Today's Entertainment

August 21 - 27, 2017 Page 3 ACROSS 1. Kevin O'Leary's reality series (2) 8. "Non-__"; 2014 Liam Neeson movie 9. __ __ instant; suddenly 10. Actor on "The Blacklist" (2) 14. "Vanity __"; 2004 Reese Witherspoon film 15. Ames and Sullivan 16. Org. for Lions and Bears 17. K-P connection 18. "__, Dear" 19. "Back in the __"; song for the Beatles 20. "Krakatoa: East of __"; Maximilian Schell movie 24. Corp. head 27. "Crossing __ with John Edward" (1999-2004) 28. Source of quick cash, for short 29. Helium or hydrogen 32. Beget children 33. "The Young and __ __" 36. Actor Richard 37. Mayberry resident 38. "__ __ with Seth Meyers" DOWN 1. Laundry problems 2. "The Rocky __ Picture Show"; Tim Curry/ Susan Sarandon film 3. Calendar abbr. 4. "Family __" (1982-89) 5. Curry or Cusack 6. "The __"; series for Fran Drescher 7. "Mack the __"; Bobby Darin hit 8. Pillow covers 11. "My Son, My Son, What Have __ Done"; Willem Dafoe movie 12. Initials for news anchor Dobbs 13. Extra large T-shirts, for short 14. Reason to call in sick 20. JFK's father 21. "__ __ from St. Nicholas"; most famous Christmas poem 22. Stanza 23. "Who Do You Think You __?" 24. Felix or Morris 25. Role on "I Love Lucy" 26. "The __ Man"; 1971 Charlton Heston movie 29. Wilder, for one 30. "__ the World Turns" 31. "__. Elsewhere" 34. "__ Race"; 2001 Whoopi Goldberg film 35. Journal Solution on page 2 CoverStory By John Crook © Zap2it The third time is likely to be the charm for "The Tick," Ben Edlund's su- perhero satire that started life as a comic in 1988 and begins streaming as a live-action series Friday, Aug. 25, on Amazon. This insanely buzzed- about new show was preceded by two previous TV adaptations, an ani- mated 1994-96 version with "The Monkees" star Mickey Dolenz in its voice cast, then in a very funny but shortlived live-action 2001 comedy on Fox, with Patrick Warburton as the Tick. While this latest iter- ation will still keep fans laughing, this time around Edlund has taken an au- dacious gamble, rooting the madcap antics in a traumatic backstory for the Tick's sidekick, Ar- thur (Griffin Newman), whose life changed as a child when his father was killed in front of his eyes, crushed like a bug by a crashing spaceship. Since then, Arthur has spent much of his life in a paranoid haze, numbed by drugs. "At first, having Ar- thur's dad being killed by a villain, and having that (incident) send him on the path to superherodom, seemed so cliché that I was worried to start play- ing with those elements," Edlund explains. "Actually, though, it feels almost institutional. It's the right way to go, and it began to pay off in terms of Arthur's character. "The story became 'Here's what happens when you don't do what Batman did.' Arthur just took the medications the doctors told him to and tried not to fall apart, but then events start to catch up with him, and he's not really prepared to deal with any of them." Enter the Tick (British actor Peter Serafinowicz), a grandiose, larger-than- life superhero given to spouting aphorisms such as "Evil wears every pos- sible mitten." He literally laughs at danger as he trounces bad guys. He also just may exist entirely in Arthur's imagination, since he keeps evading his sidekick's nervous queries on that point with replies like "Don't get stuck on trivia, man." Peter Serafinowicz stars in "The Tick," which begins streaming Friday on Amazon. Ben Edlund delivers a 'Tick' for our troubled times on Amazon

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