The Middleman

"...an over-the-top, sixteen-car-pileup-sugar-popped-cereal-bowl of a series that's not afraid to be everything your mother warned you about television: a cartoonishly extreme, randomly fantastic, special-effects laden, three-fisted walking-and-talking toy-line advertisement of an action-adventure-sci-fi comic book in which the fabric of reality barely survives in the end, and the journey invariably reveals a completely surreal strangeness behind everything we hold to be true."
—Javier Grillo-Marxuach's original pitch for The Middleman.

Wendy "Dub-Dub" Watson is an art school graduate who, like most artists, has to get a Real Job to get by in life. Because she's an artist, this means temp work. Her mother worries about her and calls to ask embarrassing questions about her sex life that Wendy answers in dutiful deadpan ... until the day she's temping for a genetics research firm and a multi-limbed, multi-eyed monster shows up in the reception area. Enter...The Middleman. He seems to be a refugee from the Silver Age of Comics, from his looks to his manner of speech. And having dispatched his duty, he warns Wendy that as far as the rest of the world is concerned this was a "gas explosion" and if she tells the truth of what she's seen he'll have to root her out like a hog (not in the Australian sense) and kill her.

Wendy is immediately fired; it turns out her boss believes that she was the one who caused the "gas explosion" by fiddling with her missing father's lucky lighter. She spends a day pounding the pavement looking for more temp work but she finds no prospects now that word's spread that she's a possible pyromaniac. So she returns to the illegal sublet she shares with another young, photogenic artist only to have her artist-activist roommate Lacey inform her that she has a message from one more temp agency...a rather oddly named temp agency...and they want to see her immediately.

So Wendy reports to the Jolly Fats Weehawken Temp Agency to check on the job offer. After a battery of increasingly bizarre aptitude tests at the hands of the cranky receptionist Ida, Wendy is introduced to The Middleman, who explains what his organization is about. You know the way things work in comic books where mad Scientists and supervillains are always trying to take over the world? Well, that's also the way things work in real life. It seems he's looking for an apprentice and Wendy's cynical, snarky attitude and matter-of-fact reactions to things like the eyeball monster make her an ideal candidate for the job. Angry that he'd framed her Wendy refuses at first, but thanks to her current lack of any other prospects she relents and joins up. After that she embraces this new lifestyle and proves to excel at it, despite the problems a twenty-four hour a day "temp job" causes in her personal life.

Originally a comic book (that itself started as a television pitch), Javier Grillo-Marxuach aptly adapted it for a surprisingly faithful series that had one season on the increasingly inaccurately named ABC Family Channel. The season was originally intended to be thirteen episodes long, but was cut to twelve for budgetary reasons (and still managed to end on a satisfying note). The script for the never-filmed thirteenth episode, titled "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse," debuted in a table read at Comic-Con '09 with almost all of the original cast, and was released as a graphic novel shortly thereafter. It is definitive proof that Tropes Are Not Bad.

Tropes used in The Middleman include:
  • Absurdly High Stakes Game: Shabumi in "The Obsolescent Cryogenic Meltdown"
  • Action Girl: Wendy Watson, bien sur!
  • Actor Allusion: In "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse", they stick Tyler (Brendan Hines) in the interrogation room, to find out if he's telling the truth. The room has a lie-detection system.
  • Alliteration: true of not only the people in the show (as is proper in any Comic Books Homage), but the dialogue is also rife with alliteration.
    • The Fabulous Face, former Middle organization super villain.
    • Guy Goddard former Middleman.
    • The Middle Man
    • Wendy's ex boyfriend, Tommy Tam.
    • Wendy Watson
    • And as of the Comic-Con panel for the 13th episode: previous Middleman Raveena Rao, and Clarence Colton, the current Middleman's real name.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot

The Middleman: She's had the crankies something awful since she got stuck on "Domineering Schoolmarm version 2.0".

The Middleman: Sweet mother of Preston Tucker! Did you pick him up in that?
Wendy: Yes!
The Middleman: You said you had a car!

Don Calfari: But I did not give the order to wipe out the Spaldoni family. That is an order that I did not give.
Henchman: Okay, Don Calfari. If you did not give the order, then what does that mean?
Don Calfari: That would mean someone had to give the order... Someone that was not me.

  • Cassandra Truth: Pip tries to tell everyone that Noser is a ventriloquist, but it doesn't really help that he puts in the part about Lacey kissing him.
  • Cat Fight: Subverted, bigtime.
  • Catch Phrase: Several:
    • "Oh phooey."
    • Also, "I'm just the middleman."
    • "You have to admit, my plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity."
  • Celebrity Star: Boy Band Varsity Fanclub
  • Celestial Bureaucracy: The Underworld is a giant office building with files in the back room.
  • Chekhov MIA: Wendy's father disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • The concussive stun field generator.
    • The rarely accurate Tarot card reader girl.
  • The Chew Toy: The Training Robot, who always ends up having its head knocked off.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Noser, who greets Dub-Dub each time she gets off the elevator with lyrics. She identifies them.
  • Come with Me If You Want to Live: Mirror Pip rescues Wendy this way.
  • Cool Car: The Middlemobile, and Dub-Dub's Smart Car, the second Middlemobile
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive:Alternate Dubbie
  • Covered in Slime: Due to the MIB-esqueness.
  • Cursed with Awesome: The tuba player is cursed with immortality. Well, not since he started dating again.
    • "And did I mention the dating's going great?"
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Wu-Han Thumb of Death.
  • Dead Man Writing: Code 47.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Ida and Dubbie.
  • Decontamination Chamber: That's what you get for being made of meat.
  • Demonic Dummy: Little Vladdie, who is Vlad the Impaler's favorite ventriloquist dummy
  • Department of Redundancy Department: "An Upscale Shopping Center in an Upscale Part of Town."
    • "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse"
  • Die Hard on an X: Repeatedly and forcefully lampshaded. Or, as the Middleman puts it, the HQ gets invaded three times a year.
  • Drop What You Are Doing: Wendy drops a spoon upon unexpectedly getting a well-timed, very important tidbit of information.
  • Duel to the Death: In "The Sino-Mexican Revelation", MM must duel on behalf of Sensei Ping.
  • Eagle Land: The Middleman is an excellent Type 1 example.
  • Every Episode Ending: Wendy and Lacey in their illegal sublet, bonding.
  • Everything's Better with Monkeys: Well, lowland gorillas.
  • Evil Twin: Played completely straight with altWendy.
  • Extended Disarming: In the first episode, making liberal use of Hammerspace, the Middleman does this, and then goes on to prove his Badass is in full working order.
  • Eyepatch of Power: The altMiddleman has one...because Sensei Ping plucked out his eye.
  • Failsafe Failure: Wendy has to push Ida's reset switch to stop the detonation. Unfortunately, the nanobots beat her to it and disabled it.
  • Fan Service: Quite a bit for a "family" show, including Wendy and Lacey's short-shorts and Dubbie's "slutty but sweet" pirate outfit in "The Sino-Mexican Revelation"
    • And don't forget the catsuit and the "Honey Ryder nightmare."
    • Prefer your eye candy male? The Middleman's spent some time in a bicep-baring toga (and later a tank top), altMiddleman goes shirtless in leather pants. And then there was the time he wore a tux. And got handcuffed to a pipe.
      • And then there was the time they both had to strip to their undies (and then more so for MM) in the Decontamination Chamber. Yowza. And then there's altLacey and altIda - same snark, completely different package
  • Fantastic Voyage: Or, as they put it, Die Hard. In a robot.
  • Final Speech: Cindy's.
  • Flash Back
  • Foreshadowing
  • For Halloween I Am Going as Myself: Supernatural creatures picking jobs that no one would bat an eye at discovering them doing.
  • Freaky Friday: In "The Ectoplasmic Panhellenic Investigation," a mad scientist in training switches minds with the Middleman.
  • Funny Background Event: the very first scene of the very first episode and at least Once an Episode thereafter. Dubbie's battle with the giant levitating fish is probably the best example.
  • Geeky Turn On: Wendy and her boyfriend have sex for the first time after locating and playing an ultra-rare, super violent video game.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: The bleeping occurs only when it's funnier to do so.
    • The bad guy said "Son of a bitch" without being bleeped.
    • Dub-Dub said "Get your paws off me, you damn dirty ape" without being bleeped.
    • Wendy also used a tube of brown paint to make an excrement metaphor.
    • "Now let's try to get there before that little girl sucks the band through a hole... In Space. "
    • In "The Cursed Tuba", the Middleman is telling Lacey why they can't date, citing a "rule at my job". He wishes he could get around the rule, but his choice of quote and metaphor has an unfortunate alternate interpretation...

The Middleman: It's like Sam Boone says in Ride Lonesome; there are some things a man can't ride around.

    • The Middleman insists that Wendy must infiltrate the Omegas because a sorority house is the one place someone like him would never be "allowed to penetrate".

Wendy: "That's not what I heard."

    • The last televised episode has Wendy's boyfriend spending the night.
    • Wendy referring to the genetics lab monster as a "hentai tentacle monster".
  • Genre Savvy: Both the Middleman and Wendy to various degrees. In fact, their knowledge of comic book tropes is part and parcel of the job they do.
  • Ghost in the Machine: The literal machine, as Ida's brain looks exactly like Ida.
  • A God Am I: In the panel for the 13th episode, collecting thousands of pineal glands and creating a hivemind from all the uMasters of the world allows Manservant Neville to become a Reality Warper. He quickly dubs himself a god.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck: All of the Middleman's dialogue is like this, except for once (where it's appropriately bleeped).
    • In the Comic-Con 13th episode table read, you can tell the excrement's hit the cooling-device when MM swears twice without being bleeped (which also counts as a Precision F-Strike). Not that there's no bleeping - Wendy gets bleeped at least twice.
    • Most swearing is bleeped, and to emphasize the fact it's a "family" show, the lips of the person swearing are covered by a black box for the duration of the offending words...but there's a fractional delay to let astute viewers know which naughty word was likely the one spoken.
  • Granola Girl: Lacey, at least before Character Development
  • Greasy Spoon: Batter of the Bulge Pancake House (home of the Luftwaffle!)
  • Groin Attack
  • Hammerspace: The Middleman decides to walk into a situation unarmed, and spends several moments pulling increasingly improbable weapons and devices off his person, including an opened crossbow.
  • Handsome Lech: Middleman '69
  • Heel Realization : Middleman '69, just before his Heroic Sacrifice
  • Heroes-R-Us: O2STK, the "Organization Too Secret To Know", which apparently bankrolls and operates the Middleman Organization.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: Sensei Ping, after his introductory episode.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Doesn't that guy from Varsity Fanclub look familiar? It's Bobby Edner, who played Justin Smith in the second episode of Veronica Mars.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: The aformentioned Little Vladdie was played by Gideon Emery, who is best known for his roles in video games.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • In "The Obsolescent Cryogenic Meltdown", Middleman '69 sacrifices himself to save the current-day Middleman, who he had betrayed in jealousy earlier on.
    • In "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse", the Middleman makes "the ultimate sacrifice." It's not what you think it is.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: There is no closer pair of female friends on television than Wendy and Lacey.
  • Hook Hand
  • Human Popsicle: There's a Middleman who was in cryogenic storage until he was needed.
  • Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: "The Manicoid Teleportation Conundrum"
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight
  • Imagine Spot: Wendy goes off into daydream land a couple times an episode when prompted by a situation that warrants her thinking something over.
  • Informed Ability: Noser's abilities with music and ventriloquism are supposed to be virtuoso level; we know this from the reactions of people around him rather than ever seeing him ply his craft.

Tyler:"That's the longest game of stump the band I've ever seen without hearing any music."

MM: If there's one thing I hate more than scientists trying to take over the world, it's scientists who twist innocent primates with computer enhanced mind control to live out their sick and perverted fantasies of criminal power!
Wendy: Is that true?
MM: Why would I lie about that?
Wendy: It's just a very specific thing to hate.

  • Jerkass: Pip is usually described as a "malignant nematode", but the idea is the same.
  • Just Between You and Me: Subverted in that the Palindrome doesn't want to talk about his plan. His alternate counterpart, however...
  • Kiss of Distraction: Lacey gets a videotape of Noser's ventriloquism performance away from Pip by distracting him with a kiss. Later on, Pip tries to explain to Joe that he had a tape of the performance but Lacey stole it, but Joe doesn't believe she would do such a thing. When Pip explains that she distracted him with a kiss, Joe laughs and says, "Yeah, this story's getting easier to believe."
  • Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: Spoofed by someone who thinks he is doing this. Middleman '69, who has been in cryogenic stasis for the past for decades, makes a Star Trek reference and notes the unlikeliness of Wendy getting it, since the show was cancelled after three seasons back in '69.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Metaphorically speaking, there are lampshades hanging off every available surface on this show's sets. The Middleman and Dub-Dub seem to have a supply of them handy for hanging them whenever a situation calls for it.
    • There's a literal wall of unexplained lamps at the organization's headquarters. This may or may not be where they keep their extra shades in between cases.
  • Large Ham: You will use respect when addressing Sensei Ping!
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: of the two-day variety in Tyler's case.
  • Literal Metaphor: More a case of confused slang terms.

Wendy: Guy, what are you doing here?
Guy: At present, I'm looking for some hooch.
Wendy: You stay away from my roommate!
Guy: I meant a drink.

The Middleman: Dubbie, cover your eyes! [fires device, which subdues someone who had been hiding on the ceiling]
Wendy: [who paused to ask why rather than simply obeying and got hit by the device's discharge] ...concussive stun field generator. Yeah. [thud]

  • Noodle Incident: Lacey refers to something involving "blueberry pudding pops and the elliptical machine."
    • A slightly different version of the trope is used when the Middleman and Dubbie manage to bluff NASA away from a downed space probe...by pretending to be NASA. After the real agents leave...

Wendy: We should be NASA every mission.
The Middleman: It's thinking like that that led to drug-resistant malaria.

Note however that doing the same thing every time really is what leads to drug-resistant malaria...
    • In the same episode, a minute earlier...

The Middleman: I'll be godfather to an aardvark before I let a debacle like the Viking Mission happen on my watch.
Wendy: The Viking... but those were unmanned...?
The Middleman: I'll explain in the car.

  • cuts directly to next scene with no explanation*
  • Older Than They Look: If everything said about Sensei Ping is taken at face value, he must be at least seventy years old, but he only appears to be around forty.
  • Once an Episode: Every Motive Rant includes the villain claiming that his or her plan is "sheer elegance in its simplicity."
    • There's also the Wilhelm Scream in every episodes and "reaping the whirlwind" pops up a lot. Plus, they usually have some prop from the previous episode in the background.
    • The Funny Background Event
    • In the comic book every volume has the phrase "Giant Balls" in a different language (Italian in volume 1, Spanish in volume 2, French in volume 3).
  • Only One Name: Noser, one of the other young, photogenic artists who lives in the illegal sublet. He has never been addressed as anything else but that one name.
    • Although the Middleman always addresses him as Mister Noser.
  • Our Monsters Are Different
  • Painting the Fourth Wall: every single time the time is mentioned in on-screen titles, it's different. In episode three, it changed between time zones ("Alaska Time," "Zulu Time"), in episode five it was phrases about time ("Hammer Time," "Jail Time") In episode eleven it was "Four Hours Six Minutes Before the Inevitable Detonation." Also, Wendy's and Lacey's apartment is usually referred to as "The illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist." (Occasionally it's "her equally adorable roommate Lacey" instead.)
    • At least once it was "her sexpot roommate."
  • Parental Abandonment:
    • Missing Mom: Lacey's mother, Dr. Barbara Thornfield, M.D. PhD is so busy she calls once a year to rationalize why she forgot Lacey's birthday, every year. She's so distant that her assistant doesn't know which daughter Lacey is, and Lacey is an only child. She's so distant that Lacey does not call her "mother" or "mom" but "Dr. Thornfield" and when not speaking to her directly refers to her as "Dr. Barbara Thornfield, M.D. PhD".
    • Disappeared Dad: Wendy's father has been missing since she was 14. All she has to remember him by is a Zippo lighter which the Middleman used to frame her for the event at which they met so he could recruit her.
  • The Pete Best: Tyler
  • Photographic Memory: One of Dub-Dub's talents... maybe

Middleman: Photographic Memory?
Wendy: Abstract Impressionist.

  • Pineal Weirdness: Apparently losing your pineal gland either lets you see ghosts or puts you in psychic contact with your Mirror Universe counterpart.
    • Or if you're a flying pike, your pineal gland gives the antidote for fish zombification.
  • Post-Kiss Catatonia: Pip, after Lacey kisses him.
  • The Power of Love: MM and Lacey
    • What might be a subversion, as they are taken hostage/over by demonic puppets, which turn into real people if married while on the arms of two people who are in true love.
  • Pretentious Latin Motto:
    • The Middleman organization's motto: Pugnantes Malos, ne hos Pugnetis: We Fight Evil So You Don't Have To
    • Pip used pretentious Latin in the gallery show he'd tried to pull off: Deus ex Pip.

Pip: It's Latin for "The Machines of Pip."
Lacey: That's not what it means.

  • Prophecy Twist: "Young Noser will be rent limb from limb to save you!"
  • Puppy Dog Eyes: Lacey excels at them when she's not being smug.
  • Race Lift: Wendy was originally white in the comics but played by Natalie Morales who is Cuban-American.
  • Reference Overdosed
  • Refuge in Audacity: The entire show. A mad scientist trying to rule the world with hyperintelligent apes? Sure. A group of aliens who hide as plastic surgery addicts? Okay. A man who traps rare flying fish that can zombify people and makes them into an energy drink called !!!!? Seriously, try describing the plot of one of these episodes to a friend.
  • Replacement Goldfish: for Ida's downtime
  • Retirony: Cindy, who was two weeks away from retirement.
  • The Resolution Will Not Be Televised : The show was canceled after 12 of 13 episodes. The finale, The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse has been adapted into a graphic novel (not to be confused with the earlier graphic novels, which were adapted into the TV show, take place in a different continuity to the show/new comic, and also ended on a mysterious-and-as-yet-unexplained cliffhanger)
    • At Comic-Con 2009, the whole cast got together to do a read-through of the unfilmed script for Episode 13. A semi-approved 'bootleg' video of the event is available online (and at one point was linked to from the O2STK website, although the promised official recording never materialised.
  • Ridiculously Human Robot: Ida
  • Rule of Cool: Sensei Ping.
  • Running Gag: The Interrodroid getting its head ripped off, Ida always calling Wendy a stoner, and removal of the pineal gland causing psychic powers. Also, the fake IDs used by Middleman and Wendy:

Doctor: We don't get many visitors from the Department of Education.
Wendy: Well, if you can teach the criminally insane, you can teach anyone.

  • Schmuck Bait: The Middleman gives Wendy a list of three things she must never bring up in conversation with Sensei Ping. Naturally, she ends up bringing up all three.
    • Although she did do it on purpose because he was getting on her nerves.
  • Science Cannot Comprehend Phlebotinum: One of the Middleman's standard pieces of equipment is a B.T.R.S. scanner, which looks for things Beyond the Realm of Science.
  • Scout Out: The Wilderness Girls
  • Secret Identity: Lacey and Noser both think that Wendy works for a consultant who solves exotic problems. Which, strictly speaking, is true. But Lacey also knows about Wendy's Middlewatch and thinks it's pretty odd for a temp job to have a pager that works like that.
    • Heck, Lacey seems oblivious even when she encounters Wendy wearing her uniform complete with sidearm.
  • Serial Escalation: Every episode seems able to top the last in making everything more awesome.
  • Shoe Phone: There's a lot of unusual spy gear, ranging from watches to funky glasses.
  • Shout-Out: To other TV shows, movies, comic books and pop culture. Dozens in any given episode.

Malfunctioning Ida: She's my sister. She's my daughter. My sister. My daughter.

    • Die Hard: Multiple times in multiple episodes.

Wendy:"Yippie Kai Yay -Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep-"

Ida: We got a red ball!

Middleman '69: "Maybe Scotty can beam us down. Sorry. Obscure reference to a canceled TV show. I'm sure you've never heard of it."

      • And another time...

altPip: "You mean the sci-fi series [...] starring the great George Takei?"
Wendy: "This is an evil universe."

J.R. "Bob" Dobbs International Airport

Wendy: "I don't think female problems means what you think it means."

  • Spicy Latina: Invoked by Middleman '69, who refers to Wendy as "a hot and spicy Spanish girl."
  • Split Screen: very uniquely done.
  • Something Only They Would Say: "Dubby, I'm afraid I can't divulge sensitive Middle secrets through a civilian interpreter."
  • Spy Catsuit: "This is how a real woman dresses?"
  • Spy Drama: Spoofed, bigtime.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Lacey and MM.
  • Stock Scream: The "Wilhelm" can be heard Once an Episode. Including the comic version of Episode 13, where it's rendered as "aaaah-aaaaargh!", with a note in the annotation explaining that's the best they could do.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike: This show practically runs on it.
  • Technical Pacifist: Wendy hates guns, but has a bit of a geeky affection for the sci-fi weapons the Middle organization uses. She also loves training with Sensei Ping, and she frequently protests the Middleman's tendencies toward violence. But she had no problem whatsoever beating a venomous Peruvian Pike to death.
    • Not to mention her childhood dream of killing a vampire.
  • Theme Song: "Middleman!"
  • They Call Me Mister Tibbs: Wendy has a problem of people going overly familiar with her. Her roommate Lacey calls her Dub-Dub, and The Middleman calls her Dubbie. Only Cloudcuckoolander Noser seems to address her only as 'Wendy Watson' and Wendy's then-boyfriend Ben seemed to call her by her normal full name or just "Wendy".
    • The Middleman will call her "Wendy" when he's in great danger, or he's concerned for her safety.
  • They Fight Crime:So you don't have to.
  • Title In: Spoofed, playfully, and with increasing wackiness and tongue-in-cheekness.
  • Training from Hell: Averted. MM warns Wendy that Sensei Ping's tutelage will be painful and cruel. Wendy loves every minute.
  • Truth Serums: One of the Middleman's gadgets works like a room-wide dispersal of such.
  • Tyke Bomb: Cindy
  • Understanding Boyfriend: For the brief time in the thirteenth episode when Tyler is aware of Wendy's job, the only thing about it that bothers him is the realization that his own job was just a means for Manservant Neville to get to her.
  • Unit Confusion: 4000 angstroms of Balthorium-G.
  • Unfazed Everyman: Her reaction to the lab explosion is how she got the job.
  • The Unpronounceable: The name of the energy drink "!!!!" is "pronounced" by doing jazz hands, stomping a foot, and making a rather enthusiastic face.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Frequently used by the Middleman, usually a form of Shout-Out. "Guns of Navaronne!" "Flowers for Algernon!"
    • And as a "my god" substitute in one episode, "My Little Pony!"... yeah, this show is capital-W Wierd.
  • UST: MM and Lacey. And sort of freakily, Middleman '69 and Ida. Pip and Lacey.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: A brilliant physics student invents a way to take over other people's bodies - and uses it to get revenge on a sorority.
  • What Would X Do?: "WWWWD...What would Wendy Watson do?"
  • Will Not Tell a Lie: The Middleman, at least when he's not undercover. Hilariously used in the pilot:

Middleman: The only thing I hate more than mad scientists trying to take over the world is mad scientists trying to take over the world and using the brains of innocent primates in order to do it.
(minutes later)
Wendy: Is it true what you said up there?
Middleman: What?
Wendy: That the only thing you hate more than mad scientists trying to take over the world is mad scientists trying to take over the world and using the brains of innocent primates in order to do it?

(Beat)

Middleman: ...why would I lie about that?

Wendy: I don't know, it just seems like an oddly specific thing to hate.

Middleman: Self-knowledge is the gateway to true happiness, Dubby.

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