Clive Standen as Bryan Mills
Clive Standen said that Bryan Mills’ special skill set won’t feel exceptional in Season 2 of “Taken” if new showrunner Greg Plageman decided not to let go most of the show’s original cast members. NBC/Jan Thijs

A lot of “Taken” fans were shocked when it was reported last June that six of the show’s series regulars were not coming back for Season 2. It was later revealed that the cast shake-up was part of the decision to reboot the series. While some viewers think that the show can still be rebooted without pink-slipping the majority of the original cast, lead star Clive Standen understands why new showrunner Greg Plageman decided to let go most of the Season 1 cast.

“I think it’s a natural progression,” Standen told The New York Post of the cast overhaul for the new season. “When you’re dealing with [Bryan Mills] in the films, he’s a finished product. With a TV show, you have to start somewhere and build this character. Season 1 was setting him up in a team environment. But if you surround him with six or seven guys with the same skill set, it doesn’t make him very special.”

“In Season 2 [trimming his team] allows it to be more personal,” Standen continued. “It’s going more towards that Bryan Mills you see in the films — the lone wolf who’s using that skill set.”

In addition to bringing the focus to Bryan, Season 2 will also see Bryan and his new team working on non-government cases. “Last year, because he was working in ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence), it was all very government conspiracy all the time,” Standen told Observer. “Now we have our own unit so we’re allowed to do what we want.”

In an interview with TV Fanatic, Plageman explained why they decided to take Bryan and Christina Hart (Jennifer Beals) out of the ODNI for Season 2. “Christina was often reporting to the DNI last year, and it felt very formal in some ways,” Plageman said. “I would love to take them a little bit more off the grid, and a little bit more like have their own private security firm, which is totally deniable by the government. So there are things … that are happening around the globe that we can go in for a friend or somebody we know or another security consultant and say ‘Hey, can you help us out here?’”

An all-new episode of “Taken” airs on Friday, Jan. 19 at 10 p.m. EST on NBC. Check out a sneak peek from Season 2, episode 2 below:

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