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Old 05-27-2012, 07:41 AM   #1
Slash
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Fighting Evil So You Don't Have To

The Middleman was a show that played for only a season a few years back on the channel ABC family. In it, a young, photogenic artist named Wendy Wattson (portrayed by Natalie Morales) finds herself in an odd situation when an alien attacks her latest temp job. A mysterious man known only as The Middleman deals with the creature, but the place ends up getting wrecked and Wendy, fired. Blacklisted as an arsonist, she finds it harder and harder to find a temp job, before getting hired on at a place that turns out to be the base of The Middleman, who wants her as his apprentice. She ends up taking to the new job, and fighting evil, so you don't have to.

Reviews from different sources praise the show, such as reviews from Amazon on the Complete Series (12 episodes on 4 discs)

Spoiler: show
One of the Best Shows of This -- or Any Decade!! March 20, 2009
By Jait
Precis of the show: An art major working as a temp on the reception desk of a genetics lab is caught up in a mishap that leads to her being recruited as an agent-in-training by a uniformed man (no, not officially uniformed like a cop or a mountie, and not spandexed and/or masked like Batman or the Lone Ranger; think 1950's Army knock-off, starting with the Eisenhower jacket) who introduces himself as "The Middleman", a secret agent working for a secret agency with a secret agenda to save the world and to fight evil no matter where it is found (so that we "don't have to").

Before she knows it, our temp receptionist, Wendy Watson, is in the middle of the adventure of a life-time, fighting evil right along-side the Middleman (aka MM). And what adventures they are: fighting aliens from space disguised as the members of a boy band, collaborating -- or not -- with vampires who run a fashion company, entering Hades to prevent world destruction, dealing with evil alter-egos in an alternative universe, etc, etc, etc... and many of these adventures are handled before breakfast. Figuratively speaking, that is.

"The Middleman" is a loving parody/spoof of just about every genre any fan has ever been deeply, madly, eternally in love with... and I should know, 'cause I'm that way about all of them: most obviously, of course, is the general SF category -- but within this genre there are also the "robots are our friends -- or are they?" genre, the "invaders from space walk amongst us" genre, the "secret masters of the universe" genre, the "alternate universe" genre, the "Batman&Robin" genre, the... but why go on? If you're an SF fan, chances are you'll immediately recognize one or more of your favorite "what ifs" in every episode of "The Middleman."

And that's NOT to say that this show is derivative or recycled. On the contrary, Javier Grillo-Maxauch, the creator of "The Middleman", (who quite obviously is the SF Fan Supreme) has given every "what-if", every "do you suppose", every "could it be" that form the basis of all good SF tales those special little JG-M twists that raise his premises from "gosh darn good" (to paraphrase MM himself) to truly outstanding.

So. You start with a great concept; add exceptional writing (and, may I say, writing that was much too adult for ABC Family, the cable station that aired the episodes and dropped them after only twelve episodes); follow with casting that is absolutely spot-on for each character (I mean, even with the great writing, many actors would fail to make the Middleman anything other than a Dudley Do-right caricature, but Matt Keesler makes his nameless MM a three dimensional person -- even if he *does* drink milk and eschew any language more colorful than "heck" or "darn"); and finally, have directors who know how to handle parody and satire without making it so "over-the-top" that it fails to connect. The result will be that you have a timeless series.

I was hooked right from the start of the first episode, when Wendy Watson (Natalie Morales), our soon-to-be Middleman-in-training (Middlewoman? Middleperson? Middlebeing?), was completely unflappable in the midst of being attacked by a composite monster created in a genetics experiment gone wrong: "Andromeda Strain" sub-genre, of course. And I was *really* hooked the first time we met Wendy's roommate, Lacey Thornfield (Brit Morgan), and realized that in these two young women Grillo-Maxauch had given us two strong female roles unlike any others on TV.

And yes, with gorgeous guys and beautiful women on display, the romance genre is definitely on view here, in all its permutations: true love, unrequited love, love denied, love willingly embraced, etc, etc, etc. Interestingly, the requisite UST (unresolved sexual tension, for those who don't recognize the initials) in this show is not between MM and Wendy, but rather between MM and Lacey (who would really much rather NOT have her love be unrequited, thank you very kindly -- and I agree, which is why I adore the twist in the final episode which does, and yet doesn't, resolve the unresolvable).

So, we have both the SF and the romantic fiction genres in this show. What else? There's enough action-adventure to please any fan of the genre, enough friendship to satisfy any buddy-movie fan (the relationship between Wendy and MM and between Wendy and Lacey both qualify in this category), and enough "secret shadow government/agency" shticks to grab the Bourne audience -- provided they're willing to accept humor in the plots to take over the world.

I loved the show so much, I paid $1.99 per episode from i-tunes "just in case" the show never made it to DVD. But even with all the episodes sitting on my computer, I'm *still* gonna shell out the money to pick this set up as soon as it's released. The Middleman needs his fans.

Spoiler: show
One of the greatest shows you've never seen March 21, 2009
By A. Pendleton
Amazon Verified Purchase
I have seen every episode of the Middleman numerous amounts of times and have been waiting on this DVD set since about the second episode in. Its a TV show that had a lot of things going against it, primarily its network. Who really watches shows on ABC Family? But despite that the show was a truly funny show whose crisp dialogue ( a phrase that can't be used enough when speaking of this show) sparkled with wit, pop culture, and the best of the geek references in a subtle yet well played way. It's Alias but funny. Its Buffy without the melodrama (BTVS forever though . Its Chuck without the same people getting kidnapped every week. Its all those shows and more and you will not regret buying it. Typically I'd say netflix it but not this one. You'll want the extra features this dvd set offers and once you finish this show then you'll kick yourself for not having caught it while it was on air. Its that good of a show. This show deserves a family guy type resurrection stat!


It netted 4.9/5 stars on Amazon for the Complete Series set, with 60/67 ratings being 5 stars, 6 being 4, and 1 being 2 stars, having a fairly consistent high rating with buyers.

IMDb has it listed as a 7.8/10, a fairly comparable number to Torchwood (7.6), which, along with Futurama, Firefly, Scrubs, and Eureka are all on the "People who liked this also liked..." list.

Noel Murray of The Onion AV Club wrote this review:
Spoiler: show
If Joss Whedon and Amy Sherman-Palladino collaborated on a secret-agent/science-fiction/superhero script, then handed it off to be directed by John Carpenter, with cinematography by Barry Sonnenfeld, the results might look a lot like The Middleman, a wonderfully eccentric TV series that ran for 12 episodes last summer on ABC Family before disappearing into the rarefied realm where “unjustly ignored” cultural artifacts await their promotion to “cult favorite” status. Created by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, The Middleman stars Natalie Morales as a lovelorn art student who gets recruited by straight-arrow covert operative Matt Keeslar to join an organization known as “The Middlemen,” who’ve been using comically fake IDs and advanced technology to combat “threats intra-, extra- and juxta-terrestrial” for generations. Whenever aliens infiltrate, or super-apes join the mob, or sorority houses get haunted, or trout-eating zombies arise, Morales and Keeslar rush to the rescue with weapons drawn and rapid-fire repartee at the ready.
Much of the fun of The Middleman derives from the density of the pop-culture references, which range from the geek-friendly (the comics Astro City and Mouse Guard get name-checked in the first episode, and every episode contains a Wilhelm scream, just like every Star Wars movie) to the idiosyncratic. (The episode about zombies features multiple nods to British rock legends The Zombies.) Grillo-Marxuach and company wink to the audience in the onscreen titles, as when they label a post-commercial scene as taking place “exactly 3 minutes, 10 seconds later.” And they maintain a light tone that runs the risk of making the show feel a little too low-stakes at times. But what makes The Middleman more than just a frothy goof is the depth of the performances—especially Morales’, which shifts easily from peppy to snide to heartbroken. The cast of The Middleman is so enjoyable to be around that they can convince almost any viewer of the virtues of forthrightness, forbearance, and the honest belief that “nothing’s cooler than standard black.”
Key features: Good-natured commentary tracks on selected episodes, and a whole disc’s worth of interviews and Internet podcasts.


It earned an A-

Now, one might ask why I created this thread. Well, I just ordered the series last night off Amazon, and I felt like being nostalgic. Who's seen this? Who now wishes they had? Open discussion.
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KAIRNE I WILL RIP OFF YOUR SCROTUM AND FEED IT TO YOU THROUGH A FUCKING SWIRLY STRAW.

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Old 05-27-2012, 09:23 AM   #2
Talon87
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Haven't seen it. Sounds pretty campy reading the Amazon review (vampire fashion artists? entering Hades? evil alter egos from an alternate universe?). And you know, Kairne, for all your mentions of Amazon.com, it would have been nice of you to actually link us to the product page so that we didn't have to dig it up ourselves. Here it is ... *cough* "so that you don't have to."

Looking at the product myself on the Amazon page, it seems like it was definitely going for the camp factor, a series that finds itself at home with franchises like Men in Black or Doctor Who. Not my cup of tea but very probably something a good chunk of this board would be interested in.

Seems like the show has a cult following, kind of like Futurama (pre-all the networks taking a second look at it), Firefly, and Arrested Development. I'll agree that it's impressive for the series to only have one 2-star rating and zero 1-star or 3-star ratings, but I would caution that Amazon ratings can be misleading, especially when we're talking a small number of reviewers. The 67 people who were passionate enough to write a product review on Amazon are the same 67 people who were passionate enough to not only know this series existed but to want to order the DVD set. It's not likely you'd order this DVD set and then find out it was a terrible show. Either you never heard of it (and therefore would never buy it blind) or you heard of it, loved it, picked up the DVD set, and gave it a 5-star rating in the hopes that it'd attract network executives' attentions. (You can see a few of those optimistic thoughts amidst the reviews! ^^; )

Are there legal streaming venues for people to check this show out? Hulu? ABC.com?
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