A "Middle" discussion

Alan Sepinwall, of The Star-Ledger, had the opportunity last week to interview Javier Grillo-Marxuach, one of the great television writers of our time. JG-M has written for Jake 2.0, Charmed, Lost, Medium and now The Middleman. (And yes, he wrote for Charmed AND I still consider him a great writer.) He is also a master producer and and all-around imaginative genius. (I'll take my $20 now, Javier.)

The Middleman is a throwback to campy spy shows. It's everything you thought the movie Get Smart with Steve Carrell could be, but with more fast talk and pop culture references than The Gilmore Girls and Psych put together. The show also creates many imaginative villains and one-episode characters and gives them enough funny lines to say that it feels like an episode of Arrested Development. (It even uses the familiar tonal "beep" and black square to block swear words, which, like on AD, are used for comedic relief, without even needing to hear the words said.)

The problem with this show is this: No one is watching. Or, at least, not enough people. Which is saddening. If you took the best parts of Batman, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Arrested Development, Gilmore Girls, Psych, and Men in Black, you would start to see The Middleman emerge. It's no-nonsense attitude is never condescending, always accessible and the characters go through meaningful, life-learning lessons that never feel like an after-school special. In other words, real characters learn real lessons and it makes for good TV. Javier, being the show's creator, has the best words to talk about the show:

I know that everybody in TV says this, but the characters come first, and I have a very specific attitude about how these characters should behave towards each other. They're not cool, they're unabashed about being themselves, and they don't have an internal censor. I feel it's important that these characters not be losers, they can communicate with each other and solve their problems in constructive ways. A lot of popular culture thrives on a lot of meanness. This is a show that's aggressively anti-mean. The way that the characters resolve problems has a positivity to it. When you see all of the villains in our show, they're all tremendously misguided. They didn't start out trying to be bad.

In a way, all of the characters in the show are evolving into the adult state of being kind. That's what the show is about, which is why the show's take on evil isn't the same as everyone else's take, where evil is a metaphor for the darkness each of us carries deep within ourselves. On our show, evil is the product of people who refuse to become better.

I know, that's pretty heady stuff for a show that has a woman fighting a flying fish.

So what if the show gets cancelled? After all, the show is nowhere near as popular as other ABC Family offerings, such as Greek, Lincoln Heights, or the newcomer The Secret Life of the American Teenager. ("Secret Life..." now pulls in equal-to-or-better numbers than The CW's Gossip Girl, which is considered to be a smash hit, an almost unthinkable feat for the basic cable network.) Javi remains upbeat about the possibility of cancellation:

I'm infinitely optimistic. The word I have from ABC Family is they are interested in finding some way to continue the show. After what happened with "Jericho," with "Firefly," a guy in my position can't not be optimistic. If there isn't a life for it at ABC Family, maybe another network, and if it doesn't work on another network, maybe on DVD. Plus, I have the right to do the comic book at any time I choose.

As far as my personal involvement with the Middleman, I waited 11 years to put the show on the air my way, I can wait to get it to another place, and if I don't, honestly, I have no regrets. It has been 12 episodes made lovingly, hand-crafted, by people who truly believe in the product. If at the end of the day, I have to walk away from it, I won't walk away from it crying in my beer about how I didn't get to tell my story.

I'm happy that Javi would be satisfied with just twelve episodes of this show. I would not be. This is one of those rare gems of a TV show, like Lost or Pushing Daisies, that is very unique in it's execution and remains a summer favorite of mine.

The Middleman airs Monday nights at 10 P.M. ET on ABC Family.