As many ‘Tick’ fans already know, the cult favorite will be returning to the airwaves once more in the near future, though the show will look entirely different than the last time we saw it, with Peter Serafinowicz taking over the role of the titular hero from Patrick Warburton. According to creator Ben Edlund, it seems this time around they are also going for a tone that is a bit less slapstick, and he is hoping for around 50 episodes for the show, if Amazon will allow them to make that many. Story-wise they are also going in a new direction, choosing to have the Tick’s sidekick Arthur actually be the protagonist of the show, working to undercover a conspiracy that will encompass a lot of the show’s characters. Here’s a little bit of Edlund’s comments on the show as stated during a recent interview with io9:
“[U]ltimately that’s worked great for the cartoon and worked well for the live-action in terms of what we were looking for as an expression of The Tick at the time. Now Arthur is a legitimate main character protagonist, where he’s not just your excuse to have fun with the world. That is very much a lot of characters in a lot of genre expressions and it’s totally real and good. This is more like Arthur has his own story and you need to see it play out. You care about where he came from and where he’s going. The Tick is, in essence, the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to Arthur. And that’s the story…
Arthur will realize that he desperately needs The Tick, given the plight he’s gotten into. Now, I think in better structural form this time around, The Tick is very involved in deepening Arthur’s problem. He meets The Tick and he’s never going back to anything approaching normalcy. The thugs hate him now. The gangs know who he is. All of it is bad. In fact, Arthur would have never even conceived of being a superhero. He just wanted to try to expose evil in his town. But The Tick comes on as a whole package and practically wraps him in a superhero identity that he will not let him get out of. So that’s the right dynamic. Then, with Arthur, it’s up to him to realize, “OK, my new friend is either my murderer or my emancipator and, moment to moment, I’ve got to figure out which.” [laughs]
It certainly sounds like a fresh new take on the show, and I would be interested in checking it out once it premieres. What are your thoughts on the new iteration of the character? Do you think it will work this time around, especially after two (arguably) failed attempts to make shows based on the ‘Tick’ before? Share your opinions in the comments below!
Nick is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, who belongs to the privileged few who enjoyed the ending to ‘Lost.’ For more of Nick’s thoughts and articles, follow him on Twitter.
