Lest you think that MacGyver is the only absurd covert operative with an ill-conceived prequel series, NBC has just debuted the trailer for their Taken adaptation.
Set in the years before Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills developed a thinly-veiled Irish accent, the show is meant to reveal the origins of the hero-dad’s “very particular set of skills.” As already spilled in this trailer, those origins are that a civilian Mills managed to foil the attempted hijacking of a train. Soon after, a woman from a secret organization approaches him and was like, “We want you to be a Taken. Beyond reason, this is how we recruit people.”
This first preview also reveals just how strangely particular those famous, very particular skills are. It appears that, prior to Taken, he had already rescued someone’s daughter from a cartel. Yes, the adventures of Bryan Mills are somehow even more doggedly repetitive than three very similar films had already led us to believe. So you’ll see dragged out even further when the weekly series premieres February 27.