The Middleman: Season 1 (2008)

TV. Sweet mother of pearl, is The Middleman hilarious! (OK, it's droll and tendentious -- which means hilarious if you really appreciate dry humor and sarcasm.) The Middleman is Due South meets The Librarian and the Spear -- or The Tick meets Burn Notice -- or The Lost Room meets Men in Black. Straitlaced Matt Keesler plays the M.I.B.-like Middleman with a glib if mordant postmodern bite, saving the world from the doom of the day. Natalie Morales plays his snarky sidekick and Mary Pat Gleason plays his snarkier battleax of a librarian (who can dispense coffee from her midriff, among other things). The Middleman loves to showboat its tightly written, rapidfire dialog interspersed with totally quirky plot developments from the supernatural to the banal -- ripping into parodies of fashion designers, PETA activists, clueless suburbanites and more. Available on instant watch for a limited time, I've seen the pilot and episode 1 on Netflix; since episode 4 airs on ABC in two days, I suspect episode 3 will appear on IW at that time. If you have enjoyed any of the shows referenced earlier, be sure to catch The Middleman. After only two minutes, I discovered it is a program I could watch over and over and over! 5 stars.