The Clone Wars has been one of the finest animated TV shows ever created. Not because it's Star Wars but because it actually deals with some of the difficult questions in life, usually without flinching, and in a way that kids can usually understand. It's a very adult show made with the knowledge that kids would be watching it. It didn't "dumb down" for them, but they did make it to be accessible to them. It didn't restrict itself to being episodic, unlike Rebels, which held to that formula steadfastly.
Look, I'm not saying that Clone Wars is, like, Animaniacs or anything, but I do actually find myself wanting to go back to Clone Wars more often that I want to sit down and watch a bunch of Animaniacs episodes.
I've already talked before about what happened to Clone Wars and the final half season, season six. Also, I watched and reviewed the unfinished episodes provided on starwars.com back when they were released on there. Now that Disney+ is available, they've gone back and finished the animation on those episodes and added a few more to round out this "final" season of the show. I say "final" because I'm really hoping that if it does well enough, Disney will decide to continue the series.
Or maybe they don't need to? I haven't watched Resistance yet, so I don't know if it's a successor to Clone Wars or Rebels, though, looking at the animation, I'm going to guess Rebels.
What I'm saying here is that I want a Star Wars show that tackles difficult topics, tells meaningful stories, and remains fun to watch. So far, only Clone Wars has accomplished that. Maybe The Mandalorian will rise to it, but I'm kind of doubting it. It's going to be a fun romp, but I don't think it's going to be a show that embraces moral dilemmas beyond the basic conflict of the bounty hunter turned protector.
All of which is to say that I'm excited to get back into Clone Wars for this final season.
And, just to note, with the episodes that I've reviewed in their unfinished formats, I'll provide those reviews along with any new thoughts I have.
Showing posts with label Animaniacs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animaniacs. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Vader's Offspring
Wait! Wait! I'm talking about these books by Jeffrey Brown.
The books have brightly colored pictures that are easily appealing to kids. Funny things happen, like Luke hitting Lobot in the head with pasta sauce at dinner, which are also appealing to kids. However, it takes a certain knowledge of Star Wars and of being a parent for these books to really hit home.
I love Darth Vader and Son. It captures a moment when Luke is probably around six or so and is a great picture of what it's like to be a dad. As in the scene with the pasta sauce: Vader's hand is to his forehead in that great "I can't believe he just did that" pose. This, though, is one of my favorites:
Vader's little princess is good, too, but it doesn't quite live up to Vader and Son. Mostly, it's because he used all the great kid moments in the one about Luke. Because of that, the one with Leia is less focused and strays up into teenagerdom and young adulthood. I have to say, though, that some of the dating stuff with Han is pretty funny. Here's one of my favorites from Leia's book:
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Getting the Wrong Message
We live in an age of t-shirts. They're like membership badges. You wear a shirt, and people comment on it, and it let's you know whether or not they're in your club. Unsurprisingly, I have several Star Wars t-shirts. I used to have a lot more, but most of them have been retired. Okay, so, yeah, I still have them; I just don't wear them anymore, because an awful lot of them are 20 years old and not really fit for wearing anymore. A have a couple of Sandman t-shirts, I have Animaniacs and "Pinky and the Brain" t-shirts, and I have this t-shirt:
(I also have a lot of other comic book related shirts, but I don't really have time to list all the shirts I have!)
I imagine that emblem is familiar to most of you out there, but, surprisingly, it's one of the least recognized shirts I have. It's also one of the most commented on shirts I have. Whedon fans will almost always say something, but, frequently, people who don't know anything about Firefly will say something like, "Nice message. We could all use more serenity." I just sort of nod and grin and say, "Yeah, we could," while thinking something like "if you only knew."
When I was in college, I was in this writing group. A lot of (pretentious) poetry was batted around during the meetings. One of the rules was that you were not allowed to claim your own work. We were also encouraged to comment on our own work so that no one would know it was ours by our silence. Non-committally comment, of course. That was hard for a lot of people, so most everyone just sat silently when one of their pieces was being read and commented on.
One night, there was a particular poem that was read. I don't remember what it was about, but, evidently, no one was getting it. The author of the poem was trying to restrain himself, but I could tell he was getting frustrated, and he was really fighting with himself to keep from blurting out how wrong everyone was. Including the professors. One professor in particular. Awkwardly enough, I was the one that caused him to explode, but it was because I got it right. I gave my interpretation, and he slapped the table, jumped up, and pointed at me yelling "Yes! Finally! Someone gets it!"
I felt kind of bad. Bad in that it was my fault he lost his cool. It was kind of weird that he lost it over his message getting through when he'd managed to hold it together through everyone getting the "wrong" message. But that's kind of the point: there is no "wrong" message. There is a failure to communicate the intended message, but it's hard to say that a message pulled from a reading is wrong. Unless, of course, you're Barney Stinson rooting for the bully in The Karate Kid. Barney just gets it wrong, but it's not like that for most of us.
No, most of us carry away a valid message even if it isn't quite the one the author intended, and you know what? That's okay. None of the people giving the "wrong" interpretation of the poem that night had messed anything up; they just didn't quite understand the point the author was trying to make. That doesn't mean those other points weren't there, because we weave into our writing things we have no idea are there until someone else points them out to us. And that's okay, too. That's why other people can see things about us that we can't always see, and it's why we can learn about ourselves through other people and the way other people read what we've written.
You know what else? I don't think Joss would be upset about people coming away with a message of serenity because if the t-shirt based on his movie. I think he'd say, "That's okay."
I imagine that emblem is familiar to most of you out there, but, surprisingly, it's one of the least recognized shirts I have. It's also one of the most commented on shirts I have. Whedon fans will almost always say something, but, frequently, people who don't know anything about Firefly will say something like, "Nice message. We could all use more serenity." I just sort of nod and grin and say, "Yeah, we could," while thinking something like "if you only knew."
When I was in college, I was in this writing group. A lot of (pretentious) poetry was batted around during the meetings. One of the rules was that you were not allowed to claim your own work. We were also encouraged to comment on our own work so that no one would know it was ours by our silence. Non-committally comment, of course. That was hard for a lot of people, so most everyone just sat silently when one of their pieces was being read and commented on.
One night, there was a particular poem that was read. I don't remember what it was about, but, evidently, no one was getting it. The author of the poem was trying to restrain himself, but I could tell he was getting frustrated, and he was really fighting with himself to keep from blurting out how wrong everyone was. Including the professors. One professor in particular. Awkwardly enough, I was the one that caused him to explode, but it was because I got it right. I gave my interpretation, and he slapped the table, jumped up, and pointed at me yelling "Yes! Finally! Someone gets it!"
I felt kind of bad. Bad in that it was my fault he lost his cool. It was kind of weird that he lost it over his message getting through when he'd managed to hold it together through everyone getting the "wrong" message. But that's kind of the point: there is no "wrong" message. There is a failure to communicate the intended message, but it's hard to say that a message pulled from a reading is wrong. Unless, of course, you're Barney Stinson rooting for the bully in The Karate Kid. Barney just gets it wrong, but it's not like that for most of us.
No, most of us carry away a valid message even if it isn't quite the one the author intended, and you know what? That's okay. None of the people giving the "wrong" interpretation of the poem that night had messed anything up; they just didn't quite understand the point the author was trying to make. That doesn't mean those other points weren't there, because we weave into our writing things we have no idea are there until someone else points them out to us. And that's okay, too. That's why other people can see things about us that we can't always see, and it's why we can learn about ourselves through other people and the way other people read what we've written.
You know what else? I don't think Joss would be upset about people coming away with a message of serenity because if the t-shirt based on his movie. I think he'd say, "That's okay."
Friday, February 10, 2012
Not Just For Kids
One of the things I worry most about as a writer is being pegged as a writer of kids' books. Unless that's all you want to do, it can be a huge ball and chain. Once you get that label, if you try to break away and do something else, everyone gets mad at you. Like you can't possibly do anything else. My goal with The House on the Corner was not to write a book for kids but to write a book that was accessible to kids. Yes, I want kids to read it, but I also want adults to read it. In this, I was, actually, striving for something along the lines of Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia (although, really, Lewis was writing for kids, but I think he surpassed himself).
In truth, what I was striving for was something more along the lines of Animaniacs (the greatest cartoon EVER!) or Looney Toons. Kids love that stuff, but you can't really appreciate them until you grow up and see the entire other level of humor. I'm not saying I achieved anything along the lines of either of these shows, but, still, it's the kind of thing I was going for.
So... if I don't want to get labeled an author of kids' books, why did I write a book that lends itself to that? Well, the answer is really simple, actually: I didn't want to have to tell my kids they couldn't read it. That can be a huge motivator. So what you get is The House on the Corner and, now, the Tib "stories."
But the truth is that the "real" stories in my head, the "big" ones, are not for kids at all. Not that I want to belittle what's going on in House or Tib, because I don't view those as "small" stories, but one of the things in my head would fall under epic fantasy (I think), and that makes me think "big." The other deals with... well, big issues, I guess. Not growing up type issue, like House, but society issues.
Anyway...
My original idea when I started all of this writing business was that I was going to start out by writing short stories. That idea didn't live very long as fell into House pretty soon after that. I did, however, start one short story (this is was nearly 3 years ago). Yes, I did say "start," because I never finished that first story. Well, that is, until now.
It's interesting to me in that that story started out as just this isolated little thing. It came out of the idea of what we can do with words to other people (but I don't want to say more than that, because, really, more than that would give the story away). Later, much later, I sat down and wrote "The Tunnel" (The Tunnel being part 1 of Tib, for those of you that haven't been following). As I was writing it, I realized that these two stories were linked, and a much larger world started growing in my head (yeah, it's kind of painful, and there are all sorts of operations (usually involving keyboards and the banging of heads) required to get things like that out once they've started growing).
The problem here is that that first short story, that one I started so long ago, well, it's not for kids. I will just happen to fail to mention it to my kids even though they're reading all about Tib. They'll just have to wait till they're older to find out how all of that came about. Okay, well, maybe my oldest will get to read it, but it's really going to depend upon his ability to keep his mouth shut to the other two. I don't think I would think about things like this at all if I mostly dealt with high schoolers (I was reading things much more mature than this when I was in high school), but, no, I teach creative writing to middle schoolers and spend lots of time in elementary school classes, and I have to worry about parents letting their kids read this story without looking at it first for no other reason than that I wrote it and their kids love The House on the Corner. [Yes, I'm going to be spending a lot of time telling parents at my kids' school "make sure you read this before you let your kids read it (because a lot of them have Kindles or access to one).]
And, now, finally, to the point:
This post was supposed to be the announcement of the release of a new story, but, alas, I'm not quite finished with it and getting it all set up on the Kindle. Things have just been too busy, lately, but I should have it ready by sometime early next week, so I'm going to go ahead and debut the cover today.
First, though, for those of you who have been following the adventures of Tib (if you can call them adventures), this is sort of a prologue to all of that. Or an origin story. But not really. At any rate, it is the story that gave birth (no pun intended (yes, you'll have to read it to understand that)) to the world that Tib lives in. The title is "The Evil That Men Do," and it will be available exclusively on the Kindle sometime soon.
The inestimable Rusty Webb is, once again, responsible for the cover, and I really love it.
And because I'm such a nice guy, I'm going to give you a look at some of the other designs that were part of the process.
My wife (and, I think, Rusty's wife) liked this one best, and, while I really like the silver, it doesn't evoke the moth and flame image the way the other cover does.
And because I think this next image is really cool, even if it doesn't work for what I was going for, here's one other "work in progress" piece:
If you don't already follow Rusty, click that link I left up there, and go do that!
Look for (actually, I'll tell you when) "The Evil That Men Do" to be available for the Kindle sometime in the coming for the LOW, LOW price of only $0.99!!!
Also, remember, the sale on The House on the Corner is ending today. Tomorrow, I'll set the prices back to what they're listed at on my House page, but, for today, you can still get it for the LOW, LOW price of only $0.99!!! And, hey, you can't beat 2-for-1 on signed copies of the physical book! Okay, well, that's not precisely true, because you could beat it, but I can't. Sorry, folks, that as low as I can make it go, so buy your copies while you have the chance, and give one as a gift!
In truth, what I was striving for was something more along the lines of Animaniacs (the greatest cartoon EVER!) or Looney Toons. Kids love that stuff, but you can't really appreciate them until you grow up and see the entire other level of humor. I'm not saying I achieved anything along the lines of either of these shows, but, still, it's the kind of thing I was going for.
So... if I don't want to get labeled an author of kids' books, why did I write a book that lends itself to that? Well, the answer is really simple, actually: I didn't want to have to tell my kids they couldn't read it. That can be a huge motivator. So what you get is The House on the Corner and, now, the Tib "stories."
But the truth is that the "real" stories in my head, the "big" ones, are not for kids at all. Not that I want to belittle what's going on in House or Tib, because I don't view those as "small" stories, but one of the things in my head would fall under epic fantasy (I think), and that makes me think "big." The other deals with... well, big issues, I guess. Not growing up type issue, like House, but society issues.
Anyway...
My original idea when I started all of this writing business was that I was going to start out by writing short stories. That idea didn't live very long as fell into House pretty soon after that. I did, however, start one short story (this is was nearly 3 years ago). Yes, I did say "start," because I never finished that first story. Well, that is, until now.
It's interesting to me in that that story started out as just this isolated little thing. It came out of the idea of what we can do with words to other people (but I don't want to say more than that, because, really, more than that would give the story away). Later, much later, I sat down and wrote "The Tunnel" (The Tunnel being part 1 of Tib, for those of you that haven't been following). As I was writing it, I realized that these two stories were linked, and a much larger world started growing in my head (yeah, it's kind of painful, and there are all sorts of operations (usually involving keyboards and the banging of heads) required to get things like that out once they've started growing).
The problem here is that that first short story, that one I started so long ago, well, it's not for kids. I will just happen to fail to mention it to my kids even though they're reading all about Tib. They'll just have to wait till they're older to find out how all of that came about. Okay, well, maybe my oldest will get to read it, but it's really going to depend upon his ability to keep his mouth shut to the other two. I don't think I would think about things like this at all if I mostly dealt with high schoolers (I was reading things much more mature than this when I was in high school), but, no, I teach creative writing to middle schoolers and spend lots of time in elementary school classes, and I have to worry about parents letting their kids read this story without looking at it first for no other reason than that I wrote it and their kids love The House on the Corner. [Yes, I'm going to be spending a lot of time telling parents at my kids' school "make sure you read this before you let your kids read it (because a lot of them have Kindles or access to one).]
And, now, finally, to the point:
This post was supposed to be the announcement of the release of a new story, but, alas, I'm not quite finished with it and getting it all set up on the Kindle. Things have just been too busy, lately, but I should have it ready by sometime early next week, so I'm going to go ahead and debut the cover today.
First, though, for those of you who have been following the adventures of Tib (if you can call them adventures), this is sort of a prologue to all of that. Or an origin story. But not really. At any rate, it is the story that gave birth (no pun intended (yes, you'll have to read it to understand that)) to the world that Tib lives in. The title is "The Evil That Men Do," and it will be available exclusively on the Kindle sometime soon.
The inestimable Rusty Webb is, once again, responsible for the cover, and I really love it.
And because I think this next image is really cool, even if it doesn't work for what I was going for, here's one other "work in progress" piece:
Look for (actually, I'll tell you when) "The Evil That Men Do" to be available for the Kindle sometime in the coming for the LOW, LOW price of only $0.99!!!
Also, remember, the sale on The House on the Corner is ending today. Tomorrow, I'll set the prices back to what they're listed at on my House page, but, for today, you can still get it for the LOW, LOW price of only $0.99!!! And, hey, you can't beat 2-for-1 on signed copies of the physical book! Okay, well, that's not precisely true, because you could beat it, but I can't. Sorry, folks, that as low as I can make it go, so buy your copies while you have the chance, and give one as a gift!
Friday, July 1, 2011
The Middleman and the History of Television
Okay, so I'm not really going to give you the history of television. I mean, how boring, right? Actually, I'm not sure if that would be boring or not seeing as how I know absolutely nothing about the history of that most predominant of items in homes. Did you know that on average there are more television sets per household than there are people? How scary is that? And that doesn't include computers which can serve a similar function. It's no wonder, though, that what we watch, how much we watch, has such a huge influence on the way we write. But that's another story.
TV wasn't a huge thing for me when I was kid. Except on Saturday mornings. I wouldn't do anything without my Saturday morning cartoons.The rest of the time, I was more interested in playing. And by playing, I mean playing outside. TV was only for when there was absolutely nothing else to do. The problem was that, as I got older, the times when there was nothing to do became more and more frequent. By the time I was in middle school, I ruled the television set from the time I got home until the news came on at 10. That was my cue to shuffle off to bed and read for a couple or few hours.
All of that changed my freshman year of high school. There's a story that goes with that (I have stories that go with pretty darn near everything), but, near the end of my freshman year, I discovered there was life outside of TV, and I gave it up. Not that I made any kind of declaration, "I'm giving up TV!" or anything like that, but I just lost interest in it, and I've never gone back. Which is not to say that I never watched TV again, but it's never dictated my schedule to me again. There was a period during college when my best friend and I were addicted to Stand Up Stand UP, Whose Line Is It Anyway? and a couple of other shows like that on the newly formed The Comedy Channel (yes, it wasn't Comedy Central, yet, in those days) which was difficult because neither of us had a TV, at the time, so we snatched viewings at my parents' house (a couple of times a week when we were there) or wherever we could.
You have to remember, this was before DVDs and the wide proliferation of TV shows available for purchase. If you wanted to watch something, you pretty much had to be there at the designated time slot on the designated day. Or, you know, know how to program a VCR for which you had to take advanced courses in college to be able to do. Fortunately, at the time, I invested in those courses. Which are totally useless today. At any rate, it took an extra effort for any show to catch my eye in the first place, and it had to be pretty spectacular for me to bother myself with recording it. Like I said, I no longer bent to the whims of television schedules.
I bet you're wondering what kind of shows I would go out of my way to record, aren't you? I bet you're thinking that if I would go to such lengths as to program the VCR to record them that they must have been pretty spectacular. Are you getting your pad of paper and a pen to make notes about the incredibly sophisticated and deep viewing I'm about to lay out before you? Are you ready for it? The list isn't very long. In fact, there are only three shows that ever demanded such loyalty from me. Are you ready? They're Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (which I misplaced my dedication to after the second season), The Flash, and Animaniacs. Yes, I'm serious. Best cartoon ever. EVER!
The Flash was the first series that I loved that just didn't make it however much it deserved to. But a higher profile show keep using up all its blue screen time and forced delay after delay upon it so that it couldn't maintain its viewers because new episodes came out only about once every three weeks. However, Mark Hamill's two episodes as the Trickster are incredible, and it's unfortunate that the show couldn't sustain an audience.
Eventually, I moved out to CA and got married. At this point, my wife and I actually did make a premeditated decision that we weren't going to have TV in our house. It's one of those things that, if it's available, it's hard to control. It starts with just one show. I had avoided watching TV up to that point by never being home (or shut up in my room painting), but you can't really run a marriage that way, so we chose no TV.
For a long time, that really meant no TV. At all. The television set was, basically, a miniature movie screen in our house, because that's all it was ever used for. Later, there was the DVD player, and, later still, Buffy. And that's how we watch television. We hear that something is really good, so we decide we'll try it out. That's extremely easy to do these days with Netflix
My wife and I don't have enough shows to keep us viewing all year long (or even most of the year long), so, between DVD releases of the shows we follow, we try out new things. One of the disappointing things we've learned is that we tend toward shows that, for whatever reason, didn't make it. Like The Flash. And Deadwood (which may be my wife's favorite show ever). Firefly. The one we just discovered, and we knew it had been cancelled before we watched any of it, is The Middleman.
I don't have a good way of describing The Middleman in any concise sort of way. Yeah, I hear you thinking. Why would I bother with concise? When am I ever concise? Maybe, one of these days, I'll explore the genius of Kevin Smith, and, then, you will understand. Or, probably, not. Yes, I've always been this way.
Anyway...
The Middleman is about this super hero guy called the Middleman and his Middleman in training, who happens to be female. They work for an organization they refer to as O2STK (Organization Too Secret To Know), and that's just the tip of the awesome that is this show. The fact that the villains are continually saying, "My plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity," as they monologue about their convoluted schemes to take over the world (or destroy it) is frosting goodness.
It's a tongue-in-cheek look at pop culture that pokes fun at it while simultaneously celebrating it. The far too few episodes tend to revolve around a specific theme and are full of references to the pop culture landmarks that inspired them. However, don't mistake my praise for the show as being any kind of suggestion that you should rush out and watch it. In all likelihood, you shouldn't. By the second episode, I was fully aware of why Middleman got cancelled.
It's not that it's too intelligent for the average viewer, although it is. Despite it's campy appearance (yes, it does wear camp clothes, dressing itself up to resemble the Batman series of the 60s with such things as the Middlemobile), it is, in many ways, too sophisticated for the average viewer. If you can't catch the subtleties, you'll just think it's silly. To make matters worse, if you're not pretty well grounded in your pop culture lore, the vast majority of the jokes will go right over your head. There's nothing worse than a joke you don't get in a show meant to be funny. And, if it's meant to be funny, and you're only getting every 3rd or 4th joke, you tend to, well, think it's not funny. It's like being the person in the room staring at Monty Python and the Holy Grail with a glazed expression while everyone else laughs uncontrollably.
So... it's not a show I can actually recommend, but I liked it so much, I needed to write about it. The sad part is that it did have some really interesting sub-plots developing, and we'll never know what was to come of them. The only real reason I could suggest watching it is if you really wanted to know how off center I am. Either you'd get the show, and say "oh, wow, this is great," in which case you would be revealed to be off center, too, or you'd make the yuck face and think (or, maybe, even say out loud), "He likes this? What's wrong with him?"
Of course, Middleman did get a fairly good critical reaction. Like Arrested Development. But, when everything comes down to how much money it can generate, the bits on either end of the bell curve (the great and the horrible) become indistinguishable to the profit gurus. Which is just too bad, because everything becomes the same old bland mass market crap. Whit rice, white bread, and white TV. Read anything you want into that statement. I'm sure you won't be wrong.
TV wasn't a huge thing for me when I was kid. Except on Saturday mornings. I wouldn't do anything without my Saturday morning cartoons.The rest of the time, I was more interested in playing. And by playing, I mean playing outside. TV was only for when there was absolutely nothing else to do. The problem was that, as I got older, the times when there was nothing to do became more and more frequent. By the time I was in middle school, I ruled the television set from the time I got home until the news came on at 10. That was my cue to shuffle off to bed and read for a couple or few hours.
All of that changed my freshman year of high school. There's a story that goes with that (I have stories that go with pretty darn near everything), but, near the end of my freshman year, I discovered there was life outside of TV, and I gave it up. Not that I made any kind of declaration, "I'm giving up TV!" or anything like that, but I just lost interest in it, and I've never gone back. Which is not to say that I never watched TV again, but it's never dictated my schedule to me again. There was a period during college when my best friend and I were addicted to Stand Up Stand UP, Whose Line Is It Anyway? and a couple of other shows like that on the newly formed The Comedy Channel (yes, it wasn't Comedy Central, yet, in those days) which was difficult because neither of us had a TV, at the time, so we snatched viewings at my parents' house (a couple of times a week when we were there) or wherever we could.
You have to remember, this was before DVDs and the wide proliferation of TV shows available for purchase. If you wanted to watch something, you pretty much had to be there at the designated time slot on the designated day. Or, you know, know how to program a VCR for which you had to take advanced courses in college to be able to do. Fortunately, at the time, I invested in those courses. Which are totally useless today. At any rate, it took an extra effort for any show to catch my eye in the first place, and it had to be pretty spectacular for me to bother myself with recording it. Like I said, I no longer bent to the whims of television schedules.
I bet you're wondering what kind of shows I would go out of my way to record, aren't you? I bet you're thinking that if I would go to such lengths as to program the VCR to record them that they must have been pretty spectacular. Are you getting your pad of paper and a pen to make notes about the incredibly sophisticated and deep viewing I'm about to lay out before you? Are you ready for it? The list isn't very long. In fact, there are only three shows that ever demanded such loyalty from me. Are you ready? They're Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (which I misplaced my dedication to after the second season), The Flash, and Animaniacs. Yes, I'm serious. Best cartoon ever. EVER!
The Flash was the first series that I loved that just didn't make it however much it deserved to. But a higher profile show keep using up all its blue screen time and forced delay after delay upon it so that it couldn't maintain its viewers because new episodes came out only about once every three weeks. However, Mark Hamill's two episodes as the Trickster are incredible, and it's unfortunate that the show couldn't sustain an audience.
Eventually, I moved out to CA and got married. At this point, my wife and I actually did make a premeditated decision that we weren't going to have TV in our house. It's one of those things that, if it's available, it's hard to control. It starts with just one show. I had avoided watching TV up to that point by never being home (or shut up in my room painting), but you can't really run a marriage that way, so we chose no TV.
For a long time, that really meant no TV. At all. The television set was, basically, a miniature movie screen in our house, because that's all it was ever used for. Later, there was the DVD player, and, later still, Buffy. And that's how we watch television. We hear that something is really good, so we decide we'll try it out. That's extremely easy to do these days with Netflix
My wife and I don't have enough shows to keep us viewing all year long (or even most of the year long), so, between DVD releases of the shows we follow, we try out new things. One of the disappointing things we've learned is that we tend toward shows that, for whatever reason, didn't make it. Like The Flash. And Deadwood (which may be my wife's favorite show ever). Firefly. The one we just discovered, and we knew it had been cancelled before we watched any of it, is The Middleman.
I don't have a good way of describing The Middleman in any concise sort of way. Yeah, I hear you thinking. Why would I bother with concise? When am I ever concise? Maybe, one of these days, I'll explore the genius of Kevin Smith, and, then, you will understand. Or, probably, not. Yes, I've always been this way.
Anyway...
The Middleman is about this super hero guy called the Middleman and his Middleman in training, who happens to be female. They work for an organization they refer to as O2STK (Organization Too Secret To Know), and that's just the tip of the awesome that is this show. The fact that the villains are continually saying, "My plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity," as they monologue about their convoluted schemes to take over the world (or destroy it) is frosting goodness.
It's a tongue-in-cheek look at pop culture that pokes fun at it while simultaneously celebrating it. The far too few episodes tend to revolve around a specific theme and are full of references to the pop culture landmarks that inspired them. However, don't mistake my praise for the show as being any kind of suggestion that you should rush out and watch it. In all likelihood, you shouldn't. By the second episode, I was fully aware of why Middleman got cancelled.
It's not that it's too intelligent for the average viewer, although it is. Despite it's campy appearance (yes, it does wear camp clothes, dressing itself up to resemble the Batman series of the 60s with such things as the Middlemobile), it is, in many ways, too sophisticated for the average viewer. If you can't catch the subtleties, you'll just think it's silly. To make matters worse, if you're not pretty well grounded in your pop culture lore, the vast majority of the jokes will go right over your head. There's nothing worse than a joke you don't get in a show meant to be funny. And, if it's meant to be funny, and you're only getting every 3rd or 4th joke, you tend to, well, think it's not funny. It's like being the person in the room staring at Monty Python and the Holy Grail with a glazed expression while everyone else laughs uncontrollably.
So... it's not a show I can actually recommend, but I liked it so much, I needed to write about it. The sad part is that it did have some really interesting sub-plots developing, and we'll never know what was to come of them. The only real reason I could suggest watching it is if you really wanted to know how off center I am. Either you'd get the show, and say "oh, wow, this is great," in which case you would be revealed to be off center, too, or you'd make the yuck face and think (or, maybe, even say out loud), "He likes this? What's wrong with him?"
Of course, Middleman did get a fairly good critical reaction. Like Arrested Development. But, when everything comes down to how much money it can generate, the bits on either end of the bell curve (the great and the horrible) become indistinguishable to the profit gurus. Which is just too bad, because everything becomes the same old bland mass market crap. Whit rice, white bread, and white TV. Read anything you want into that statement. I'm sure you won't be wrong.
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