Writer: Margaret Dunlap
Director: John T. Kretchmer
Cast: Matt Keeslar (The Middleman), Natalie Morales (Wendy Watson), Mary Pat Gleason (Ida), Jake Smollett (Noser), Brit Morgan (Lacey Thornfield), Mark A. Sheppard (Manservant Neville), Brendan Hines (Tyler Ford), Chris Ufland (Mr. Lethbridge-Stewart), Leland Crooke (Chairman) & Alan Smyth (Maximum Aldwin)
Director: John T. Kretchmer
Cast: Matt Keeslar (The Middleman), Natalie Morales (Wendy Watson), Mary Pat Gleason (Ida), Jake Smollett (Noser), Brit Morgan (Lacey Thornfield), Mark A. Sheppard (Manservant Neville), Brendan Hines (Tyler Ford), Chris Ufland (Mr. Lethbridge-Stewart), Leland Crooke (Chairman) & Alan Smyth (Maximum Aldwin)
The MiddlemanSon of a monkey's uncle, Wendy Watson! Which
part of "this is an emergency" didn't you get?
Lacey
Wendy, why is your boss standing outside
our door wearing a hazmat suit?
In addition to fleshing out its characters, there are now enough episodes to inspire call-backs to previous villains and situations. "The Clotharian Contamination Protocol" takes full advantage of The Middleman's growing mythology, to push Tyler Ford (Brendan Hines) into intriguing new territory, as the Clotharians from "The Boyband Superfan Interrogation" return…
Wendy's (Natalie Morales) new boyfriend Tyler shoulders this week's B-plot, after assisting millionaire businessman Manservant Neville (Mark A. Sheppard) in a car accident. Manservant is impressed enough to invite Tyler for a job interview at his company Fatboy Industries, which somewhat echoes Wendy's recruitment by The Middleman (Matt Keeslar).
The central, sci-fi flavoured plot involves android Ida (Mary Pat Gleason) being infected by nanobots found on a NASA probe that crashed to Earth. The 'bots compel Ida to initiate a Middleman H.Q lock-down, trapping The Middleman and Wendy inside so she can nuke the area so more nanobots can breed. Cue the inevitable stream of Die Hard quotes, but also a surprising amount of Doctor Who references only die-hard Whovians will get.
It's all good fun, balancing character and jeopardy with relative ease. The only major downside is that Tyler's storyline drags slightly compared to the more invigorating nanobots plot. Still, the ubiquitous Mark A. Shepherd gets another creepy villain character to sink his teeth into, which is always welcome. Interesting to note that Shepherd was actually the basis for the Manservant Neville character from The Middleman comics, so the casting is fateful and perfect. To me, it seems that Tyler's being groomed to become the protégé of a company at odds with The Middleman's agenda -- but has the show left it too late for such a story? The next episode is the season finale, and likely the last ever episode owing to poor ratings.
There isn't much Lacey (Brit Morgan) this week, which is always a shame, but I'm just pleased to see The Middleman developing its own universe in interesting ways. The characters also continue to grow, despite their basis in two-dimensional archetypes, and the father/daughter vibe to The Middleman and Wendy's relationship is working brilliantly just now.
Overall, "The Clotharian Contamination Protocol" is a very entertaining episode that backs up the usual imagination (a Fantastic Voyage-style climax that reminded me of The Mighty Boosh's own recent parody), with some important developments for Tyler that will likely figure into the season finale. Incidentally, the scene at Tyler's interview panel -- where he correctly identifies inconsistencies that prove the interviewers are fakes -- was one of the season's cleverest.
25 August 2008
ABC Family, 10/9c pm
