The Tick to Return?

The Fox Broadcasting Corporation have a long and storied history of making some really lousy decisions as far as the television shows they have decided to broadcast and the ones that get the axe before they are even given the opportunity to reach their potential.

Quite honestly, I would liken the people who make the decisions of what goes, stays and gets cancelled to a room filled with monkeys on typewriters attempting to adapt the works of Shakespeare...

...however I find that comparison highly insulting towards monkeys on typwriters attempting to adapt the works of Shakespeare...

The point I'm getting at was that THE TICK starring Patrick Warburton was one of those shows that Fox in their esteemed collective wisdom not good enough to continue running after only 9 episodes. And I think if I remember incorrectly, they only ran 8 of the 9 produced.

Although, slightly different from both the comic book series the show was based on as well as the hit animated series, the live-action Tick was just as good as the two in my less than humble opinion. It was snappy, well-written, highly entertaining with a great cast that made it laugh out loud for me. Patrick Warburton WAS born to play the Tick.

Apparently, he enjoyed his time on the series so much he actually kept one of the costumes he wore as a souvenier.

We had bought the complete series on DVD at Walmart a few months back and I introduced Syd to the series. And she could not stop laughing. Mainly because she found the Tick's cluelessness hysterical.
Well, it looks as though he might be taking it out of the closet and dusting it off because there's talk that Amazon Prime is set to release pilot episodes of several shows which prematurely got the axe.

And the Tick being one of those shows with Warburton once again reprising his role as that "Big Blue Bug of Justice".

No word if the rest of the cast will be returning as well. I hope they do. I thought they were a great ensemble and the reason the show worked really well.

For me, what worked great about the series was the fact it stuck to the half hour format similar to the Adam West Batman series. Just enough time to keep you wanting more yet not too much to make the story and the jokes get stale. A superhero sitcom without that crummy laugh track.

I really hope this is true and the initial pilot is the launch pad for a brand new series. I think the world... well... at least the television watching world... needs the Tick more than ever right now.

Elementary! (Or CBS capitalizing on the success of Sherlock)

The picture above is not from the series. It's from a movie called The Zero Effect which was a modern take on the Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia.

But it looks as though CBS wants in on the success that the BBC has been having with the series Sherlock by creating their own modern-day retelling with a series titled...

...wait for it...

...Elementary.

Although this is not really the first attempt at an American version of Sherlock Holmes. Along with the movie The Zero Effect mentioned above, both the series's Monk and House both take aspects of the character and the stories of Sherlock Holmes.

I mean House even lives on 221B Baker Street for heathen snakes!!

And to ensure the series is a dismal failure, it will take Sherlock Holmes and have him solving crimes in modern-day New York City.

However, if they end up enlisting someone like David Tennant, Eddie Izzard or Christopher Eccleston in the role I might change my opinion of the production.

I had heard a rumor from someone that Robert Downey Jr. might star in the series but I think that is total bullshit. Especially after the rigorous schedule of filming the series Ally McBeal nearly killed him.

Besides, given how much he probably made between Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man I don't think he'll have much interest in breaking his back making a weekly television series.

I really can't think of another American actor off-hand who could really pull off the eccentric qualities of Holmes. At least not in the way that Benedict Cumberbatch has made the part his own on television.

But I fear we're probably going to end up with someone like Ashton Kutcher or Charlie Sheen as Sherlock Holmes.