Fans of 80s and 90s nostalgia, listen up – we reckon you’ll like this one. You may be used – resigned, even – to the increasingly regular occurrences of remakes and reimaginings of popular properties, but this is different: yes, thanks to Amazon, The Tick will be returning to our screens in the form of a TV pilot, with a new series hopefully to follow.
The Tick has been through various incarnations throughout the years, beginning life in comic-book form at 1980 via the mind of Ben Edlund. Despite gaining cult popularity, it was via the animated series where he really took on a new life, his absurdist spoof of superhero antics proving to be a hit with viewers. A live-action series from Fox (starring Patrick Warburton in the lead role) was short-lived, but a big critical hit nonetheless, with both series garnering dedicated fanbases and spawning multiple franchising opportunities (hands up if you have the action figures, training cards or pogs? Anyone?).
But for all the seemingly light-hearted japes, the subject matter could be quite dark at times, as exemplified by this description of the show from Deadline: “In the new incarnation, the blue suit-wearing Tick is recovering from a memory loss. He ends up re-teaming with Arthur to fight evil. Newman’s Arthur, played in the Fox series by David Burke, had been labeled as a schizophrenic because of his statements that evil plans to rule the city, and no one believes him until he runs into Tick. Curry’s Dot Everest is a nurse who loves her brother Arthur to death and worries about him.”
Wally Pfister (Transcendence) has been earmarked to direct the pilot, which will hopefully lead on to another series starring the blue-covered bounder. We can only hope.
A release date for The Tick is yet to be announced. For more news about the biggest TV series, pick up the new issue of SciFiNow.
