Critical Condition: The Tick

The Tick | Amazon Prime, from Saturday

➢ “As a comic-book concept that has already been turned into an animated cartoon for TV (in 1994), adapted again in primetime with flesh and blood actors (in 2001 for Fox) and now yet again for Amazon, The Tick might be the best superhero ever. You can’t defeat him as a franchise, can’t dampen his expressive enthusiasm and, in our currently dark political days, he stands out as welcome respite from relentless stupidity and growing anxiety. The Tick is also a nice tonic to dystopian, bleak, poorly lit superheroes moping about on other channels. As a bonus, he’s bright blue.” — The Hollywood Reporter.

➢ “It’s funny some of the time; other times it isn’t funny at all and isn’t supposed to be. By the time you hit episode three … you realise that what you’re watching is less of a lovable but one-note superhero spoof than a low-key, underground-comix-styled look at characters who are all fundamentally, profoundly dissatisfied with modern life and don’t have the tools to figure out why, much less correct the situation.” — New York.

➢ “The series enjoys deconstructing superhero tropes but in its own offbeat way. You will probably need a few episodes to get into The Tick, but the first part of the first season builds up nicely. By Episode 6, the series is all powered up.” — Los Angeles Daily News.

➢ “The Tick’s creator, the cartoonist and writer Ben Edlund has … given us a refurbished version of the basic Tick story, a deserved do-over after the truncated 2001 series, which made its debut on Fox two months after Sept. 11 and lasted just nine episodes. Where the 2001 show was a quirky, low-fi, episodic lark, the new show is an up-to-date serialised dramedy that feels an awful lot like all the other 10-episode streaming series out there — take away the laughs and it could be a Netflix-Marvel production.” — New York Times.

➢ “It’s grounded in a somewhat dour version of reality, which blunts some of the comedy’s goofier edges. And structurally speaking, like other streaming shows, it tends to treat its first season as one long piece of set-up for whatever comes next. The end result is a six-episode half-season of The Tick that often feels thin and awkwardly stretched out.” — Variety.