Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[Tmon]

After 5 episodes this show hasn't shown anything that gives me a reason to remember what night it airs or to make space on the DVR.  Maybe it will pull out of the nose dive and become something epic but I don't think I'll hold my breath while I wait for that to happen.

[Nevermore]

To be in a nose dive it would have had to have already been up at some point.  I think the show is still trying to find a way to take off.  So far it seems like a four-color comic version of season 1 Buffy, for better or worse.  Its biggest problem is the characters themselves are rather bland.  The storylines seem fine and there's an arc developing that looks interesting, but aside from Coulson I really wouldn't care at all if any of the main characters died.  That's a problem, since you want the audience to care about the characters.  Also, the music is still terrible.

On the other hand, Buffy did get better so there's still a chance for this to get better, too.  I wouldn't expect it to happen overnight, though.

[Velorath]

I don't know if the dialogue is just bad Joss, or someone doing a bad Joss imitation, or what.

Of the episodes that have aired so far, only the first one was co-written by Joss. The writing could be a case of them just not wanting the dialogue to sound like Whedon dialogue, or it could just be that writing teams from Buffy and Firefly in particular were just better at writing in a similar style to Whedon.

[Evildrider]

[Ghambit]

LOL, I was JUST about to post this same .gif
To that end, here's more Chloe Wang (err, Bennet) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA0SufXtJNE

p.s.
It'd be wise to let this woman speak at least some Mandarin at some point (ala Firefly)

[jgsugden]

...Of the episodes that have aired so far, only the first one was co-written by Joss. The writing could be a case of them just not wanting the dialogue to sound like Whedon dialogue, or it could just be that writing teams from Buffy and Firefly in particular were just better at writing in a similar style to Whedon.

I was under the impression that he did script work on all episodes so far. 

I think the show has a lot of promise and just needs time to work out the kinks.  It is clearly going to get at least a full season.  Given their plans for other shows, I would be surprised if, even if the numbers drop down to CW levels, the show doesn't get a Season 2. 

[Raguel]

LOL, I was JUST about to post this same .gif
To that end, here's more Chloe Wang (err, Bennet) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA0SufXtJNE

p.s.
It'd be wise to let this woman speak at least some Mandarin at some point (ala Firefly)

And here I was thinking that once again the show had too much Skye 

Seriously I can't stand the character. I'm sure Chloe is a nice gal irl but I hope Skye diavs like yesterday.

[Reg]

The wild swings between joy and optimism after a good episode and utter black despair after a bad one are pretty funny stuff. Don't ever change F13! 

[Velorath]

...Of the episodes that have aired so far, only the first one was co-written by Joss. The writing could be a case of them just not wanting the dialogue to sound like Whedon dialogue, or it could just be that writing teams from Buffy and Firefly in particular were just better at writing in a similar style to Whedon.

I was under the impression that he did script work on all episodes so far. 

The only episode he has a writing credit on so far is the first one. I'm sure he was involved in plotting the season and probably helps approves the scripts. I suppose it's possible he throws some dialogue in here and there or maybe reworks a scene or something, but showrunners don't generally write and direct every episode of their show, and especially not when they also have to write a script to follow up one of the top grossing movies of all-time. Whedon has never been very good at dividing his attention between projects either.

In the past he's been able to surround himself with writers who can kinda match his style (Espenson, Greenberg, Minear, Noxon, DeKnight, etc...). It's also worth noting that he got Tick creator Ben Edlund on to write two of the best episodes of Firefly, and some good episodes in Angel's final season (more or less the only season really worth watching). Most of his former collaborators have moved on to their own things. Hell, DeKnight went on to create Spartacus.

[UnSub]

AoS has already been given the greenlight for the second season, I believe.

It's a weak show that sometimes strays into so-bad-it's-funny territory. Like SHIELD being this covert organisation who put their logos on the side of cars that are then used to chase suspects through crowded traffic.

One thing this show could be tapping into is the fact that it is a complete flip on the usual government organisation chases people with powers - that should make them the bad guys. Instead they are meant to be the good guys and anyone who gets superpowers turns evil instead (or is manipulated to do evil). I really can't get behind the idea of barracking for the men in black.

[jgsugden]

The show was picked up for 1 season only, so far, but Disney wants it to run long.

There are a lot of people writing for shows that do not get the 'written by' credit.  According to multiple articles, he has been doctoring every script produced to date. As some of them are primarily written by his family, I imagine he is more heavily involved in those scripts.

There are issues to address, but I think it might be wise to look back at Dollhouse and remember that the show didn't really get going until halfway through the first season.  It took them a while to find a voice that the studio and the creative team both agreed upon.

[Nevermore]

In my opinion, Dollhouse never really got going until later in the second season, when it was announced it would be cancelled.  It meant the writers were finally able to make they show they wanted to make originally, before the network executives started meddling.

[MediumHigh]

Or the show sucked to begin with and it's only had one final chance to gasp for air. I always had the impression that dollhouse wanted to say something "important"  and that got in the way of the scifi elements that made the show worth watching in the first place. Something on the lines of "human trafficking is wrong and evil corporations are soulless monsters out to turn us all into mindless slaves and look how relevant we are!"...or something. Snore. It would have done better dropping the scifi elements from the premise so the hipsters who enjoy that crap can faun over how real the show is.

[Sky]

I don't wade into these crazy TV threads much, you folks are crazy.  

I'm kind of bummed this show isn't doing more with what it has. Casting isn't horrible, though the agenty guy is a bit generic and the hacker chick is a bit too Mary Sue for the target audience (imo). Coulson and hong-kong fooey chick are of course awesome, and I like Fitz and Simmons, they give it just the right amount of awkward.

I think the biggest waste is how they don't cash in on the Marvel license. Yes, it's not about the heroes, and that's fine. But it feels completely outside the Marvel Universe. Why isn't the organization developing the centipede tech called AIM (tenuous hope for that still). Why did they squander a chance to intro B and C list heroes that could cameo or even develop on the big screen? I thought the first centipede experiment was going to be Luke Cage, but no. Random dude and he dies. Then the second experiment, holy crap it's Sunspot! No, random dude and he dies.

And the dialog needs a lot more Whedon snap. More Whedon, more Stan Lee. Less ABC or CBS or whatever clueless network is carrying this show.

[MediumHigh]

The problem is that this show isn't about Shield. It's more in line with Torchwood/Dr. Who-light. Where it's more government agency defeats the many evils and wrongs of the world by preaching the true gospel of democracy, humanism, and generally not being a douche cause that shits bad ok. Where it should be shadow government agency that doesn't give a fuck about saving the world or being the good guys, they just don't want those motherfuckers in charge, i.e Hydra, Aim, etc, etc. Hell the biggest misstep of the Marvel Movie Universe is making Shield the organization that gathers the Avengers. It was a lame plot point in the Ultimate's Universe, it's a lame one now. Shield HATES the Avengers. The Avengers have the power, resources, and influence to be the same type of douche bags they shoot on principle on a regular basis. The only reason Shield doesn't take down the Avengers is because the Avenger's are A. Prone to break up, B. stupid enough to commit all their energies toward saving the world and not changing it, and C. they get in the way of the bigger plans of Hydra and Aim with regularity, so even if Shield fucks up, and they do often, the Avengers clean up their messes without even being asked. All in all a decent relationship but a relatively tense one.

[jgsugden]

RE: Dollhouse - Whedon pitched a show to Fox that was quite different than what made it to screen.  They were deep into it when someone high up uttered the word 'prostitution' and suddenly there were heavy changes required.  By the time the pilot  

For MAoS and the Marvel license:  We're 5 shows in and have seen 5+ pieces of Marvel comic tech (up to 20 if you count S.H.I.E.L.D. tech in the show previously seen in comics) and 2 Super Villains - in a world where the existence of heroes (outside Iron Man) were essentially unknown prior to the NY tragedy.  If they had run into Moon Knight, Daredevil, the Beyonder, Squirrel Girl and the Armadillo in the first 5 episodes, people would be criticizing them for trying too hard, for putting too many crazy things in, or for something else.

The show is what it is - and I'm still enjoying it.

[HaemishM]

I think the biggest waste is how they don't cash in on the Marvel license.

This. I like the show, but it has squandered major opportunities to get the diehard fanbois on board in favor of... I'm not really sure where it's going honestly. I still enjoy it, and nothing has been as bad as that 2nd episode. I just feel the show could be doing so much more with so many decent B list characters and organizations.

[Sky]

For MAoS and the Marvel license:  We're 5 shows in and have seen 5+ pieces of Marvel comic tech (up to 20 if you count S.H.I.E.L.D. tech in the show previously seen in comics) and 2 Super Villains - in a world where the existence of heroes (outside Iron Man) were essentially unknown prior to the NY tragedy.  If they had run into Moon Knight, Daredevil, the Beyonder, Squirrel Girl and the Armadillo in the first 5 episodes, people would be criticizing them for trying too hard, for putting too many crazy things in, or for something else.

While a Matt Murdock attorney at law cameo is EXACTLY the kind of stuff they need to be cashing in on, I'm not saying toss in random heroes (villains).

I'm saying twice in 5 episodes (that's 40% for the punters) I've been excited for a 'movie marvel' hero origin (luke cage and sunspot). Both those eps seemed so much like they were written to feature those heroes and then watered down to include generic hero who dies at the end of the episode, throwing away anything interesting about them. Scorch? Give me a break, wasted opportunity. Why not make him Sunfire and at the end he bursts out of the building and flies off into the moonset? Bam, now you have a vehicle to ease in characters to the movie franchises AND please the comic fans (note I'm ok with them creating new fiction for existing characters, as Marvel has been doing it for decades).

And if this centipede organization thing isn't AIM or HYDRA (HAIL HYDRA), the show is basically a crap x-files knock-off and needs to go away.

Now I'm starting to sound like the crazy people in tv and movie threads, I hope you're happy.

[Nevermore]

You won't ever see Sunspot or Sunfire because they're mutants, and Sony owns the rights to the mutant characters.  I admit, I was also expecting Luke Cage in that first episode when I saw the preview for it.  Only reason I can think of as to why they didn't use him was that they only wanted a throw-away character for that episode and Cage is far from just some throw-away character.

We did see an established Marvel character in Graviton though, even if it was just his origin story.

Edit: Regarding Luke Cage, looking at his wiki entry it seems that Columbia Pictures owns the movie rights to his character and there's been on-again off-again development going on for a number of years now.  That kind of thing is probably going to be a problem with a lot of characters.

[Evildrider]

I believe that may be out of date, cuz there were rumblings about Marvel doing a Luke Cage/Heroes for Hire movie around the time Iron Man came out.  Who owns what when it comes to Marvel properties is pretty messed up overall hehe.

[Velorath]

I assume any character that's even remotely being considered for their own movie or TV show is immediately out of bounds. That means if they've got somebody somewhere working on ideas for a Heroes for Hire movie, Luke Cage is not going to show up in AoS. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point way off in the future some writer or director complains that they had a great idea for a story with Graviton as the villain but it wouldn't have fit with what was established on the show. In the minds of the people at Marvel and Disney, their characters are all potential billion dollar grossing movie franchises and they're going to be reluctant to put the TV show in a position where it might dictate how these characters appear in the Marvel Movie Universe.

[Evildrider]

If we see anything in AoS it's gonna be the more obscure heroes/villains like Graviton.  Which is fine with me, Marvel has more than enough people to use on the show.  Any new characters they build seem to be one shots so far.  Michael Peterson was cured in the first episode, so I doubt he's gonna show again, and Scorch was taken out.

[Raguel]

I'm not really all that interested in seeing established Marvel characters, but I wouldn't be mad if they did. I just want this to be crazy ass Steranko or Warren Ellis and it's more SHIELD 90210. 

In hindsight the good parts of the 4th episode was a lot like the John Stone bits in Planetary (with the black female agent a mix between Bride and John Stone).

[Velorath]

If we see anything in AoS it's gonna be the more obscure heroes/villains like Graviton.  Which is fine with me, Marvel has more than enough people to use on the show.

Problem there is, what does Marvel really consider obscure enough that it won't potentially step on the toes of any of their future projects? The Guardians of the Galaxy are pretty obscure for most people but they're being positioned as Marvel's big summer movie next year. If you figure that characters who show up on AoS have to be more obscure than Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot, then you're pretty much reduced to mostly using villains who've been killed by Scourge.

[Evildrider]

Considering there are thousands of characters in the Marvel Universe it shouldn't be too hard.  Even taking out all the X-Men, Spiderman, and Fantastic Four characters that are locked up.  I mean they are using Batroc the Leaper in Cap 2 for crying out loud.

[Velorath]

That's my point though. If Batroc is considered a viable character to put in the movies then that would have made him off-limits to introduce in the TV show because they aren't going to want the show to dictate the origin, powers, and casting of any character they might want to use in a movie.  If you've got to go more obscure than that, you're getting to the point where you might be better off making new characters rather than using Commander Kraken, Blue Streak, Slyde, or the Desert Dwellers.

[eldaec]

You're all overthinking this.

If a Marvel writer wants to use scorch in a future film, they'll just do it. If they acknowledge Agents at all it will be one line to say 'this is another Scorch' or 'he got better'.

[Tannhauser]

I re-watched the pilot again this morning.  It's the actors.  The young attractives are not good in their roles yet.  Now the second episode was a crap fest for sure but Gravitron was great and Scorch was fine (again, actor kinda sucked for me).  It's a new show, everyone's getting dialed in.  I'm not giving up after five episodes.  I didn't give up on Defiance and I was glad I did.

It's an uneven show so I understand some folks bailing.  But I'm in for the long haul. 

[HaemishM]

That's my point though. If Batroc is considered a viable character to put in the movies then that would have made him off-limits to introduce in the TV show because they aren't going to want the show to dictate the origin, powers, and casting of any character they might want to use in a movie.

I'm going to agree with the overthinking this bit. There's nothing that says Marvel/Disney can't take a character from the TV show and change him for a movie, or that they can't use the TV show to establish a character for a movie - especially if you are talking about bit characters/villains. The lines between movie/TV are and should be getting blurred. The first X-Files movie had bit characters from the TV show and had characters that had never and did never appear in the show. I mean Coulsen has appeared in every Marvel movie since Iron Man and now he's a regular on the TV show. Why couldn't a character move back and forth in a shared universe? That's the whole advantage to having a shared universe in the first place.

[Velorath]

That's my point though. If Batroc is considered a viable character to put in the movies then that would have made him off-limits to introduce in the TV show because they aren't going to want the show to dictate the origin, powers, and casting of any character they might want to use in a movie.

I'm going to agree with the overthinking this bit. There's nothing that says Marvel/Disney can't take a character from the TV show and change him for a movie, or that they can't use the TV show to establish a character for a movie - especially if you are talking about bit characters/villains. The lines between movie/TV are and should be getting blurred. The first X-Files movie had bit characters from the TV show and had characters that had never and did never appear in the show. I mean Coulsen has appeared in every Marvel movie since Iron Man and now he's a regular on the TV show. Why couldn't a character move back and forth in a shared universe? That's the whole advantage to having a shared universe in the first place.

They can move back and forth, but given that the movies are the big money makers (and to a lesser extent in the shows they're rumored to be working on for the purposes of shopping around), the execs in charge of such things are more than likely going to want most characters to originate in the movies. To go the other direction and have characters appear in the TV show first in my opinion would likely be viewed by the execs as the tail wagging the dog.

And the X-Files movie didn't make $1.5 billion worldwide. If you think numbers like that don't make Disney consider really fucking hard what they do with every character in Marvel's stable no matter how minor, I think you're underthinking things. That kind of money tends to make people more risk adverse not less. It doesn't matter that a movie about the Shroud would have no chance of hitting those numbers, anytime the writing team on AoS comes to them and says "hey we want to introduce this character on the show", you can bet there's going to be a long discussion on whether or not the character is worth more money being used elsewhere.

And yeah, there's nothing to say that if someone writing a movie doesn't like the way a character was depicted in the TV show that they can't change the character, but if they can start handwaving away anything that's done in the show then why even bother with the show at that point anyway? Is it really all that interesting that they introduced Graviton on the show if he shows up in a movie later with as a completely different character? Using characters from the Marvel Universe doesn't inherently make the writing on the show any better. The only real selling point is the novelty factor of "look, they're using Stilt Man". That in and of itself isn't particularly exciting, and becomes even less so when it just ends up being the TV version of Stilt Man who gets retconned by the movie version of Stilt Man later on.

[MediumHigh]

It's cute how we still think TV adaptations will have any bearings on the movie universe.

[jgsugden]

A few things:

They established that the movies and TV shows are in the same continuity.  For all purposes.

Also, mutants are not necessarily off limits.  Some mutant characters have shared rights, and it is possible there are some mutants out there that would be outside the licenses in existence.  If they have the rights to the mutant in the MCU, it will just have an alternate (or unexplained) origin - Like Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch will.

On another note, they've already said these roles are not tied to an actor.  When RDJ stops being Iron Man, they'll Bond on to the next Iron Man. 

RE: Luke Cage rights: They reverted to Marvel.  You're likely to see Cage in a Heroes for Hire or Ms. Marvel movie/series/mini-series, perhaps part of that combo package of 5 properties Marvel is reportedly shopping.  They might introduce a lot of characters on MAoS before they get their own treatment.

I'm getting a laugh out of the people that hate this show and keep watching it...

[Lakov_Sanite]

Shield is a wholly owned property, it is part of movie continuity, if you think either movie or show will contradict each other you are crazy.  Now whether the movies have more pull or the show or even a "first come first served" basis on character rights is anybodies guess.  Whatever their arrangement is, you can be certain one was made and there will be zero stepping on toes between the properties.

[MediumHigh]

It's like you guys never heard of "differences in budget" or "special affects" or "the fact that they rebooted the hulk 3 times, managed to do nothing with war machine (despite going through the trouble of changing his actor twice), and made the cosmic cube asguardian tech/ww2 nazi technology at the same time".

[Margalis]

Remember when Velorath said that getting Thor onto the Avengers team for the movie would be really hard and require a lot of setup due to the way Thor ended, and I said he would just be on the team and there would maybe be one line of throw-away dialog like "lol we built a new space bridge" to explain it?*

I do.  

For fuck's sake. If a guy appears on the TV show and they want to use him in a movie in a different way they'll just change him in the movie. "Oh, we already met a guy named Scorch? Well, this is a different Scorch. Only so many wacky villain names to go around I guess!" Bam, done.

* Thread in question, oh, the actual point of contention I argued was with Iron Man being an active member, but the Thor stuff was also in there.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19590.70

Not to pick on you Velorath, but you were hilariously off target there, because you weren't thinking like a movie executive. Which is usually a good thing. They set up a bunch of stuff then ditched it because money. The Avengers did pre-vis on the major set pieces before they even had a script! We're not talking about people who are super concerned about continuity details or everything making logical sense.

Thor was stuck in Asgard at the end of Thor because it made for a good movie, he was back on Earth for Avengers because that made for a good movie. Maybe that sort of weak planning will bite them in the ass eventually - people are already starting to ask questions like "where were the Avengers during Iron Man 3?" But at this point I think it's safe to assume that if including a dude in the TV show will make money they'll do it, then if re-introducing him in a movie will make money they'll do that.

Don't underestimate what you can gloss over with a line of dialogue, especially in super hero comics. Oh, a Graviton that looks different? Well this is actually the brother of the original guy, who took up his name after he died offscreen. That sort of thing.

They aren't going to kill off Iron Man on the TV show, no, but I find it hard to believe that anyone at Marvel is super concerned about whether or not they can use Stilt-Man in the show because maybe in 5 years a movie will hinge on Stilt-Man.

Now whether the movies have more pull or the show or even a "first come first served" basis on character rights is anybodies guess.

Any sane person can correctly guess which has more pull. The Marvel movies are pulling in like two billion a year in world-wide box office alone. The TV show is essentially just another form of movie merchandising.