Thursday, November 6, 2008


THE MIDDLEMAN
Season 1 Episode 5
“The Flying Fish Zombification”
Written by Andy Reaser
Directed by Allan Kroeker


So the MiddlePlot in this episode involves a quasi-zombie outbreak, courtesy of the Peruvian flying pike, while the Dub Dub personal life subplot involves “Art Crawl,” the regular art show Wendy and her gang of bohemian art fiends indulge in.


Given that there were not only quasi-zombies in this one, but also some airborne aquatic meanies (a tribute to James Cameron’s deathless Piranha II: Flying Killers?), I had high hopes for it.
And yeah, it did play better than either of the two previous episodes, but it still lacked some, ahem, bite.
And Pip (The Bold and the Beautiful’s Drew Tyler Bell; also in Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers II), the talentless would-be artist/son of the owner of the building Wendy has her illegal sublet in, is a less-than-inspired character. (I’m already having trouble with Noser, people…)


There were some great bits though, like Ali Damji as Rod Argent, whose brand new wife just got all zombie on him, and !!!! (Matt Keeslar, who really just owns the Middleman role, does a fantastic !!!!)
For those, I’m grateful.
But the whole sub-MiddlePlot involving Sensei Ping’s training of Wendy seemed a tad odd considering we never see Sensei Ping at all…
Hurrrr…


Ah, well, let me just accentuate the positive (something I’m sure Dr. Gil might say, if he were still with us): this one’s better than the past two episodes…

(Images courtesy of abcfamily.go.com.)

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