(Originally posted on December 21, 2016) You may be asking yourself: “What the hell is The Middleman and why should I care?”  A fair question.  Obliviousness to the series is forgivable.  The series appeared in 2008 and disappeared after a mere 12 episodes.  Until a friend showed up one evening wearing a “Jolly Fats Wehawkin Temp Agency” T-Shirt, I was equally in the dark.  Intrigued by the premise, I found copies of the series and watched them.

The story goes thusly:  A secret agency trains and equips a Middleman to defend the planet against unknown threats. The present Middleman (Matt Keeslar) recruits a struggling artist named Wendy Watson (known alternatively as “Dub-Dub” and “Dubbie”).  Her calm behavior during a tentacle beast attack tells him that she has the right mindset.  Following a few tests, she starts her training.

The series follows her rise as a Middleman-in-training.  Wendy (Natalie Morales) incorporates her weird adventures into her artwork.  She lives with Lacy Thornfield (the incredibly sexy Brit Morgan) and the lyric-spouting Noser (Jake Smollett.)   Wendy and The Middleman are assisted by the caustic robot assistant Ida (Mary Pat Gleason.)

Recurring themes consist of comic-book threats with amusing twists.  Intergalactic despots disguised as a boy band (“The Boyband Superfan Interrogation”.)  Zombies which crave trout (“The Flying Fish Zombification”.)  A cursed tuba from the band of The Titanic (“The Cursed Tuba Contingency”.)  And so forth.  The names in each episode have pop-culture themes and names, such as the cover names of Dr. Stantz and Dr. Zeddemore (from Ghostbusters) in “The Ectoplasmic Panhellenic Investigation”. To put it plainly, this series is a fanboy’s dream.  It never gets too serious, but doesn’t fall into slapstick, either.  Just amusing enough to get a chuckle, but no more.  The acting is good and the actors aim to please–in on the joke, but always in a nod-and-a-wink fashion.

Also, even though ABC Family produced this series, it has enough edge that it doesn’t feel like a kid’s show in any way.  It approaches adult themes with enough seriousness that some reality intrudes, but blunts them with wry humor.  There are many running jokes such as Lacy calling The Middle man “Sexy Boss Man” or “Pillow Lips” or the villains always saying “My plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity”.  Or Noser always greeting visitors to Wendy’s loft with random questions in the form of song lyrics.

Conceived as a comic book series for Viper Comics by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClaine, it was later adapted to television after some urging by Paul Dini.  Sadly, it suffered the ignoble death of a television series given insufficient chance to succeed, perishing after 12 episodes.  It has since developed a mild cult status and the cast did a reading of the unproduced 13th episode at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con.

It appears that all 12 episodes are available online on dailymotion.  I recommend you watch them.