The Checklist: Taken (S1 Ep1) “Pilot”
The long standing tradition of motion pictures being turned into television series continued when Taken premiered on NBC. I was a huge fan of the original film released in 2008 starring Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills. In the film, Bryan Mills is an ex-CIA agent who ends up having to use the skills he learned during his time with the CIA to rescue his daughter, who was kidnapped by a human trafficking ring while she was vacationing in Paris.
The series has been promoted and heavily hyped as a prequel to the movie franchise, but will it end up like another recent movie turned series Shooter? Or will it be next to the failed movie turned series Rush Hour on the cancelled heap?
One way Taken can increase the chances of success is if the show follows some of the tried and true formulas of successful action adventure series of the past. These are formulas that NBC should be well aware of. NBC was home to two of my all-time favorite action adventure series of the past, The A-Team and Knight Rider. Both of those shows were huge hits that people still watch every day the world over.
In this edition of The Checklist, we will see how the pilot episode of Taken measures up to the shows of the past to see if Taken has any sort of future on TV…
1. Was the hero likable?
I enjoyed Clive Standen as TV’s Bryan Mills. He most certainly studied the template that Neeson and Executive Producer first created for the film version of the character. Standen exuded confidence and was 100% believable in the role. It is never easy trying to fill another man’s shoes, but Standen made a good first impression on me. And the Bryan Mills character is one viewers can get behind. The man is not afraid, he takes on the villains head on and does so with a calm cool that only a highly trained operative would possess. Some quality casting here. 1/1
2. Does the show’s premise have legs?
There are those who felt that Taken as a movie franchise didn’t have legs, but Hollywood said “screw you” and got two sequels out of it. But honestly, how believable is it that multiple people in Bryan Mills’ life are the victims of a kidnapping? If the TV series had someone with a connection to Mills getting abducted each episode, then the Taken TV series is dead in the water. By the end of the season they’d run out of important people and it would be Mills’ third grade math teacher getting a bag put over her head and being thrown in the back of a van.
Fortunately the Taken TV series does not appear that it will be an “abduction of the week” premise, but instead the audience will see Bryan Mills and his continuing adventures working for a covert action team, led by Christina Hart. 2/2
3. Does the cast include at least one familiar face?
As much as the TV viewing public wants new and different, they also like to invite familiar faces into their homes each week. Jennifer Beals is that familiar face. Beals, who became an 80’s icon thanks to the movie Flashdance, plays the aforementioned Christina Hart. In the pilot episode, Hart uses Bryan Mills as bait for the head of one of the biggest drug cartels in the world. Did I mention that this drug lord killed Mills’ younger sister as revenge for Mills killing his son during a CIA operation years earlier? Hart also recruits Bryan Mills to join her team, setting the table for all future episodes. 3/3
4. Were there any notable guest stars?
One of the things I loved about action adventure shows of the past were the random guest stars that would appear. And I’m not just talking guest stars, because all shows have them, I am talking notable guest stars. Unfortunately for the Taken pilot, there were no notable guest stars. Now I could let that slide for the pilot, you want to establish your main character first and you don’t need the audience distracted by someone like Yaphet Kotto or Wings Hauser. But a quick scan of IMDb doesn’t give me much hope that any notable guest stars will pop up in future episodes. 3/4
5. Was there a memorable theme song?
Instead of a memorable theme song, the audience gets the title of the show in red on the screen. What is wrong with having some sort of theme song? The answer to that is nothing. A missed opportunity for Taken. 3/5
60% is a fair score for the pilot episode, like most shows I think it is going to take a few more episodes before we can surmise what the fate of Taken will be. The good news is the work of Standen and Beals was solid and the action was pretty intense for network television. This gives Taken a strong foundation it can build upon as the season progresses.
