Even in this hyper-connected age, it’s possible for a quirky, yet interesting show to pop up and disappear before your even aware that it existed. That’s what happened to me with the show The Middleman. Based on a comic book series by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClaine, it was a fun twist on Men in Black with a secret agency and fighting monsters. It ran on ABC Family, not exactly the hotspot for quirky science fiction programming, for 12 episodes before it disappeared. So, let’s check it out and see who is The Middleman.

Wendy Watson (Natalie Morales) is a abstract artist/temp receptionist in yet another of a dead end series of jobs when AND Laboratories (re-scrambling your D.N.A) has an accident and she is forced to fight off a tentacled monster. The Middleman (Matt Keeslar) comes in to clean up the day. He is a straight-laced hero tasked with ridding Earth of monsters and aliens. The Middleman is impressed with how Wendy handled herself and offers her a job as his assistant. Since the accident got her fired from AND Laboratories, she decides to take the job. The series follows their (mis-)adventures.

Joining Wendy in her fun is her roommate, Lacey, who is a devoted animal activist. She has a boyfriend, Ben, who is in film school and not above breaking up with her (and filming it) as a class project. And a neighbor across the hall, Noser, who speaks only in song lyrics.

The show is a lot of demented fun with cheap special effects, long-winded rambling dialogue and a lot of pop-culture references. The show is fun and silly and proudly geeky and I’m sad that I didn’t know it ever existed. Overall it doesn’t wear well if you try to watch a bunch in a row, but it’s well worth the effort to track it down and pop it in. A lot of retro-superhero fun. Recommended.