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

[jgsugden]

...I don't care if it's written by Whedon's brother, it's not a Whedon show. It just isn't. He does not have enough input into the show which is I think one reason it's not as good as it could be.

GO back and review some of the Whedon interviews where he describes his role with the show.  He characterizes it as greater than you do.

[MediumHigh]

It reminds me enough of dollhouse wheadon that I'm convinced its his show. If it isn't his show he has enough of an ego to bitch about that to the fans...which we know he usually does anyway. So its wheadons show or wheadon doesn't care.  

As far as Arrow vs Agent of Shield...man what drew me into how ridiculously corny Arrow was the assembled cast playing against each other. The family drama built the show, which is funny considering the show suppose to draw you in with the bow and arrow revenge shit. I gave two shits about his crusade, his mission, or his ability to achieve any of the above. Instead you get relationships with real consequences and motivations. Agent of Shield should be able to play up the relationship angle. I mean you have a team of misfits, I should kinda care how they play off each other. And three episodes in and well it wasn't there. No desire to see any of them in a room together.

[MediumHigh]

Dropping in on this. Looking around. Still not good, but this episode didn't make me want to uninstall google chrome....progress? Ehh... whatever. They trying to add a little scary government agency to shield but they come off unnecessary douches. No reason for any of the "tension" to exist, completely utterly artificial. I mean the mission itself was soo boring the only thing gained was some flat Ward/trying to be tough Fitz interaction. Which I admit..wasn't godawful and kinda carried the episode. If they had treated the mission more seriously, and giving more me Ward/Fitz, I would have actually enjoyed this. 

[satael]

 (all in all the show is "good enough" that I'm still watching it but not so good that the flaws I think there are in the show wouldn't bother me)

edit:added spoiler in case someone hasn't seen the latest episode

[MediumHigh]

 (all in all the show is "good enough" that I'm still watching it but not so good that the flaws I think there are in the show wouldn't bother me)

edit:added spoiler in case someone hasn't seen the latest episode

[Tannhauser]

This is a comic book show.  They had another couple of good character moments but this is a comic book show.  It asks us to not think too hard about some of the shortcut nonsense they use to move the show along.

[MediumHigh]

[Nevermore]

Simmons reminds me of Hermione.

[UnSub]

I find it hard to feel involved with Marvel's version of the NSA crossed with the CIA. It feels weird supporting the men in black.

I did love tonight's lesson of "trust the system, until the system doesn't do what you want, then you can do what you want without consequences".

[Ironwood]

Simmons reminds me of Hermione.

No.  She's clearly trying to be Keira Knightly.  In almost every way.

It's awful.

[HaemishM]

Last night's episode was really forgettable. What's happening with this show is we get a few moments of necessary character development stuffed into a turducken of utterly forgettable and unnecessary plots. It's trying to follow the Burn Notice formula of main story arc being parceled out in little weekly bits during a "crisis/mission of the week" goes on. Only with Burn Notice, the stories were decent and these are... meh at best. At this point, I'm mainly watching for Coulson and the bits and pieces of Marvel that are scattered throughout. Some of the characters are started to get fleshed out - Fitz and Simmons especially. I still find it hard to care about Skye or Ward.

[MediumHigh]

Simmons reminds me of Hermione.

No.  She's clearly trying to be Keira Knightly.  In almost every way.

It's awful.

I also kept thinking discount Hermoine....

[jgsugden]

So far, the best thing about this show is the folks on this forum saying they can't stand watching the show... week after week...  Hilarious.

The preview for next week was disappointing.  When they said they'd deal with the fallout of Thor II, I pictured them dealing with something seen in the movie that was not resolved.  The preview seems a far sight from that picture.

The storytelling follows the Buffy mold more than the Burn Notice mold.  In Burn Notice, you could usually separate out the season long storyline and the episodic storyline from each other almost entirely.  In Buffy and MAoS, they weave the season long storylines into the episodic storyline more.  For example, in Burn Notice, it was usually 'Team A does Season goal, Team B does episode goal'.  In MAoS and Buffy, the entire team is involved in the episodic events and a subsection of them deals with the season long events.

[Threash]

This last episode was hilarious, i have enjoyed all of them though.  You people are really weird.

[MediumHigh]

I only popped back in to see if this is the Thor episode...

[Mrbloodworth]

This last episode was hilarious, i have enjoyed all of them though.  You people are really weird.

[Fordel]

Artificial Tension, that about sums it up.

[Nevermore]

What the show needs is more Alan Tudyk.

[Margalis]

I haven't watched it recently because I DVR Brooklyn 9-9 and Face Off and they both overlap SHIELD. (Can only record two things at once) I might watch the next episode just to see what the tie-in is - I assume it will just be some name dropping or a random prop.

Nailed it. Not that it was hard.

[Tmon]

I haven't watched since the third episode, but I do like to check the thread to see if there's any reason to start again. 

[Ghambit]

I thought this epi. was the best of the bunch honestly (which isnt saying much sadly), simply because of Fitzsimmons.  I'll echo the Ward+Skye weaksauce.  At this point I do believe they're dragging the show down with no possibility of recovery.  I actually took the liberty of doing more research on Chloe Bennett, and really, there's nothing in her persona that'd enable her to be anything different then how she in on this show.  It's not gonna change.  As for Ward?  The issue with him is more a function of how he's written; which is not enough like Hawkeye.  Also, he talks too much.   

[MediumHigh]

That moment when the first 5 minutes of Arrow is doing a better job of being agents of shield than agents of shield. Motherfucking Cadmus. That DC Universe 

[Surlyboi]

Simmons reminds me of Hermione.

No.  She's clearly trying to be Keira Knightly.  In almost every way.

It's awful.

Meh, She's still utterly shagable.

[Raguel]

I hope they wrap up Skye's story really fast because I really don't care. Surprisingly though, only Simmons annoyed me. The opening, Fitz/Ward  and Coulson/May were pretty strong bits I thought, but Skye/Simmons wow just no.

Recognized a name in Jasper Sitwell. I can't believe I missed him in Thor though.

[Velorath]

Recognized a name in Jasper Sitwell. I can't believe I missed him in Thor though.

He's shown up in a couple of the Marvel One-Shots also. The Consultant is mostly a conversation between him and Coulson.


Edit:

It reminds me enough of dollhouse wheadon that I'm convinced its his show.

Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen wrote more episodes of Dollhouse than Joss did. In fact they wrote the finale's for both seasons, and while Joss only wrote the first episode of Season 2, they wrote almost 4 episodes out of 13. The fact that it reminds you of Dollhouse would actually be further reason to suspect that he might have once again delegated a lot of the day to day responsibilities to them. Joss sucks at dividing his attention. The best seasons of Buffy and Angel (Buffy's first three seasons, and Angel's last season which some might say were the only actual good ones) were the ones where he wasn't working on multiple shows at once. When he was focusing on Firefly, Buffy and Angel were debatably at their low points.

My suspicion is that it's a bit of nepotism. The studio gets to say that the show is being run by Joss because they know he has a following and because he did Avengers, and Joss gets to hook his brother and sister-in-law by letting them take care of a lot of aspects of running the show while he's working on the movie stuff.

[Khaldun]

That One-Shot has in a few short minutes just about everything that's missing so far from the series.

[jgsugden]

...My suspicion is that it's a bit of nepotism. The studio gets to say that the show is being run by Joss because they know he has a following and because he did Avengers, and Joss gets to hook his brother and sister-in-law by letting them take care of a lot of aspects of running the show while he's working on the movie stuff.

Accurate, but I'm not sure it reflects the underlying truth.  If you go back and look at some of the interviews from June through September that Joss Whedon did where he characterizes his involvement, he says he is heavily involved at the key steps of each episode.  No, he doesn't write the episodes - but he does review (and often is involved in generating) the outlines of each episode and make adjustments before they're written.  He then reviews the finished scripts and makes tweaks.  He checks in on the post-filming steps and has control over the final cut (although there are hands above his on the chain at Marvel, etc...).  Other hands come in to manipulate the material, but he is guiding it - and the grunt work is in the hands of people that have worked with him for a long time.  He is not rowing the ship, and it is moving through swift waters with a lot of currents, but he is at the wheel.  I have no doubt that his involvement is going to be less at times when he is pulled to Avengers II duty, but he knows this show is tied to his name and he wants to protect that name.

[Raguel]

Agent Hand's smile at the end made me think the reason she chose Ward and Fitz was to test Coulson, but we'll have to see if anything comes of it.

[jgsugden]

Agent Hand's smile at the end made me think the reason she chose Ward and Fitz was to test Coulson, but we'll have to see if anything comes of it.

Given her story in the comics...

[Ghambit]

Nice to see Saffron Burrows on TV - need more of her.  Not sure I agree with her fake American accent though.
Really, I wish we had more of certain people and less of others.  It's almost like they're purposely minimizing the good roles and maximizing the shitty ones.  I mean, why??

Actresses like Burrows, Wen, Varela, etc. should have much more screen time both due to their skills (and hotness) and the coolness of their characters.

Also, I'm starting to think they're riding Coulson a bit too much on this show.  I mean, I get it, he's the leader, but we don't need him in our face every 2 seconds.  

[jgsugden]

...Also, I'm starting to think they're riding Coulson a bit too much on this show.  I mean, I get it, he's the leader, but we don't need him in our face every 2 seconds.  

He is the core of the show.  In a show about being human in a Super world, there is no better central character than the one that isn't really human...

[Raguel]

Agent Hand's smile at the end made me think the reason she chose Ward and Fitz was to test Coulson, but we'll have to see if anything comes of it.

Given her story in the comics...

Well she's new to me. Never heard of her before, but then the last Marvel stuff I bought was Priest's Panther so there you go.  

[eldaec]

The problem isn't riding Coulson, the problem is terrible writers who can't go 5 lines without a reference to him dying or a line about how fucking mysterious and implacable he is.

It's like they are writing a movie cameo in every damn scene.

[Ghambit]

The problem isn't riding Coulson, the problem is terrible writers who can't go 5 lines without a reference to him dying or a line about how fucking mysterious and implacable he is.

It's like they are writing a movie cameo in every damn scene.

It's definitely some of what you speak, but in a show about SHIELD and supers, it doesn't make sense to focus entirely on one guy (who's actually not a super, nor even the leader of Shield nor the most 'gifted').  This isn't MacGuyver.

It's like watching Star Trek and every single episode is a variation on "The Inner Light."  Complete with corny alien flute and mysterious probe.

[Mrbloodworth]

"Its a magical place."