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I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 8:25 pm
by Mothra
Pilot for the new Tick series is out. I'm very impressed.
New actor is going to take some getting used to, obviously, but he's good, and he gets the Tick's general character down right. Arthur is great. He's different and interesting.
Tone is a bit darker than usual, with the world depicted as basically the same as ours, just with superheroes appearing some fifty years prior. I think they're doing a good job of mixing the absurdity of the superhero concept with reality, in a vaguely Watchmen-like way. I'm actually interested in the recent history of The City after a few of the pilot's flashbacks.
So yeah, I was bracing for the worst, and very pleasantly surprised.
There's an Amazon survey here if you like it, which supposedly will help its chances of getting picked up for a full season.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 8:39 pm
by Friday
Thad wrote:The Tick pilot is up at Amazon; you don't need Prime to watch it for free.
I quite enjoyed it. It's a pretty big departure from the two previous series, but that's as it should be; the Tick has kinda always been about poking fun at whatever the current superhero trend is. So we've got an origin story (Arthur's) with a motivating tragedy, and most of the comedy comes from just how over-the-top evil the Terror is. It's pretty dark stuff -- which makes the Tick stand out all the more, because he's still very much the Tick, spouting the same old Ben Edlund purple prose.
Give it a watch! And then go
fill out a survey, because that's how Amazon decides what shows to pick up for a full series.
I'm not chastising you for reposting, Mothra, I'm just pointing out that you have become Thad exactly.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 10:28 pm
by Newbie
I remember seeing The Tick on one or two occasions, but I had a hard time following it, and my familiarity with it was brief enough and sufficiently far-removed from what makes up my current waking life that I don't want to look too hard at this. I want it to exist; I want it to air in perpetuity. I want it to continue demarcating a region of bizarre and liminal media properties which stand immediately adjacent to my more pedestrian interests. I want to believe that Bizarro Newbie is still out there somewhere yet to be discovered, and that I might one day meet him, and that he won't already be me.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 10:39 pm
by Mongrel
Friday wrote:Thad wrote:The Tick pilot is up at Amazon; you don't need Prime to watch it for free.
I quite enjoyed it. It's a pretty big departure from the two previous series, but that's as it should be; the Tick has kinda always been about poking fun at whatever the current superhero trend is. So we've got an origin story (Arthur's) with a motivating tragedy, and most of the comedy comes from just how over-the-top evil the Terror is. It's pretty dark stuff -- which makes the Tick stand out all the more, because he's still very much the Tick, spouting the same old Ben Edlund purple prose.
Give it a watch! And then go
fill out a survey, because that's how Amazon decides what shows to pick up for a full series.
I'm not chastising you for reposting, Mothra, I'm just pointing out that you have become Thad exactly.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 10:41 pm
by Newbie
Also, ONE of those survey links is broken, but I managed to fill it out at the other one. I forget which.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2016 11:50 pm
by Mothra
Oh my god
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 12:25 am
by Thad
Newbie wrote:Also, ONE of those survey links is broken, but I managed to fill it out at the other one. I forget which.
It should just be
http://amazon.com/pilotseason . I could have sworn that was what I typed but I must have actually copied-and-pasted whatever tracking URL Amazon replaced it with. (I've been wrestling with a head cold all week and am barely coherent.) I've fixed the link in the OP.
Anyway, Jean-Claude van Johnson is pretty good too.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 3:44 am
by Mothra
Newbie wrote:I remember seeing The Tick on one or two occasions, but I had a hard time following it, and my familiarity with it was brief enough and sufficiently far-removed from what makes up my current waking life that I don't want to look too hard at this. I want it to exist; I want it to air in perpetuity. I want it to continue demarcating a region of bizarre and liminal media properties which stand immediately adjacent to my more pedestrian interests. I want to believe that Bizarro Newbie is still out there somewhere yet to be discovered, and that I might one day meet him, and that he won't already be me.
I'll take this opportunity to link my favorite O.G. Tick episode:
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:39 am
by Brantly B.
Man, I can't believe how perfect that was.
If I had to make a complaint, I guess the villain is kind of weak? Other than that it's pretty much spot-on how you make a The Tick show in 2016.
I particularly enjoy how all of The Tick's usual malapropisms seem to follow an internal logic that you can almost, but not quite grasp, and the heavy implication that there's a good reason for that.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:46 am
by Thad
The Tick picked up for series, along with I Love Dick and Jean-Claude van Johnson.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2016 2:29 pm
by Mothra
Yesssss
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 12:54 am
by Thad
Slowly savoring The Tick; just watched episode 3.
It's good shit. Including the adjustments made since the pilot (better costume).
I'm not the first person to observe that this version of the Tick isn't so far off from his earliest conception; his first appearance had him escaping from a mental institution, and early on he seemed kind of unhinged and scary. That depiction didn't last very long (two 8-page stories, maybe?); he transformed into the childlike, lovable lug that we know and love early on. But there's something kinda cool, and zeitgeist-y, about taking him back to those more dangerous roots.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 7:04 am
by Mothra
Ended up devouring this in two days. Completely sold on the cast, and I like the direction they go in a lot.
Only issue is that you very 1/3rd of a season, then it very abruptly ends. Not sure why they did it that way, but we'll now have to wait for the next 6 or so episodes, then again wait for the 6 after that to get the full season. Kinda annoying.
Re: I Am The Wild Blue Yonder
Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2018 12:22 pm
by Mothra
Almost done with the second block of eps they released.
Lot of stuff I like here, and this is still really well cast, but ugh, I don't know. It's not really funny and not suuuper interesting.