The moment of reckoning is finally upon us. That grandiloquent cerulean superhero whose reappearance we’ve all been eagerly awaiting is finally here. Today, Amazon Video begins streaming the pilot episode of its reboot of The Tick. While the original 2001 live action iteration only lasted nine episodes, that was a different time and a different Tick. Now, with British comedian Peter Serafinowicz stepping into the role originated by Patrick Warburton, the show has undergone a tonal overhaul intended to pull the show away from outright spoof and into the grime-coated world in which enhanced vigilantes exist in the modern cultural arena. If you’re on the fence about whether you’re willing to invest your time in the new version, you might want to check out this newly released clip in which the show’s namesake dispatches a group of armed thugs with grace and aplomb.
“It’s a tremendous balancing act because it had to have stakes, it had to have blood, it had to have certain things that are part of the living language of superheroes in the popular culture today,” character creator Ben Edlund told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview. “It has a responsibility if it wants to play in that pool to have life and death, to have a relationship to violence that none of the other iterations did. And so how do you have the Tick slip in a pool of blood and have it be funny? You have to find a very specific tone.”
Based upon the two short clips that Amazon released to EW, it seems like the creative team behind the reboot might have its thumb on that very specific tone. One thing that is very clear is that Serafinowicz makes a pomp perfect Tick. And Griffin Newman (Vinyl), as soon-to-be-sidekick Arthur, proves himself to be appropriately exasperated while dealing with the titular braggadocio.
“His voice is the Tick’s voice. It’s what I hear in my head now,” Edlund said of Serafinowicz’s performance. “And to kind of have that take place when combating the very, very large shadow that is cast by Patrick Warburton and his way of characterizing this creature, that is a tremendous relief to feel like there is a new authoritative take on this character in live-action.”
The pilot episode of The Tick is streaming as of today, and is available to all Amazon Prime members.