The Tick - Season 1 Review
This review of Season 1 of The Tick is spoiler-free!
We all know the superhero genre in one way or another. Whether we watch the TV shows, check out the Netflix series, or watch the movies from one of the two major movie studios, everyone has a means to access this genre. As I wrote near the very beginning of my website's life cycle, I have a belief that the superhero genre is becoming over-saturated by too many similar properties. Since then things most definitely have not slowed down, but without question, we've gotten some of our best pieces to this genre. With a show like Marvel's Runaways we got a look at a different mixture of genres than we're used to, and now with The Tick, we get something even better: parody and comedy.
The Tick actually doesn't truly focus around The Tick himself. It focuses on a man named Arthur, living in a world that has been filled with supervillains and heroes for years up to this point. Living his normal life, he is thrown into conflict when he discovers a super suit. After uncovering a conspiracy after a thought-dead supervillain, Arthur takes it upon himself to find out the truth. At the beginning of the journey, he meets The Tick, a man who is nearly invulnerable and has super strength but has no recollection of who he is. Together they, along with others they meet on their journey have to break this conspiracy to the world and stop the supervillain's plot. For me, The Tick's story was hilarious and fun. It essentially makes fun of nearly every superhero trope in its path and creates an actually enjoyable and rather deep story in the process. Great work from the writers on this first season!
In terms of characters, there are so many solid characters in this show that I can discuss without diving into spoilers. Firstly let's talk about Arthur, played by Griffin Newman. Truth be told, he's a bit of a weirdo and you get that right away from Newman's portrayal he plays the nerdy and awkward nature of the character really well. In fact, it got to a point where I was feeling awkward for Arthur on screen during scenes and scared to look or hear what happened on screen. That's quality acting by one of our leads.
The other main character of the series is our titular character of The Tick! Played by Peter Serafinowicz, this is by far the best character in the show. Serafinowicz plays this character with such joy and positivity, he's just such a happy person with superpowers. If I were to think of someone who was a generally positive person becoming a superhero, it would be this person. Even in the grimmest of situations, they're happy. This honestly might be some of my favorite work from Serafinowicz as he just seems to love every minute of his time in this character.
So, outside of our main characters, there's a lot of other supporting characters here who deserved to be looked at. To avoid spoilers though I'll only discuss two more: Valorie Curry's Dot Everest (Arthur's sister), and Scott Speiser's Overkill. Dot Everest originally started out the series as a bit of an annoyance, but as the show went along she really came as a character. Curry's ability to take a character that could have just felt out of place and make her into an essential piece of the story that you want to see more of is great, and I can't really say any more than that. Finally, I want to talk about who just might be the true scene stealer of the show: Overkill. Scott Speiser's stellar character is an overly serious superhero with excellent marksmanship and strength. He's got a suspicious history with one of our main villains and even has a boat lovably named Death Boat. Speiser plays him with such a serious tone and fake anger that it just makes all of his scenes incredible. The clash of tones that come from his characters ideals is great and it just makes the show that much better when he's on screen. Here's hoping we get more of him in Season 2.
As a whole, The Tick's first season was great but I have one true complaint to wrap up this article. The complaint is that this show really should not have been separated into two separate pieces. It felt as though just as the show was hitting its stride in its 6th half-hour episode, we were smacked with a 3 month wait period to finish the season. Being that the show was only 12 half-hour episodes, it felt like they should have been put altogether because it was too short on its own. Hopefully, Prime learn's from this and decides to keep it as one complete season for season 2! Regardless of my one complaint though, The Tick is quality superhero television that definitely doesn't take itself too seriously. With great works from the supporting cast and leads, The Tick is one of those can't miss shows on TV right now.
