We had to boost his IQ three times to get him to stop painting those damn soup cans." I promise, there aren't any character revelations here about how paint cans and bullet casings are really the same, or how violent murals were a sign of a need to beat up thugs. I bet dollars to donuts another show wouldn't have allowed the art-loving Wendy and the kung-fu Wendy to be the same character, but here both sides of Wendy define her equally, instead of one or the other. Thankfully, Morales (who looks like she could be Rosario Dawson's younger sister) brings what I'd guess is plenty of herself to the role, walking the perfect line between clever, sarcastic, enthusiastic and self-aware to create the kind of action heroine you can root for. "You let yourself become distracted, and next thing you know, a geological rift opens and the city's overrun by three-toed hominids who once battled mankind for dominance while you've got your tighty-whiteys around your ankles."Īnd what about Wendy Watson? With the wrong actor, "Dub-Dub" (or "Dubby") could easily be a grating mess of the kinds of backwards cliches that would make a video-game playing, butt-kicking young woman look poorly exploitative. Also appearing in the second episode and then nearly every episode in the season's second half is Tyler (Brendan Hines), who conjures up an equal amount of intimacy with Wendy Watson herself.
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Morgan and Keeslar have enough natural chemistry to rival Jim and Pam, and every scene with the two of them together (especially their attempts to watch a movie together in "The Cursed Tuba Contingency") is the very definition of charming. Lacey also immediately has eyes for The Middleman (or Wendy's Sexy Boss Man, as she calls him). Wendy and Lacey's friendship supports the show as much as it supports the characters, creating a friendly B-storyline to fill in the spaces between the action. She's an animal activist who snacks on cruelty-free asparagus jerky and keeps a thermos of fake blood in the refrigerator to spread on the inhumane. Wendy shares an illegal sublet with an equally photogenic artist named Lacey Thornfield (Brit Morgan). "Louis, I would never hit a man in a dress unless I had exhausted all other options."
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After a series of aptitude tests administered by schoolmarm-y secretary Ida (Mary Pat Gleason), Wendy finds herself as The Middleman's newest partner-in-training. Take The Middleman (Matt Keeslar) himself, who spouts off exclamations like "Sackful of eels and coat hangers!" (shocked) and "My little pony!" (angry) as if such wordplay was commonplace, and drops pearls of wisdom such as "Specificity is the key to all good communication," and "Sometimes when you put your nose to the grindstone, all you get is a bloody nose." He's calm in the face of danger, and he sees the same in young, photogenic artist Wendy Watson (Morales), who doesn't bat an eye when a monster made out of body parts attacks her at her latest temp job. Lead actress Natalie Morales describes the show in the extras as " Men in Black meets 'Get Smart'", which is a good start, but that doesn't convey how clever the dialogue is, thus my need to pepper this review with actual quotes. "You know how in comic books there's all kinds of mad scientists and aliens and androids and monsters, and all of them either want to destroy or take over the world?"ĭescribing what makes the show so great instead of having one see it for themselves is a bit of a challenge. If you want your nerd cred back, then I'm as serious as a German film festival: "The Middleman" needs to be in the DVD collection of several million genre fans, and it needs to be there yesterday. It doesn't matter now, though: "The Middleman" is also the kind of show DVD was destined to preserve, and it's hitting the format now thanks to the fine folks at Shout! Factory.
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"The Middleman" probably wasn't advertised well enough (I hadn't heard of it until I picked it from the screener pool, plus the show's verve probably doesn't boil down into 30-second TV promos), and it was also on abc family, a channel which isn't exactly defining the television zeitgeist with hip shows for pop culture junkies.
Turn in your membership cards for suspension, because we, the American geek public (myself included), let a show that loves Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Star Wars, Die Hard, Night of the Living Dead and Escape From New York as much as we do - just to name movies - get canceled.
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