Occasionally, there are new TV-shows. In fact, they appear year after year. Some stick around, others disappear only to be never spoken of again. Next on the list: The Human Target. Find out how you bugger up a perfectly fine concept!

So here are the top five ways how to bugger up a TV-show, using the example of the new TV-show that will almost certainly be cancelled after season one.

#1: Have no likable characters
Let’s face it: There is nobody to like in this show. You have Chi McBride as... someone who’s name nobody can remember, Mark Valley as the generic and utterly character-free Christopher Chance and a load of supporting characters. One character stands out as slightly awesome: Jackie Earle Haley as Guerrero. Haley’s the only actor with a bit of talent or at least a grasp on what he’s doing. Sadly, he’s not in the show enough and quite a way from being the star of the show. He should be the star, though, as nobody else does add anything to the cast. In fact, we don’t even know who any of the characters are. Chance’s real name isn’t even Chance.

#2: Be boring
Let’s face it: The Human Target is boring. Just about any law of storytelling is being broken on a regular basis. Too much exposition. There really aren’t many worse things than a TV-show that violates the “Show, don’t tell”-rule. Here we have exposition. Tons of it. Most of the show is exposition. Be it the explanation of how hacking works and what this key to the internet does or be it some spy-catches-spy-thing, it’s boring. How about showing the hacker do some actual hacking and show us the horrors of what this internet-hack does. Occasionally, there’s a bit of story and rarely, there are a couple of attempts at humour. Needless to say, most of the jokes completely backfire. But mostly, various characters are busy explaining various things.

#3: Have predictable plots
Let’s face it: The Human Target is bland. Chance gets poisoned in an episode. Guess what happens by the end? He’s cured. As is the redshirt-esque character of the journalist. Who saw that coming? And unsurprisingly, the plane in the hacker-episode did not land on its roof. The second the episode begins, you know that all will end well.

#4: Have no overarching plot
Let’s face it: The Human Target can be watched in any direction. You could even watch an episode in rewind and it wouldn’t matter. Also, it wouldn’t make a lick of a difference if you saw the third episode called “Embassy Row” before you saw “Rewind”, the episode with the plane, which is the second one. Hell, even the pilot is interchangeable with any other episode. Nothing ever changes, everything stays the same and Chance and his comrades just bumble from mission to mission, not really getting much of anywhere in the process.

#5: Have no clear concept
Let’s face it: Nobody knows what the Human Target is actually about. There are these three guys who do something of a non-specific nature. Are they detectives? Depends on the episode. Are they bodyguards? Depends on the episode. Are they private investigators? Depends on the episode. In general, Chance and his friends are everyone and no-one and as much as you’re trying to sell that as a concept, it won’t work because you’ll end up leaving your viewers completely confused and ultimately tuning out. Chance being the guy who has no concept because he’s everyone could work out if he was different from the other characters. But Guerrero has no concept other than “Dude” and Chi McBride’s character is busy showing off the ridges in his skull and talking into a telephone.

There you go, the recipe to make a complete failure of a TV-show in five easy steps. And don’t be upset once this show’s cancelled: It won’t be the only one and it completely deserved it.