taken
What: Prequel to the movie franchise, starring Clive Standen and Jennifer Beals.
When: Premieres 10 p.m. Monday.
Where: NBC.
What: Prequel to the movie franchise, starring Clive Standen and Jennifer Beals.
When: Premieres 10 p.m. Monday.
Where: NBC.
NBC’s new drama “Taken” is designed as a present-day prequel to the hit Liam Neeson movie franchise, but the TV show exists in a murky covert world rather than the breathless thrill-a-minute shoot-‘em-ups set in glamorous location formula of the movies.
Irish actor Clive Standen (lately of the “Vikings”) plays former Green Beret Bryan Mills, who is attempting to lead an ordinary life. While heading home with his younger sister on a commuter train, they are attacked by two gunmen.
Like the movie character, Mills always seems to have someone after him seeking revenge for something he did on one of his prior undercover missions. So after the train attack he’s out to find out who was behind it. He soon finds one of his friends betrayed him, but the man pleads that he only did it because the bad guys were threatening his daughter.
“My advice — don’t ever have kids, especially not a daughter,” his betrayer tells Mills. It’s closest thing to a joke in the series since we know Mills will have a daughter who always seems to be getting kidnapped in the movies.
In Mills’ quest, he crosses paths with Jennifer Beals who runs a unit that officially doesn’t exist and can authorize some illegal and nasty activities. She soon recruits Mills, although he’s still feeling guilty about the attack.
Though it has the same title, this isn’t the same cool, calculating Mills of the movies.
Standen was pretty cool as the Viking warrior Rollo. He had a swagger and a sense of humor, but on this series all we know he can do is fight and mostly seems awkward and unsure. It’s like they really haven’t figured out his character yet.
While “Taken” quickly plunges the views into the action, it isn’t very engaging despite the pounding music. There is some deadly dialogue, though. It starts off like there may be some larger conspiracy but that is often put on the back burner for the weekly crisis.
When the show was announced, no one expected “Taken” to be turned into something brilliant but it had the elements needed to be an exciting show. Instead, it’s been made pretty ordinary. Too bad, Standen deserves to be shown off better.
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