Fair to "Middleman"
The Avengers, that swinging ’60s pinnacle of superspy cool, proved that a TV series could overcome budgetary restrictions with a winning cast, witty writing, and thriftily stylish production design. As for The Middleman, ABC Family’s cheerily Avengers-inspired summer series … well, two outta three ain’t bad.
Apparently, writing about a secret island full of polar bears and smoke monsters on Lost wasn’t nearly weird enough for Javier Grillo-Marxuach. No, he had to go and create this TV pilot-turned-comic-book-turned-TV-series-again about a square-jawed secret agent and his comely slacker sidekick, who battle all manner of brightly colored evildoers. It’s about as frothy as entertainment gets without veering into complete inanity, but the snappy dialogue’s nearly Pushing Daisies-grade at times — including occasional, surprising swerves into gleefully racy innuendo — and the casting’s darn near perfect.
Ever since I got hooked on Due South back in high school, I’ve had a soft spot for impossibly wholesome heroes, and Matt Keeslar’s Middleman more than fits the bill. Reciting his every cornball aphorism (“Sweet ghost of Preston Tucker!”) with a straight face and the sort of mellifluous voice one associates with the narrators of ’50s hygiene films, Keeslar’s never less than a hoot to watch.
As his reluctant sidekick, painter/temp/part-time crimefighter Wendy Watson, the lovely and charismatic Natalie Morales is a bit more hit-or-miss. Sometimes she seems to be playing so far to the opposite of Keeslar’s clean-cut earnestness that she comes off a bit flat — even whiny. But for the most part, she’s more than game for the weirdness each episode throws her way, and her snarky deadpan delivery plays well against Keeslar’s unwavering sincerity.
The rest of the cast is great, too. Mary Pat Gleason could have walked straight out of the comic book as Ida, the Middleman’s frumpy, foul-tempered android secretary. Jake Smollett brings unexpected soul and charm to Noser, the burnout philosopher who always seems to be hanging around outside Wendy’s illegal sublet. And the ridiculously cute Brit Morgan, as Wendy’s performance-artist roommate Lacey, may well be the series’ secret weapon. (Imagine Arrested Development’s Lindsay Bluth-Funke with a heart and a semi-functioning brain, and you’re nearly there.)
You’ll need a high tolerance for quirkiness to make it through this one, I’ll admit. At times, you can all but hear the writing staff laboring too hard to hit a certain snide screwball-comedy tone (and failing). In addition, one often gets the sense that the show’s narrative ambitions are slamming into the wall of financial reality, often and with great force.
Each episode looks like it was made for five bucks, maybe six on a good week, with Power Rangers-grade special effects and (aside from Wendy and Lacey’s well-decorated apartment, and Middleman HQ) sets that seem threadbare even by cable-drama standards. I could forgive the series for not quite living up to the lush, energetic artwork of Les McClaine, co-creator of the series’ comic book incarnation, but man, it doesn’t even come close. Grillo-Marxuach and his production team are clearly Avengers fans — heck, Jeremiah Chechick, director of the infamous 1999 Avengers movie, directed the pilot and helps produce the show — so hopefully they can take some cues from that show’s artful camera angles and industrious raiding of the studio prop department.
But for all its budgetary failings, this is still a series in which tracksuited mobster gorillas wield machine guns in the service of a mad scientist; reformed succubi staff a high-fashion design agency; and a huffy martial-arts master fights a blood feud against an army of evil luchadores and their giant laser. So basically, I can’t not recommend it.
The Middleman is fun, fizzy summer entertainment, with a brain in its head and tongue firmly in cheek. When it comes to killing time in a thoroughly pleasant fashion, these superspies definitely accomplish their mission.
Watch past episodes of The Middleman on ABC Family’s teenager-infested website, or tune in Monday nights at 10 ET.
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