The Middleman: Is This About My Life?

Recently a friend of mine gave me the complete series of The Middleman to watch.  The complete series is only 12 episodes, which I have to say is a damn shame.  Although some of my favorite shows come in similar packages (Special mention:  Wonderfalls).  If you've never heard of this show, that's because it was on ABCFamily for a season in 2008, around the time Greek and The Secret Life of the American Teenager became popular.  But this show is quirky and fun and really really cheesy in the best way possible.

The Middleman, based on a comic book of the same name, is about Wendy Watson, a struggling artist who temps for a living, while sharing an over-sized illegal loft apartment with her best friend (also a struggling artist).  Her life is turned upside down one day when she discovers that much like in every comic book, villains and aliens and the things that go bump in the night really exist.  Plot-wise, this show is very similar to Doctor Who with some slight differences.  It really drives home the point that supernatural things happen all around us, and the majority of humans are too stupid to notice.  The Middleman (a man with no other name, who fights supernatural evils to ensure all is right with the world as well as the safety of the human race... Sound familiar?) comes in and seeing that Wendy can comprehend the aliens and shit, he takes her on, not as his lovable sidekick who he will have some form of sexual tension with (oh, Doctor, when will you learn to just recruit a man?), but as his apprentice. 

From the first minute watching this show, I was instantly enamored by the witty dialogue, the intelligent world views, and of course, the perfection with which it is corny on purpose.  A perfection which can only be trumped by Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical.  It also helps that as an aspiring writer who literally went for an interview at a temp agency earlier this morning, I identify with the main character.  This is a really smart, delightfully self-aware show with really cool characters that make you never want to sell out and earn real money.

I'd especially recommend it to anyone who has a brain.