Who's seen the 2003 series?

I've been watching the 2003 MTV Spider-Man series over the last few days. I'd seen a couple of episodes of it before but never the whole thing. I ended up liking it a lot more than I expected to; that series had always been sort of swept under the rug, running for only 13 episodes between the first and second Raimi films (it actually treats the first movie as canon within its own storyline, but is heavily contradicted by the second and third.)

It's not exactly the most comic-accurate of the Spider-series in terms of plot, but that was more a matter of the creators deciding to take the Spider-Man mythos in their own direction rather than the usual case of not doing the research, and it got a lot of things right that other incarnations of the character (including the movie that the series spawned from) got wrong. Its version of Peter Parker (portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris) was very well-done, capturing the confidence and wit that was lacking in Maguire's version, and its Mary-Jane was a lot more likable than her movie incarnation.

For the most part, the series used its own cast of villains, although some guys from the comics (Electro, Lizard, Silver Sable, Kingpin, Kraven) do show up. It also introduced a new love-interest for Peter unique to the series, presumably in an attempt to replicate the Pater/Gwen/MJ triangle from the comics.

I'd still say that TSSM reigns supreme as far as Spider-Man series go, but the MTV one is certainly worth a look. It's probably the darkest incarnation of the character ever to appear on TV (and possibly in movies, although I haven't seen the Mark Webb film yet to compare) and it's a pity it was cancelled so soon, especially since it seemed to be going in a very interesting direction in its last few episodes.