Another Goodbye

[Note: I am pretty sure this posted last week, but I guess with Blogger's issues it got reverted back to a draft, so reposting now.]

Wow, this is not a good week for television I like, apparently.

News broke yesterday that Fox has not renewed Human Target for a third season. Well, what the reports are actually saying is that it has been canceled, but I beg to differ here. I think that's some sites just trying to stir people up. There is a difference between cancellation and not renewing, and while it may be negligible, it is still there, so let's call it what it is, okay?

Anyway.

I wish I could say I am surprised by this news, I really do. But I'm not. Who is? Even those of us who loved this show (me!me!me!) could see that Fox was struggling to find a place for it on the network. The ratings were not great, and the constantly changing time slots didn't really help either. But that's just the way Fox does things, and I do think they gave it a fair chance. Much like with Dollhouse, I was amazed and grateful it got a second season at all. So I can't complain too much that after that second season

That doesn't mean I am happy about the news by any stretch of the imagination. It was far and away my favorite show currently airing on television, and I will be very sad to see it go. It certainly won't leave the void that Stargate Universe has left. Still, there will be the sense that something is missing, and I wish we could have gotten a season three.

I know it is based on a series of comic books. I also know that the show heavily tuned down the actual supernatural/science fictional aspect of the comic books. I think they might be worth checking out though.

I will also eagerly look forward to whatever Mark Valley decides to do next. I have to admit, his presence in the starring role of the series was one of the reasons I was disinclined to give Human Target a chance when I first heard about it (and wow I am so very glad I changed my mind). Even his part in the early days of Fringe wasn't enough to erase from my memory his turn as a smug, self-satisfied, creep of a guy on Boston Legal.* But as Christopher Chance he completely managed to blow me away. Dude's got some range, ya'll. Acting!

Sigh. My poor DVD shelves are littered with one- and two-season television series that I so deeply loved but that just couldn't cut it in the network world. One day the system will be ready to nurture and sustain this kind of brilliance as a matter of course, as opposed to the few shows that miraculously slip through the cracks and make it. But that day is not today I fear.

Goodbye Human Target. Thanks for being so spectacularly awesome. I'll see you again when you make your way to my DVD collection, I am sure.

*Sidebar: I have absolutely no idea how I was able to stand watching Boston Legal at all, truth be told. There were no good people on that show, I swear. They were all horrible excuses for human beings. Yet somehow, I stumbled across it a few seasons from the end and could not look away. Go figure. But dude, Mark Valley's character was one of the worst, I swear.