meganbmoore | Entries tagged with tv: the middleman

Wendy Watson is an absurdly attractive temp worker/artist who reacts to being attacked by a tentacle monster by stabbing it with a penknife. This makes The Middleman, an absurdly attractive superhero with mysterious bosses and an android assistant named Ida, decide she’d make a good sidekick.

The series is a marvelously funny (if not always as clever as it thinks it is) sendup to superhero antics, the more old school the better. Wendy is modern and wisecracking, The Middleman is old school and whitebread, and has incredibly creative methods of cursing. Have Middleman quotes. Wendy also has a roommate, Lacey, who shares adorable geeky forbidden love with The Middleman. Wendy and Lacey constantly pass the Bechdel Test. Sometimes, Wendy and Ida do, too.

The series basically has no limits to its geekery and geek references (Buffy! Star Trek! Comics! Ghostbusters!) or to the absurdities that can be included in the plot (Boyband alien invaders! Zombie fish! Vampire puppets!). Wendy and Middleman are also marvelously UST-less which also makes his overprotective moments way more awesome somehow, especially since he only acts on it if she actually needs help, which isn’t often.

I didn’t get actually invested in it until the last few episodes, but it was great fun the whole time, and the last episode may be the best canon-AU ever. I am simultaneously deeply saddened that the series only lasted one season, and concerned about how long it would have been able to maintain its awesomeness.