The Tick: The Tick (2017) Season 1 (first half)
August 27, 2017 2:38 PM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe

In a world where superheroes have been real for decades, an accountant with no superpowers comes to realize his city is owned by a super villain. As he struggles to uncover this conspiracy, he falls in league with a strange blue superhero.

This is the latest (and darkest) version of the Tick and Arthur's adventures, and they need each other more than ever. Season 1 is split into two halves; no word yet on when the second half arrives.
posted by Pope Guilty (28 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
So far I like this as an updated take on the Tick. I worried a bit after the pilot, especially with the whole "weaponized syphilis" thing that it had kept the satire but lost the silliness. And then we had the DangerBoat and some other bits of fluff (see what I did there?) and I felt better about things. It's certainly more coherent than previous versions, I think because they're not relying on the humor of specific characters being satired; there's no Oedepus or derFleidermaus/BatManuel that hangs jokes on recognizing the originals.
posted by Karmakaze at 7:11 PM on August 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


Overkill is Die Fleidermaus/Batmanuel and Ms. Lint is American Maid/Captain Liberty. She's even named Janet.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:13 PM on August 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


BatManuel was exactly a reference to Batman, down to having a spotlight symbol and a utility belt. If Overkill is meant to be any specific character it would be the Punisher. The only thing Ms. Lint has in common with American Maid is the name 'Janet'. She's a villainous energy projector as opposed to a patriot-themed brawler.
posted by Karmakaze at 7:33 PM on August 27, 2017 [5 favorites]


For whatever it's worth, my girlfriend (who has had no prior exposure to The Tick aside from general knowledge that it is a thing that exists) loved this version. I have a bit more Tick-knowledge, but not enough to remember the older TV adaptations in particular detail, and still really enjoyed it. Pretty good balance of "really dumb, but taking itself seriously about being really dumb."

I'm not quite sure how I feel about The Tick as the strongly telegraphed literal embodiment of Arthur's mental illness/trauma. On the one hand, the show doesn't take itself that seriously and I should probably not overthink it. On the other hand, the show worked really hard to make me think that The Tick is a creation of Arthur's mind ("I get.. fuzzy when I'm not around Arthur;" the stuff with the night-light and young Arthur, etc). I'm curious if they'll play that straight or go somewhere ridiculous with it. I'm not sure which would be better.
posted by Alterscape at 8:31 PM on August 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've seen the first two episodes and am a little divided on it. The tweaks to the formula have resulted in a show that's different from the previous versions, which is fine, but not (so far) as funny as the previous versions, which is a problem. The funniest part of the show is Tick himself, who...is written exactly the same way he always has been. Arthur's sad-sacking just gets on my nerves. The Fight Club/Mr. Robot stuff might itself be a parody of grim n gritty revisionist superhero tropes, I'm not really sure, or it may just be a cliche, but either way, it frankly is really tired. The Terror and Miss Lint work as parodies of edgelord comics characters who also may work as characters in their own right, which is cool. But I can't help but feel the show would be better if it dropped all the angsty stuff and just tried to be funny. I don't especially need to see a parody of edgelord comics.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:34 PM on August 27, 2017


It was The DangerBoat that finally brought the silly for me and we don't really get the silliness there until late in this arc. Arguably also there was the running gag with the Very Large Man and the careful TV pixelating.

There's also some silliness with the moth suit's learning curve that probably would have landed better if I hadn't grown up on the Greatest American Hero, though some of the user interface bits made me chuckle.
posted by Karmakaze at 5:45 AM on August 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


They also, sadly, could not recreate the wubwubwubwub joke that originally made me fall in love with the comic, because, well, this is live action and not comic panels. They did get the setup for it in as well as they could, though, and I appreciated the effort.
posted by Karmakaze at 7:26 AM on August 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm also new to the series and I was ready to drop out when it was first clear that the Tick came from Arthur. However, once everyone could see The Tick vs an hallucination, I was fine with it. A physical manifestation is fine, that's a power even if Arthur has issues.

I don't understand why his sister is okay with being part of the mob that works against Arthur. Being the doctor (med student whatever) for the bad guys isn't the same as being a doc at a hospital.

Lint's character was funny and great until she actually needed a pep talk from Terror to kill Ramsey. Wasn't that whole, long scene with Terror, just him negging her? I kept up with you until you got boring, which happened very quickly. I expected you to kill Ramsey but your brain died and you look like shit, etc. If she had killed him without the peptalk, great. This way, she's just a tool.

The "this tastes like cancer" line from notSuperman was great. Very WTF. The Tick trying to explain that murder was bad, but in a non-judgey manner. Overkill and his AI. Funny stuff.

What's an edgelord comic?
posted by jojo and the benjamins at 12:06 PM on August 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm jumping to the conclusion that Walter is the Terror in disguise.
posted by interogative mood at 2:17 PM on August 28, 2017


I like your Walter idea, interogative mood. I've also speculated about someone secretly being The Terror in disguise but I hadn't picked anyone yet.

Am I the only one who feels like everytime The Tick talks about destiny, that he's referring to a literal person named Destiny?
posted by christopherious at 3:12 PM on August 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


I agree with Destiny probably being a real person, christopherious. Tick mentions destiny way too often.
posted by jojo and the benjamins at 4:09 PM on August 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


Dot is only helping the mob in an attempt to maintain her connections and get information.

What was The Terror's very last line in ep 6? My closed captioning wasn't working and I rewound like five times.
posted by mochapickle at 4:57 PM on August 28, 2017


Cliffhanger!

(Yes, really.)
posted by jojo and the benjamins at 5:29 PM on August 28, 2017 [7 favorites]


Walter has his own teeth; can't be Terror.
posted by jojo and the benjamins at 5:32 PM on August 28, 2017


Maybe he has dentures.
posted by interogative mood at 10:15 PM on August 28, 2017


What's an edgelord comic?
Edgelord refers to the genre/style that is all about being edgy because violence and nihilism is cool and heroism is for saps. It's the sort of thing that gave us the new Superman being told he should let people die because his (super) secret id is more important than (normal human) lives. Or the whole Marvel Zombies thing. Or the idea that sexualized violence belongs in action stories because it's "realistic." I'd also lump HBO's version of Game of Thrones as showing a lot of edgelord influence, though that's a more mild case.
posted by Karmakaze at 5:52 AM on August 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


The Terror: Alexa, play ominous music.
Alexa: Shuffling a playlist for ominous music.


Really, Amazon?
posted by Stanczyk at 6:42 PM on August 29, 2017 [3 favorites]


Dot is only helping the mob in an attempt to maintain her connections and get information.


I didn't get that impression... more that she needed the money and she's got the standard doctor's commitment to helping injured people regardless of who they are.
posted by mmoncur at 11:46 PM on August 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


I think Dot needs the money and isn't really happy about it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:37 AM on August 30, 2017


It's also stated in the second episode that the gangster patch-up jobs are basically paying the rent for her roller derby league, so she's also doing this for the sake of her friends.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:29 AM on August 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


I agree with Destiny probably being a real person, christopherious. Tick mentions destiny way too often.

Doh, it just clicked for me that if Tick is indeed talking about a possible character named Destiny, and Tick himself is some sort of Arthur-super-powered Tulpa projection entity, that this possible Destiny character would then ultimately be Arthur's own creation.
posted by christopherious at 10:51 AM on August 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


A friend and I just watched the whole thing (well, first six eps) this week. We're both fans of The Tick, me from the comics days and him from the cartoon & on, and we both approached this some worry.

But we both really enjoyed it. This is a much more Arthur-centric version than has been seen before, with a lot more backstory, but it works for us.

I'm also further convinced that the worlds of The Tick and The Venture Brothers are one and the same.
posted by fings at 10:49 AM on September 13, 2017


I really like the ambiguity with respect to Arthur's tendency to see unreal things. (If anything, I wish they'd left it a bit more ambiguous; we could have waited a whole season before anyone else saw The Tick.) And the show has been, on the whole, really engaging and well designed. Of the three versions of the franchise I've seen (cartoon, first live program, and this; fuck comic books), it's by far the best.

But, everyone in the TV industry who thinks ending every single program with a cliffhanger is a good idea would be well advised to walk into the sea and leave the rest of us in peace. The last minute of every single program left me angry at the writers and producers.
posted by eotvos at 10:02 AM on September 15, 2017


I wasn't expecting to like Peter Serafinowicz as Tick. I really liked him as Tick.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:32 PM on September 16, 2017 [5 favorites]


Just saw all 6 in one sitting. It's really great. I remember the cartoon, that was one of my favorite things when I was young. Making it Arthur centric works well because there's a relatableness previous versions didn't have, of giving you this sense of being dropped into this world flailing and trying not to die among all the crazy superhero stuff.
posted by numaner at 10:09 PM on September 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I have no prior awareness of the tick (outside of chairface chippendale attempting to inscribe his name on the moon that one time) and this was a really solid superhero show, approaching from a direction I wish we saw more of in televised superhero antics, that of the unpowered bystander who gets swept up into the action. I'm also glad they got the whole "what if it's all in his mind" stuff out of the way early, clearing the way for a more nuanced exploration of the secondary characters (another thing I wish more superhero stories did - although, w/ black panther etc, I think we might be seeing the beginning of an exciting new trend (in movies/ tv, at least) of really examining the assumptions that lead to the whole superhero thing in the first place.) Man, I'm bad at sentence construction.
Tl;Dr, this is super good, and this internet stranger be reccomends that the curious give this series a shot.
posted by Berreggnog at 8:39 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


I finally got back to this to finish it and was very glad of it. Some fun threads there to pull on again someday. Whats up with Walter? Is AEGIS maybe not so great? Will The Terror show up again?

The Terror’s commitment to theme with the lower case t escape pod is commendable.
posted by phearlez at 9:40 PM on February 1, 2019


Just watching this now after having gotten into Griffen Newman from his podcast and hearing him bitch about Amazon cancelling it. It's a lot of fun without needing a lot of brain commitment while you're watching.

I have no background at all with the Tick so this is all new.
posted by octothorpe at 10:02 AM on January 11, 2020


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