The romance plot is thin gruel and entirely beside the point. If you’re here, it’s for spinning heel kicks and jokes about Timecop. Jean-Claude Van Johnson has both, but ask yourself if that’s enough to fill a whole series. Your 80s action-loving heart will want to say yes, but your 2016 head, stuffed with an ever-growing list of excellent TV you already don’t have enough time to watch, will likely tell you no. It’s not that the pilot doesn’t entertain. Key And Peele’s Peter Atencio does a genuinely great job directing Van Damme’s action scenes, which look so good they barely count as spoofs. A rain-soaked sai-fight and henchmen pile-on remind you why the star made it in movies in the first place. The past-it training montage later on falls flatter. As does some of the pilot’s broader satire on LA culture, which feels predictable at best. That stuff—plumbed-in coconut water, vaping, monogrammed Segways and ‘dry ramen’ pop-up experience bars—is simply being done with more sting elsewhere. Seek out BoJack Horseman or Episodes to name just two. Better are the swipes at Hollywood’s myopic interest in ‘reimagining’ existing properties, none more so than one muscled-up take on an American lit classic I won’t spoil here.
