The "The Pilot Episode Sanction' Review" Review Thead
Nov 10, 2013 2:28:04 GMT -5
Douay-Rheims-Challoner, Post-Lupin, and 3 more like this
Post by NewHereAgainoZach on Nov 10, 2013 2:28:04 GMT -5
I could go back through this, but, absent an editor, I think I'd just make it longer, which is not what I want to do here. I welcome feedback, and hope you guys enjoy the writing, or, at least get curious enough to enjoy the show, which is far more important.
It’s a common scenario for me, going back to gradeschool: sitting at a desk, bored, daydreaming about something extraordinary happening – car crash, Soviet incursion, armed robbery, alien invasion, “Star Trek” is real and I get to live on the Enterprise D after a time travel incident – rising to the occasion with aplomb, knowing exactly what and how to do, and being rewarded for it. I’ve actually responded to a couple of car crashes; kept a little girl from Brixton calm while her mother wailed in agony a few feet away, got bled on while holding an unconscious woman’s head the night of my twenty-seventh birthday. However gratifying it was to be in a position to help, there’s always been the feeling that I could have – should have – done more, been calmer in the face of chaos.
In the summer of 2008, I was house-sitting for friends, and ended up watching a lot of ABC Family, because it aired “Whose Line” reruns, I was doing stuff with a local improv troupe, and it's hilarious. They were airing ads for this show, bright and splashy, with 1960’s “Batman” sound effects and a quirky-looking cast. It looked worth checking out, so I was one of the five or six people fortunate enough to have been in on the ground floor, so to speak.
Artist, Pacifist and Eternal Temp Wendy Watson is sitting at a bland reception desk in front of giant plate-glass windows overlooking a lab facility operated by people in static suits, filled with bins festooned with radiation symbols, absently flicking her father's lucky Zippo, and fending off annoying questions from her mother on the telephone, whilst periodically answering phones with the mouthful “Thank You for Calling A.N.D. Laboratories, Re-Scrambling Your DNA, How May I Direct Your Call?” In the background, the lab personnel suddenly panic and scatter. There’s a muffled explosion, and the facility becomes fully charged with smoke. An unlucky lab worker runs into the glass, only to be pulled away, a la Brent Spiner in “Independence Day”. Then, a giant, tentacle thing pounds against the glass, startling Wendy, who turns and looks just in time to see the thing break through the glass. Attempting to run away, she’s ensnared by the beast, and pulled back in. Without missing a beat, Wendy defends herself with a letter opener, until a mysterious man in an olive-drab Eisenhower jacket blows away the offending tentacle. That’s how we meet The Middleman, the clean-talkin’, cow squirt-drinkin’, former Navy SEAL “private contractor of sorts” who deals with exotic, Comic Book Evil situations, under the employ of the Jolly Fats Wehawkin Agency.
I fell in love with the show at the very first establishing shot of the A.N.D. Laboratories facility, complete with the very specific (specificity being, after all, the soul of all good communication) chyron informing me that I was looking at the A.N.D. Laboratory, in the present day, and that it was 12:15PM. Natalie Morales’ deadpan, unruffled-in-the-face-of-anything-unusual performance is, for me, instantly winning. After the initial introduction of the mysterious Middleman, who steps into very specific lighting for certain monologues, we’re introduced to Wendy’s community: hallway musician and friend, Noser; Lacey, Another Photogenic Young Artist With Whom She Shares an Illegal Sublet; and her film school-attending boyfriend, Ben, whose heterosexuality is constantly in question to everyone but Wendy, and who dumps her on-camera for a film school assignment. Once that scene is established, DubDub is brought into the Jolly Fats Wehawkin Employment Agency, where we get to meet Ida, a cranky android played brilliantly by Mary Pat Gleason. After running Wendy through a ridiculous montage, Matt Keeslar’s Middleman steps into dramatic lighting, and, after informing her that her complete calm in the face of the impossible qualifies her for the position of his protégé, starts rattling off massive chunks of exposition like a newsreader from the forties. This is the kind of stuff I used to imagine myself doing. In a just world, I’d be Wendy Watson, only, you know, Neurozach.
The actors are brilliant in their ability to handle the text, whilst standing in various comic book page-inspired poses, revealing back-story, and, eventually, teaming up to find out who has been whacking all the mobsters in town, riddling them with Tommy guns, leaving behind only empty banana peels as clues.
“The Middleman” is a parfait of myriad delights. Creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach developed the show’s concept in the mid-nineties, but nobody wanted it. Rather than give up, he turned it into a comic book, and bided his time. Working as a writer on “Lost”, he was able to get some buzz for his earlier project, and ABC Family, of all places, picked it up, with a few changes. It’s fitting, then, that a show that owes its existence to comic books pays such homage to them: not just “X-Men – old school, not Ultimate”, but even Jughead gets a shout-out. Dramatic monologues are delivered with framing and character stacking that one would see splashed across the panels of a graphic novel, and the phrase “Comic Book Evil exists” is actually used. There are also a jillion references to movies, TV shows, music and games that have resonated through pop culture, and more importantly, support the theme of each individual episode. The performances are quick, energetic, and the actors are perfectly cast in their roles. This is probably the most self-aware, non-“The Soup”-type show ever made. The AV Club wrote in their review of the DVD set, “we failed.” This show was tailor-made for the commentariat, and it slipped through our collective fingers, not airing all of its twelve completed episodes. The final episode, in fact, existed only as a script, which has been read aloud at comic conventions, and was eventually made… as a comic book.
NOTES
-There are touches great and small which fill me with glee. The first of which is the moment of confusion at the beginning, when Wendy and the Hentai Tentacle Monster are unsure as to which of them is being addressed by the Middleman.
-In a perfect cast, Mary Pat Gleason is absurdly perfect as Ida, who’s “had the cranky something awful, ever since her appearance processor got stuck on Domineering Schoolmarm, Version 2.0.” Also perfect, the typewriter “DING!” sound after she shows her true face to Wendy. “Trippy,” Wendy says with a shrug.
-The overhead shot of Dubby running on the World’s Smallest Treadmill in that test montage is a moment of true comedy gold.
-One of the delights is the easy way in which all of the cast members interact, especially Natalie Morales’ and Brit Morgan’s relationship. They are both, indeed, photogenic, but, more importantly, the two actresses seem to have a true bond of friendship. I buy their living situation completely. It’s also adorable the way that Morgan delivers the line, “French Cuisine Kills Bunnies”. I likewise enjoyed Lacey’s mutually instantaneous attraction to, and flirtation with, DubDub’s new boss. He’ll get his own nickname from her later.
-Is there a sight more wonderful than the
-“It's not bad, for a Classical Realist.” “Art snob.”
-“What the heck were you teaching Spanky?” “How to pilot Space Shuttles.”
-Hat’s off to Mary Lynn Rajskub’s hilariously half-bored, half-annoyed delivery of every single line. Especially her resigned, “I knew you weren’t from the Department of Sanitation.”
-The chyrons Grillo-Marxuach employed throughout the show’s run are a wonder. I especially get a kick out of the one after the commercial break between the reveal of Wendy’s new boss, and the return. Apparently, she gawped for “Exactly 3 Minutes, 10 Seconds Later.”
-Fun with words: The restaurant at which the Italian gangster and his goons are perforated is called “Il Mutande Grandissimo”, which sounds like it means “The Giant Mutant”, which is what was being dealt with before the title sequence, but actually means “The Great Underpants”. “The Big Mutant” would have been “Il Grande Mutante”. So close.
Here's the entire episode, for those who want to watch it NOW, DAMNIT; NOW!!!
NEW FEATURES
Middlewisdom:
"Specificity is the soul of all good communication."
"Profanity cheapens the soul, and weakens the mind."
"Apes fling feces, Dubby; it's a fact of life."
"Self-knowledge is the gateway to freedom."
Middlecurses:
"Jiminy!"
"Well, dag diggity!"
"Jeepers!"
"Oh, [BLEEEEP]!"
"...You stringy-haired, coffehouse beatnik!"
"He's a doorknob."
"This is ri-gosh-darn-diculous!"
"I tell ya; some chucklehead's always trying to take over the world."
"Not a gosh-darned chance in heck."
Wilhelm Screams:
1
“The Middleman”
Episode One: The Pilot Episode Sanction
Episode One: The Pilot Episode Sanction
It’s a common scenario for me, going back to gradeschool: sitting at a desk, bored, daydreaming about something extraordinary happening – car crash, Soviet incursion, armed robbery, alien invasion, “Star Trek” is real and I get to live on the Enterprise D after a time travel incident – rising to the occasion with aplomb, knowing exactly what and how to do, and being rewarded for it. I’ve actually responded to a couple of car crashes; kept a little girl from Brixton calm while her mother wailed in agony a few feet away, got bled on while holding an unconscious woman’s head the night of my twenty-seventh birthday. However gratifying it was to be in a position to help, there’s always been the feeling that I could have – should have – done more, been calmer in the face of chaos.
In the summer of 2008, I was house-sitting for friends, and ended up watching a lot of ABC Family, because it aired “Whose Line” reruns, I was doing stuff with a local improv troupe, and it's hilarious. They were airing ads for this show, bright and splashy, with 1960’s “Batman” sound effects and a quirky-looking cast. It looked worth checking out, so I was one of the five or six people fortunate enough to have been in on the ground floor, so to speak.
Artist, Pacifist and Eternal Temp Wendy Watson is sitting at a bland reception desk in front of giant plate-glass windows overlooking a lab facility operated by people in static suits, filled with bins festooned with radiation symbols, absently flicking her father's lucky Zippo, and fending off annoying questions from her mother on the telephone, whilst periodically answering phones with the mouthful “Thank You for Calling A.N.D. Laboratories, Re-Scrambling Your DNA, How May I Direct Your Call?” In the background, the lab personnel suddenly panic and scatter. There’s a muffled explosion, and the facility becomes fully charged with smoke. An unlucky lab worker runs into the glass, only to be pulled away, a la Brent Spiner in “Independence Day”. Then, a giant, tentacle thing pounds against the glass, startling Wendy, who turns and looks just in time to see the thing break through the glass. Attempting to run away, she’s ensnared by the beast, and pulled back in. Without missing a beat, Wendy defends herself with a letter opener, until a mysterious man in an olive-drab Eisenhower jacket blows away the offending tentacle. That’s how we meet The Middleman, the clean-talkin’, cow squirt-drinkin’, former Navy SEAL “private contractor of sorts” who deals with exotic, Comic Book Evil situations, under the employ of the Jolly Fats Wehawkin Agency.
I fell in love with the show at the very first establishing shot of the A.N.D. Laboratories facility, complete with the very specific (specificity being, after all, the soul of all good communication) chyron informing me that I was looking at the A.N.D. Laboratory, in the present day, and that it was 12:15PM. Natalie Morales’ deadpan, unruffled-in-the-face-of-anything-unusual performance is, for me, instantly winning. After the initial introduction of the mysterious Middleman, who steps into very specific lighting for certain monologues, we’re introduced to Wendy’s community: hallway musician and friend, Noser; Lacey, Another Photogenic Young Artist With Whom She Shares an Illegal Sublet; and her film school-attending boyfriend, Ben, whose heterosexuality is constantly in question to everyone but Wendy, and who dumps her on-camera for a film school assignment. Once that scene is established, DubDub is brought into the Jolly Fats Wehawkin Employment Agency, where we get to meet Ida, a cranky android played brilliantly by Mary Pat Gleason. After running Wendy through a ridiculous montage, Matt Keeslar’s Middleman steps into dramatic lighting, and, after informing her that her complete calm in the face of the impossible qualifies her for the position of his protégé, starts rattling off massive chunks of exposition like a newsreader from the forties. This is the kind of stuff I used to imagine myself doing. In a just world, I’d be Wendy Watson, only, you know, Neurozach.
The actors are brilliant in their ability to handle the text, whilst standing in various comic book page-inspired poses, revealing back-story, and, eventually, teaming up to find out who has been whacking all the mobsters in town, riddling them with Tommy guns, leaving behind only empty banana peels as clues.
“The Middleman” is a parfait of myriad delights. Creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach developed the show’s concept in the mid-nineties, but nobody wanted it. Rather than give up, he turned it into a comic book, and bided his time. Working as a writer on “Lost”, he was able to get some buzz for his earlier project, and ABC Family, of all places, picked it up, with a few changes. It’s fitting, then, that a show that owes its existence to comic books pays such homage to them: not just “X-Men – old school, not Ultimate”, but even Jughead gets a shout-out. Dramatic monologues are delivered with framing and character stacking that one would see splashed across the panels of a graphic novel, and the phrase “Comic Book Evil exists” is actually used. There are also a jillion references to movies, TV shows, music and games that have resonated through pop culture, and more importantly, support the theme of each individual episode. The performances are quick, energetic, and the actors are perfectly cast in their roles. This is probably the most self-aware, non-“The Soup”-type show ever made. The AV Club wrote in their review of the DVD set, “we failed.” This show was tailor-made for the commentariat, and it slipped through our collective fingers, not airing all of its twelve completed episodes. The final episode, in fact, existed only as a script, which has been read aloud at comic conventions, and was eventually made… as a comic book.
NOTES
-There are touches great and small which fill me with glee. The first of which is the moment of confusion at the beginning, when Wendy and the Hentai Tentacle Monster are unsure as to which of them is being addressed by the Middleman.
-In a perfect cast, Mary Pat Gleason is absurdly perfect as Ida, who’s “had the cranky something awful, ever since her appearance processor got stuck on Domineering Schoolmarm, Version 2.0.” Also perfect, the typewriter “DING!” sound after she shows her true face to Wendy. “Trippy,” Wendy says with a shrug.
-The overhead shot of Dubby running on the World’s Smallest Treadmill in that test montage is a moment of true comedy gold.
-One of the delights is the easy way in which all of the cast members interact, especially Natalie Morales’ and Brit Morgan’s relationship. They are both, indeed, photogenic, but, more importantly, the two actresses seem to have a true bond of friendship. I buy their living situation completely. It’s also adorable the way that Morgan delivers the line, “French Cuisine Kills Bunnies”. I likewise enjoyed Lacey’s mutually instantaneous attraction to, and flirtation with, DubDub’s new boss. He’ll get his own nickname from her later.
-Is there a sight more wonderful than the
gorilla doing T'ai Chi, the mobster ape not being able to resist a swing around the stripper pole on his way out, or the image of said Western Lowland Gorilla running down the street in a tracksuit and gold chains? I think not.
-“It's not bad, for a Classical Realist.” “Art snob.”
-“What the heck were you teaching Spanky?” “How to pilot Space Shuttles.”
-Hat’s off to Mary Lynn Rajskub’s hilariously half-bored, half-annoyed delivery of every single line. Especially her resigned, “I knew you weren’t from the Department of Sanitation.”
-The chyrons Grillo-Marxuach employed throughout the show’s run are a wonder. I especially get a kick out of the one after the commercial break between the reveal of Wendy’s new boss, and the return. Apparently, she gawped for “Exactly 3 Minutes, 10 Seconds Later.”
-Fun with words: The restaurant at which the Italian gangster and his goons are perforated is called “Il Mutande Grandissimo”, which sounds like it means “The Giant Mutant”, which is what was being dealt with before the title sequence, but actually means “The Great Underpants”. “The Big Mutant” would have been “Il Grande Mutante”. So close.
Here's the entire episode, for those who want to watch it NOW, DAMNIT; NOW!!!
NEW FEATURES
Middlewisdom:
"Specificity is the soul of all good communication."
"Profanity cheapens the soul, and weakens the mind."
"Apes fling feces, Dubby; it's a fact of life."
"Self-knowledge is the gateway to freedom."
Middlecurses:
"Jiminy!"
"Well, dag diggity!"
"Jeepers!"
"Oh, [BLEEEEP]!"
"...You stringy-haired, coffehouse beatnik!"
"He's a doorknob."
"This is ri-gosh-darn-diculous!"
"I tell ya; some chucklehead's always trying to take over the world."
"Not a gosh-darned chance in heck."
Wilhelm Screams:
1
