Thursday, September 26, 2013

Thursday Review: Agents of SHIELD


By now the whole blogosphere has probably given its opinion of the new Marvel's Agents of SHIELD show.  Here's my review:  meh.

Hurm, you might want more detail than that.  Or probably not.  Suffice it to say I was not that impressed by the show.  It was OK but it's clear to me that it's going to take some time for the show to gel.

The problem with a pilot like this (and you can make the same case for "Firefly" or ST TNG or DS9 or pretty much any show) is that you're bringing all these characters together and setting them loose on some situation that has to be resolved in 45 minutes give or take without commercials.  Except for Phil Coulson we don't really know any of these people so what we end up with are just glimpses of each character.  It's really too early to feel that strongly one way or another about anything.  Hence I say meh.  But good idea to involve Extremis in the plot considering it was shown the same day Iron Man 3 came out on DVD.  Marvel does not miss a trick, do they?  Unlike DC who seems to miss just about everything.

Anyway, as I said it can take a while for shows to come together.  Chemistry is not made overnight.  Sometimes it takes longer than others to get it going.  Really I don't think shows like ST TNG or DS9 came together until about the third season.  (And Voyager and Enterprise probably never.)  You can wait that long when you're in syndication without all the pressures of being on a big network like ABC where there are probably millions in ad revenues at play.

The thing working in Whedon's favor this time is I'm sure ABC's corporate masters at Disney aren't going to want to ax the show too soon.  I mean the whole reason for it to exist is to help sell the various Marvel superhero movies that they'll be constantly ramming down our throats over the next 3 years.  So they've probably got some time to make the concept work and craft characters we might care about.  And I wouldn't be at all surprised if during sweeps in November and February you get some of the more important Marvel characters showing up.  Would you be at all surprised if someone from Thor shows up on November 5, just 3 days before Thor 2 comes out?  If I were the sort to actually seek out rumors I might know if that's true or not.  If it's not then I will recant what I said about Marvel not missing a trick.

I probably will not be watching the next episodes live.  The baseball playoffs start next week and my Tigers should be in it.  Hopefully they'll be showing these On Demand so I can catch up.  Though really about the only reason I want to watch at present is to find out just how the hell Coulson lived.  They indicated there's more than meets the eye with that--or else I read more into that exchange between Hill and the Shepherd.  Is he a clone?  An android double?  Did they use some of Odin's magic or something?  I'm sure we'll find out more in November when sweeps come around and they pull out the big guns--and hammers, shields, robot suits, and giant green dudes.

(BTW, next week I'll be talking about the finale of Breaking Bad.  I'm sure Offutt will be stoked while Pagel not so much.  So it goes.)

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I thought it did a good job of combining the Cinematic universe with its own.
We will not see "Major" heros of baddies, but it will be fun to find out how Coulson lived

Unknown said...

*or*

Andrew Leon said...

Marvel does really have its act together as far as forming cohesive, interwoven plots. I really don't understand why DC seems incapable of this.

Maurice Mitchell said...

That sounds about right Pat. I'll be posting a review tomorrow. You're on the roundup list!

stephen Hayes said...

Shield was a program we considered watching but it aired at a time when we were watching and recording other programs. I'm sure the pilot will be repeated so we may get a second chance at it.

Rusty Carl said...

Good review. I kept waiting for... I don't know... something more. It never happened. I'll keep watching, at least for a month or so, give it at least a little time before I start wondering what else I could be doing with my tuesday evenings (well, aside from watching Face-Off and InkMaster)

Tony Laplume said...

It's kind of the Marvel version of the usual crime show. The stars don't have a huge amount of charisma, which makes it seem kind of dull, but it could still work.

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