Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (No Spoilers Beyond What's Aired)

Fedaykin98 wrote:

shoptroll: I can confirm Serenity comics, there was an article in the last 10 days on CBR. I think it's an ongoing series, like the Buffy comics.

Woohoo!

Watched it last night with the gf. We both thought it was okay. Worth checking out again, but didn't really set up a terribly interesting scenario. There's clearly potential here for some cool scenarios.

Okay, more detailed thoughts about the pilot and stuff about my expectations.

I expected a Whedon show, with snappy dialogue well delivered. Whedon's stuff, at its most Whedon, has a bunch of smart and witty people talking a lot. Agents of SHIELD however felt a lot like a bunch of smart people who really thought they were witty but actually aren't talking a lot.

Things like the "with great power..." joke and "don't touch Lola" felt like high school fan fiction lines. Haha, wink wink, nudge nudge subversion and humanizing. Also, the follow up to Lola with "he gave it a girl's name" was even worse. I groaned out loud at the "this is an origin story" line as well.

The acting as a whole felt awkward and forced as well. Granted, I've never seen a lot of these actors before, but the ones I have I like. Coulson and Hill I both enjoyed in all their previous appearances. Here it felt like they were flown in, given cue cards off stage and with no direction told to do their scenes all in one cut just to get them done. The only character who felt like they were actually a character and not an actor was Ming-Na Wen's character. I know pilots can't always get in all their characterization, but everyone just felt so flat, even the people we'd met before. Though I guess with Coulson that could be intentional.

I'm also a bit confused by the plot itself. Skye is the leader of Rising Tide? Or was that a red herring. Because what we saw of them at the beginning seemed like a pretty dangerous terrorist cell. But she's just some pretty young hacker? Who now works with/for SHIELD? Huh? It is quite possible they explained this better and I missed it.

I'd probably have enjoyed it more overall if I hadn't been annoyed the whole time by the video quality. That's maybe not the right way to put it? Did they film this on the same cameras they did The Hobbit that everyone hated? It felt like a soap opera or a higher end YouTube web series, not a major network television show. What really got me about that though, was that the special effects themselves seemed pretty good for TV. Not fantastic, but much better than the actual quality of the film itself.

As far as tone, well I wasn't sure what to expect. With Whedon it can be campy fun with some serious undertones (Dr Horrible, the Avengers) or more serious with jokes thrown in (Firefly). I was kind of expecting one of those. As is, the show ended up feeling like it wasn't sure what it wanted to be. You had campy spy action and constant (bad) jokes, but then you have an entire plot around a dad struggling to take care of his kid. If one or the other had been played up more while the other was a side thing I feel that the show itself would have felt more cohesive. To compare, Sleepy Hollow so far is a mostly serious show, with some little funny moments to break tension and humanize the characters without feeling forced. On the other end, I've recently been rewatching The Middleman which is straight up campy fun.

All that said, I like the concept well enough and the teaser for the season looked like it had some cool stuff in it. I'm going to stick around for a few more episodes and see if it can find its feet. It is quite possible I just expected too much out of the show.

I almost got more "Alias" than "Buffy" out of this show. Which seems a bit weird to say.

Oh, I just read the tie in. The Flying car was invented by Howard Stark as seen the the Captain America movie.

Like a lot of people, I thought the Pilot was middle of the road, there was a bit too much cheese in the writing and woodenness among the cast, but I think there is potential here.

I like the fact that you have fewer combat/bruiser type characters. Coulsen was decent as was Ming-na Wen's character when she was on the screen.

All in all, it might evolve into a nice counterpoint to Arrow: bright where Arrow is Dark, humourous where Arrow is serious, superpowered where Arrow is more or less mundane.

ccesarano wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Just watched this, really dug it. It didn't ask too much, was fun and funny, and entertained us quite sufficiently.

So what you're saying is we can gauge our enjoyment of this show by roughly how much we enjoyed Pacific Rim? :D

Absolutely.

Hey now, I loved Pacific Rim.

thejustinbot wrote:

Hey now, I loved Pacific Rim.

And I hated it.

There's a whole thread for that silly live-action anime movie. No need for talk about it in here. :p

Hrm. We're talking an awful lot about how Agents of SHIELD compares to other Whedon projects (I'm actually amused that Whedon, who wears his hatred for all things authority figure on his sleeve, forehead, face, eye socket, stomach fat, etc. is now Exec. Producing a show about a secret government agency out there to be authority figures), but do we feel the tone is consistent with the rest of the Marvel offerings?

I mean, I feel we're looking at this purely as a Whedon vehicle, but it's a Marvel vehicle being overseen by Whedon and steered by his brother and womanwhoselastnameIcan'tspellorremember. It's not going to be like his other shows.

So the real question is, does it feel consistent with what we've come to expect from the Marvel films? And if that's the case, is Agent Coulson himself consistent with how he started out in Iron Man 1?

That may take a bit more time to be able to tell, but I think the tone of the show should be analyzed more for being a Marvel TV show than a Joss Whedon TV show.

ccesarano wrote:

I think the tone of the show should be analyzed more for being a Marvel TV show than a Joss Whedon TV show.

Come for the Marvel, stay for the Whedon?

I thought it was a very good start. Most of the characters except for Coulson and Hill are completely two-dimensional, but they'll get filled out over time. This'll be a great bridge for the Marvel folks to start introducing background characters and flesh things out without needing a big-budget film to do so. I continue to be really happy with the way the brand is being managed and opened.

That may take a bit more time to be able to tell, but I think the tone of the show should be analyzed more for being a Marvel TV show than a Joss Whedon TV show.

It's particularly true when you consider that this is not Whedon's central focus at all... he's delegating most of it. He's pretty influential with us geeks, so I think we may be attaching more weight to his name than we should. One thing we know, from the Buffy/Angel years, is that he gives his subordinates a lot of rope with which to hang themselves, and they have, more than once, cheerfully done so.

Just saw it and I think it was okay. Wasn't overwhelmed nor underwhelmed. But it's clear that there is a ton of potential here, so much room to grow.

Here's a question? Does this already have a full season order? Half Season? Or are they still trying to get picked up?

Think it's a full season. Google is failing me because it's full of review and articles from the last two days.

That was like the cast of One Tree Hill thrown into the Marvel universe

I like all the senior members - Coulson and the pilot. I can't really take the scientists, mr fighting/espionage, or the hacker seriously

spider_j wrote:

The thing that disappointed me the most was Maria Hill's character. She was nowhere near prickly enough.

I've always hated that casting decision. There is no way Cobie Smulders can pull off Maria Hill.

I found it entertaining. On a par with Alphas. Good lightweight snacky TV.

I don't think the bit with Lola at the end was a fan reference to Back to the Future, instead, it probably was a 'shout out' to Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. There is a great bit in the story "Assignment: The Infinity Formula," where

Spoiler:

Nick Fury uses a flying car where the wheels fold out and down to provide lift, much the same appearence. The car is used as an unguided impromptu missile to destroy a helicopter attacking Fury.

My immediate comment to the other half for that bit was

Spoiler:

'Well, looks like they worked the glitches out of that StarkTech.

thejustinbot wrote:

I'm also a bit confused by the plot itself. Skye is the leader of Rising Tide? Or was that a red herring. Because what we saw of them at the beginning seemed like a pretty dangerous terrorist cell.

My understanding that the people Ward was interacting with at the beginning were not Rising Tide, but that Rising Tide had posted information about them on the internet, specifically the location where the criminals were conducting a meeting to sell that contraband.

I suspect Sky is Rising Tide. Just her. Army of one.

Some of the 'tech references' were just silly. The bit about the GPS? Ah... I'll just overlook it.

I liked it
In an odd way storywise its very similar to TORCHWOOD actually
Just flashier, brasher and a bigger budget and less (but still some!) regional UK accents.
on the downside-
sadly all the (younger) people were way too pretty
Also for once can we get an skinny asperger or overweight neckbeard hacker ? that lass had actual social skills and great hair

Brownypoints wrote:

Also for once can we get an skinny asperger or overweight neckbeard hacker ? that lass had actual social skills and great hair

Alphas.

LtWarhound wrote:

I don't think the bit with Lola at the end was a fan reference to Back to the Future, instead, it probably was a 'shout out' to Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. There is a great bit in the story "Assignment: The Infinity Formula," where

Spoiler:

Nick Fury uses a flying car where the wheels fold out and down to provide lift, much the same appearence. The car is used as an unguided impromptu missile to destroy a helicopter attacking Fury.

My immediate comment to the other half for that bit was

Spoiler:

'Well, looks like they worked the glitches out of that StarkTech.

As someone said upthread, Shield has been using flying cars since the 60s, which is why it wasn't a straight allusion to BttF. However, saying they don't need roads clearly was.

Finally had time to watch it last night and loved it. Rather than thinking the jokes fell flat, I was laughing my ass off. But Whedon has always cracked me up. Almost as much as Edgar Wright. Can't wait for more of this.

McChuck, I'm in the city now. We may need to do something we haven't done since Chuck and Heroes circa season 2. TV show night. Let these curmudgeons shake their heads and frown. We'll watch with glee as Coulson and his merry band of soon-to-be-fleshed-out beautiful people save the world and spout Whedonisms as they do.

Watched it, loved it. My wife and I actually like Fitzsimmons as the sciency nerdy goofballs. I loved that his little drones were named after the 7 dwarves. Can't wait to see more.

Maq wrote:
Brownypoints wrote:

Also for once can we get an skinny asperger or overweight neckbeard hacker ? that lass had actual social skills and great hair

Alphas.

yup, he was definitely my favourite tech nerd on tv
(and also someone I would never want to be in a room with for more than 1 minute)

Brownypoints wrote:
Maq wrote:
Brownypoints wrote:

Also for once can we get an skinny asperger or overweight neckbeard hacker ? that lass had actual social skills and great hair

Alphas.

yup, he was definitely my favourite tech nerd on tv
(and also someone I would never want to be in a room with for more than 1 minute)

I always like Marshall on Alias. Good mix of humor and nerdy.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Just saw it and I think it was okay. Wasn't overwhelmed nor underwhelmed. But it's clear that there is a ton of potential here, so much room to grow.

Exactly how I felt. I am excited to see who might show up. Really hoping for a specific agent but won't say who.

Gaald wrote:

Here's a question? Does this already have a full season order? Half Season? Or are they still trying to get picked up?

Can't imagine they don't have a full season order when there's already talk of a second Marvel TV show.

MannishBoy wrote:
Brownypoints wrote:
Maq wrote:
Brownypoints wrote:

Also for once can we get an skinny asperger or overweight neckbeard hacker ? that lass had actual social skills and great hair

Alphas.

yup, he was definitely my favourite tech nerd on tv
(and also someone I would never want to be in a room with for more than 1 minute)

I always like Marshall on Alias. Good mix of humor and nerdy.

TIL Kevin Weisman isn't actually a dwarf, he just seems to have the proportions of one.