TVSquad

So I guess this is official word that ABC Family is not going to pick up The Middleman for a second season? It's a damn shame because I thought the show was one of the sharpest and most entertaining shows on television. TNT picked up Leverage for a second season and it's also a "fun" show. Maybe the producers should shop the show to another network. In the meantime, things are coming back full circle as word has slipped that ABC Family will be bringing the series finale to comics this summer.

Ironically, the series will be published by Viper Comics, which is the company that published the original Middleman comics that inspired the television series. The graphic novel, titled "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse" is being written by creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Hans Beimler. So in a way you could also call this just the next Middelman comic story. Sure there were some minor continuity variations, but we should get all that trademark snappy dialogue and wacky encounters the show was famous for. And maybe the TV variation of the story behind Wendy Watson's father.

I just can't help but think that some of the charm of the series won't translate well to the comic page. I know it started as a comic, and the dialogue was a staple of the original medium as well, but there was something about the way the show was put together that made it really special. Matt Keeslar's iconic charm, Wendy Watson's sardonic smile and Ida. There's no way you can translate Mary Pat Gleason to the printed page and do any justice to her character. She was one of the widest departures from her graphic novel source anyway.

Still, I'm not going to complain because it means we'll get some resolution to the first season. The growing trend of genre television series continuing in comics, made famous by Joss Whedon's "Season Eight" of Buffy the Vampire Slayer continues with this move. If we can't get The Middleman back on television as a regular series, I'm not opposed to a second season of the series in comic format either.