loyal to Chance.
* [[Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Way, way, way too many to actually list. Let's just say that if you've ever seen ''any'' episodes of [[Battlestar Galactica
* [[Hidden Depths]]: Guerrero is a big fan of opera. Big enough that when he misses a show in "Imbroglio", he's ready to dish out pain with as much grumpiness as when, say, 'retrieving' information from an uncooperative captive. {{spoiler|He's also initially smitten with Ilsa's sister-in-law despite the rather obvious differences between the two of them; credit to Jackie Earle Haley for slipping in just the slightest bit of excitement over getting to join Ilsa and her sister to the opera as well as just the slightest bit of politeness to her compared to the way he normally talks to people. And then he goes and gets a date to Venice with her...}}
* [[Hidden Villain]]: The man known so far only as "Chance's old boss".
* [[Hitman with a Heart]]: It's revealed in "Baptiste" that Chance used to be a hitman. Not just any hitman but the equivalent of Keyser Soze; a hitman so skilled, it doesn't even look like murder and the hitman is non-existant. Unfortunately, he also trained other hitman to be as good as him. Guerrero is the more obvious example though it's debatable how much of a heart he has versus just loyalty to Chance and the pragmatism to not just go around killing everybody.
** In "Tanarak", we learn that Chance prefers the title "Death Retardant Specialist" over this.
** Guerrero is the more obvious example. Heck, he took his first job in 3rd grade for a friend. And gives said friend a 'friends and family' discount.
* [[Hollywood Acid]]: In "Tanarak", an evil corporation is storing an illegally toxic solvent in a mine shaft, poisoning the miners working there. The solvent is naturally a bright flourescent green.
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* [[Lady in Red]]: Done by an FBI agent who is trying to remain inconspicuous, go figure. Chance takes one look at her and determines that she must be a prostitute.
** a ''forty-dollar'' prostitute, which is what really pisses her off.
* [[Last-Name Basis]]: Winston, by virtue of an [[Embarrassing First Name]]. Guerrero, too, except that's probably not his real name.
** It isn't as, ironically, Ilsa Pucci gives him his paycheck with his full legal name on it. He is less than pleased though more at getting a check rather than someone knowing his legal name.
* [[Legacy Character]]: Christopher Chance, as it turns out.
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** The only thing close to it is the "Old Man" storyline.
* [[Nerds Are Sexy]]: Layla
* [[Nerd Glasses]]: Guerrero's glasses vary from this and [[Scary Shiny Glasses]] depending on whether or not he's contemplating how to kill you. Or whether or not he's engaging in a violent or non-violent hobby of his.
* [[No Name Given]]: Inverted; Guerrero rarely, if ever, calls anyone by their names when talking to them. When he does have to address specific people, he'll usually use some sort of consistent nickname ('boss lady' for Ilsa for instance or 'the girl' for Ames) or his generic 'dude'/'bro'. This isn't so much due to him not knowing people's names so much as not really caring unless it's relevant (the name of an arms dealer); the few people he's talked to and used their name tend to be people like Chance, someone he is loyal to a fault to. As far as Ilsa, by episode 12 of the second season, she gets upgraded from 'boss lady' to 'dude'.
* [[Non-Idle Rich]]: Ilsa Pucci, who's getting increasingly involved in Chance's business much to his annoyance and her horror at how illegal it is.
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* [[Remember the New Guy?]]: Harry is an old friend of the gang who is kinda of hanger on, always asking to come along on missions, getting into wacky side adventures and messing things up but generally helping Chance do his job in the end. Oh and we've never heard of him until "Communications Breakdown" in the middle of second season where he makes his first of two appearances in the entire series.
* [[Reset Button]]: Used shamelessly in "Kill Bob."
* [[A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside An Enigma]]: Chance once told Winston, "You're like a... mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in... cashmere."
* [[Rule of Cool]]: The show runs on it.
* [[Rule of Symbolism]]: In "Baptiste", Chance and Baptiste's episode-long conversation takes place in front of a picture of Lucifer's fall from grace. It's interesting to note that Chance is sitting in front of Lucifer and Baptiste in front of the host of angels tossing Lucifer out.
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** "Salvage & Reclamation" has several to ''[[Indiana Jones]]''.
** "Imbroglio" had a reference to ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'', particularly 2008's ''The Dark Knight'' with the hostages being framed as gunmen by using their disguises on them.
** "Kill Bob" despite its name has a huge shout outs to ''[[Mr. and Mrs. Smith]]'' with more than one reference placed into the very iconic dinner scene from the movie... ''with'' the appropriate background "Assassin's Date" score (or an homage score that's very much like it. I couldn't tell.)
* [[Show Some Leg]]: Ames, quite often since her appearance. Being the resident [[Ms. Fanservice]], this is perhaps to be expected.
* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: "The Wife's Tale" opens with Chance killing a man to [[OutKast]]'s "Hey Ya!".
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** [[Always Close]]: With exactly one second left.
** Happened again when Ames had to choose between two valves for a gas main. Unfortunately, Winston and Guerrero disagreed on which one to pick. {{spoiler|So she turned both off... and it worked}}.
* [[Working with the Ex]]: One episode where Chance has to work with his ex girlfriend.
* [[Would Hit a Girl]]: {{spoiler|The Season 2 premiere has Guerrero clocking Ames. In the same episode, he was about three seconds away from shooting off her kneecaps if she didn't cough up the identity of the guy who hired her to steal the ring. He also states that he would either shoot her kneecaps, or rip her fingernails off with hooks.}}
** Hector Lopez also doesn't have any qualms about brutally beating {{spoiler|Ilsa Pucci}}.
* [[You Have Failed Me...]]: "Salvage & Reclamation". The poor guy even had the valid excuse of being knocked out without being able to react.
** This is why Chance is being hunted by his former employer.
* [[Your Approval Fills Me with Shame]]: Winston to Guerrero.
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[[Category:American Series]]
[[Category:The New Tens]]
[[Category:Human Target]]▼
[[Category:TV Series]]
[[Category:Multiple Works Need Separate Pages]]
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