1 9 9 2 (USA)
8 x 60 minute episodes
During the Vietnam War, Lieutenant Christopher Chase (former Australian-born teen idol Rick Springfield) was in charge of a Special Forces unit sent into villages to destroy them. During one such raid, Chris was captured by the Vietcong and placed in a cage, where he spent ten days before he was rescued. As a result, he now had a fear of small places.
When he was discharged from the military, Chase spent 18 months in the psychiatric ward of the Walter Reed Hospital. When he was released, he decided the only way to preserve his sanity was to balance everything somehow by using his unique abilities to right wrongs.
He began by commissioning the construction of “the Wing” – a huge, highly technical black plane that resembled the wings of an airliner and served as his mobile HQ.
He then hired three highly skilled people to assist him – Libby Page (Signy Coleman), Philo Marsden (Kirk Baltz) and Jeff Carlyle (Sami Chester) – and began stepping into the lives of (largely) innocent people marked for murder as a decoy-for-hire in order to become a human target until he could ensure their safety.
Chris had an amazing ability to impersonate voices and through the use of highly advanced computer makeup (masks,) Chris became the person he was seeking to protect. When a woman was marked as a target, Chris went undercover as the male closest to her.
The fee varied depending on the job (usually 10% of a client’s yearly income,) and the client remained in safety on the Wing until Chris completed the job. Chris was more committed to outfoxing his opponents than killing them.
Libby had known Chris for several years. She previously worked for “The Company” – a secret US government organisation – in a top-level security position. When the project she was working on collapsed, she found employment with Chris to operate his high-tech telecommunications equipment.
Philo was a movie special effects and makeup expert who impressed Chris with his computer-generated masks for the film Zombies on Holiday. Philo incorporated his computer skills to make the target masks for Chris (which combined Chris’s general features with special features of a target’s face).
Jeff had served with Chris in Vietnam and now piloted the Wing.
This limited-run summer tryout series from ABC was based on an obscure DC comic book character of the same name. Anthony Marinelli composed the theme
Christopher Chance
Rick Springfield
Philo Marsden
Kirk Baltz
Jeff Carlyle
Sami Chester
Libby Page
Signy Coleman