{"id":30753,"date":"2017-03-28T17:18:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T22:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30753"},"modified":"2017-03-28T17:18:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T22:18:39","slug":"taken-why-am-i-even-watching-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30753","title":{"rendered":"Taken: Why Am I Even Watching This?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do I keep watching Taken<\/i>, the NBC television series ostensibly inspired by the Taken<\/i> film franchise?<\/p>\n

I use the words “ostensibly inspired” because I have absolutely no idea what this series has to do with Taken<\/i>. Clive Standen can’t be playing a young Liam Neeson for the simple fact that the television series takes place now, not thirty years ago.<\/p>\n

Really, it’s more like what a Rainbow 6<\/i> (or maybe Splinter Cell<\/i>) television series would be like — a super-secret government hit squad operating out of Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

\"\"Which brings up another problem with the series. It’s clearly -not- filmed around DC. (It’s filmed in Canada.) At least once a week there’s an establishing shot that shows a familiar DC landmark, but the close-ups don’t make any sense. A few weeks ago, Bryan Mills was running near the Capitol building, because it could be seen over a park and trees… but I can’t think of where he could have been running. It certainly wasn’t the Mall, nor the park between the Capitol and Penn Station. And then, last night, there was a conversation that happened on a bench outside the Lincoln Memorial… but where is this bench? For that matter, what was that columned building at ground level behind the bench?<\/p>\n

And! We’re now five episodes in, and I have no idea what most of the characters are named! Christina… is the head of the team? I think her name is Christina. And there’s Riley; I know her name because last week sort of focused on her. After that… I don’t even know the name of Bryan’s sort-of girlfriend. The characters on Bryan’s team of government super assassins are supposed to the best-of-the-best, but they’re generally unimaginative idiots. (Bryan is the only person who shows any initiative or creativity on anything.) Standen’s portrayal of Bryan seems fine, but there’s not a lot of range to the character, which goes from glowering to intense with a stop at angry.<\/p>\n

I know the team behind this is largely the team behind Lie to Me<\/i>, the FOX series starring Tim Roth from about ten years ago, and I know they’re capable of doing really good things. I know Standen is a good actor (as Rollo, he was a favorite of mine on Vikings<\/i>), and the supporting cast seems generally solid. There’s a lot of talent being thrown at Taken<\/i>, but the result is dull, dull, dull.<\/p>\n

So why do I keep watching this? The vague hope it might improve? The wish that I’ll finally learn the characters’ names? The occasional DC establishing shots? Why, oh why?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why do I keep watching Taken, the NBC television series ostensibly inspired by the Taken film franchise? I use the words “ostensibly inspired” because I have absolutely no idea what this series has to do with Taken. Clive Standen can’t be playing a young Liam Neeson for the simple fact that the television series takesContinue reading “Taken: Why Am I Even Watching This?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[4568,972,4567,4566,4049],"class_list":["post-30753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television","tag-clive-standen","tag-liam-neeson","tag-nbc","tag-taken","tag-washington-dc","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}