The Tick, a comic character created by Ben Edlund has been one of the "out there" superheroes who has had his fair share of shine during the 1990s and early 2000s. The 1994 animated series ran for 3 seasons and was a hit with the younger generation of fans during that time period. Flash forward to the early 2000s, and a live action Tick series was born on Fox. That series itself had more of a satrical tone to it then most thought and it's wacky sense of humor and displaced timeslot doomed it from the start. That Tick series ran for only 1 season due to low ratings. Flash forward again to the 2010s, and hope of a revival of the Patrick Warburton series soared. No one really knows why interest in a revival of the series was scrapped in favor of this new series, with Warburton expressing interest and even having meetings with Amazon for a revival, it did not come to pass.
The new Tick series, written by comic creator Ben Edlund was said to have a more "grounded" feel to it than other Tick attempts, and it falls completely flat. The series itself features only 15 minutes (if that) of the Tick, with it's story revolving around Arthur, a character from the comics who yearns to be a superhero, but in the series is reluctant to do so at first but is thrusted into it because the Tick claims it's "destiny". The whole pilot episode is focused in on Arthur and his 'tragic' past, showing that his father was killed by the spaceship housing the men of Jackie Earle Haley's "The Terror", who Arthur is deadset on thinking is still alive, which, it is implied he is by the gang that's collecting his "things".
The pilot is low on laughs, and low on everything that makes The Tick, the Tick. Like I've said above, the pilot episode is 95% The Arthur show, 5% The Tick introduction. A gratuitous Whoopie Goldberg cameo aside, the series fails to be anything but "grounded" and "gritty", and lays the foundation for poor CGI, a bland supervillian played the ever-impressive Jackie Earl Haley, and a "because we couldn't think of any other way to push this character into the forefront" cameo by Peter Serafinowicz. The pilot establishes that superheroes have been common place in this world, but we rarely if ever seen any other superheroes other than The Tick and Superian (in a cameo). I will say that The Tick costume looks a lot better in action (if you want to call him walking "action") than what we were shown in those first look images.
The series seems to have taken itself way too serious for the type of character that Edlund has created in the comic and doesn't lend itself to such a serious tone. Stepping away from the humor was a big mistake all in all, even if the pilot tried to do something different from other superhero TV shows that are currently invading the television-sphere.
Overall, I'd give this Pilot episode and series premiere a thumbs down simply because it abandoned everything that makes the Tick interesting, in favor of a pilot episode focused so heavily on Arthur. I'd rather've seen a series revival with Patrick Warburton than this mess of a pilot.
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