Middleman Finale Does ‘Mirror, Mirror’ Better than Star Trek

by Josh Roth @ 10:21 pm September 2nd, 2008

It has arrived, the penultimate episode of my favorite series of the year, The Middleman has graced our HDTV’s and old fashioned boob tubes, and boy does it go out with a bang. Back at Comic-Con Middleman-mastermind Javier Grillo-Marxuach let slip the title and plot of the finale, and when I heard that it was called The Palindrome Reversal Palindrome, and it took place in a mirror universe a la Star Trek (goatees and all) my love for sci-fi comedy gem was sealed instantly. What a brilliant premise, and a great way to play with some of the most classic sci-fi cliches, which is one of the things Middleman does best. In the Middle-verse Fatboy rules with an iron fist, the Middleman is a Snake Plissken rip-off, Nozer totes a shotgun, and Tyler is the deceseased former Middleboy. This easily could be my favorite episode of the series, perfect to get newcomers into the the show, and a shinging example of great television. If The Middleman doesn’t come back, I will loose faith in media all together. Yeah, it’s that good.

Matt Keeslar really shows his acting chops (and his leather chaps) this week. His Mirror Middleman shtick is wonderful, he wears the Plissken eye patch and feathered wig brilliantly. If you haven’t seen Escape From New York, go to Netflix and rent it immediately. It’s a work of genius, and probably my favorite John Carpenter film. The best part of Escape is Kurt Russell’s performance. Snake Plissken is the ultimate badass, he can’t be killed and he doesn’t take crap from anyone, especially not the President. It only makes sense that the Mirror Middleman be a cursing, drinking, badass with an eyepatch, so who better than to parody than Snake Plissken.

The episode jumps into the alternate universe pretty quickly, and once it does the visual style of the show shifts drastically. It instantly echos Children of Men and Battlestar Galactica‘s New Caprica phase. The colors get washed out, cinematography goes handicam, giving it the cold dystopian feel the crew intenteded on a scale the show hasn’t achieved before. The streets are filled with people lining up for aerosolized soup, posters of Manservant Neville plastered on every surface, and metal superstructures as far as the eye can see.

If I have any complaints about this episode, it goes too quickly. The build up takes the majority of the episode, and the ‘big battle’ takes the last 10-15 minutes, I didn’t feel all that satisfied. I do want to see more of the Mirror Middle-verse, but the episode itself took too quickly to wrap up. Basically my complaint is there wasn’t enough! It left me wanting more, which I suppose is the reaction they would have wanted.

So now the season’s over, and we eagerly await word from ABC Family on the show’s future. If you didn’t get a chance to watch all the episodes, now is the perfect time to play catch up. It’s best to watch the episdoes in order, justlike with any other show, but they’re mostly serialzied so if you shuffle them around you’ll still have a great time. Here’s to the Middleman, a show too brilliant to possibly be on ABC Family. We lvoe you, and hopefully you’ll be gracing our screens for years to come.