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

[Flightpath07]

So. Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the tv series; who has seen the first episode, and what did you think?

My (mainly) SPOILER-FREE thoughts;

- it was interesting. Good, but not great.
- characters seemed fairly vanilla. Agent Coulson was the only character, so far, who sparked any interest in me. Marvel will have to do better, if they want to keep this going long-term.
- no big-name heroes appeared, as I suspected. It's a TV budget, after all. A few were mentioned, though.
- my only "chills" moment was something Maria Hill said about Coulson; it made a lot of sense, seeing as what happened to him on the big-screen. As a longtime comics fan, it wasn't hard to read between the lines and figure it out.
- so far, this series seems like a made-for-tv cross between Men In Black and Heroes.

I'll watch more, but I feel a little underwhelmed at the moment.

[Sypes]

Fully agree with you Flightpath7. I wish TV shows in general would take more time to deal into the character rather than the story/plot. I really don't feel any sympathy for the characters now except Coulson and Hill. I hope they get their sh*t together before the fourth episode as this is always my breaking point.

[Legerd]

Completely agree with the "vanilla" feeling regarding the characters. Not sure if it was the acting or the writing (probably both), but I found them to be weak and their interactions immature for the most part. I guess I was expecting more "CSI" style acting, and less "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer".

I mentioned this on CBR, and wondered what you guys thought: being that they probably aren't going to use any known characters in the series, do you think they'll compensate by using known agencies from other countries? Is it possible agents from Department H, or Weapon X may show up?

[Jason Eberly]

I don't know about Dept. H, but the third episode will feature a known character, or at least a character named after a known character's public identity: Frank Hall, otherwise known as Graviton. It's not known yet whether Hall will become Graviton in the series.

Oh, and I missed the show itself last night, but I'm sure I'll be able to watch it online sometime this week.

[Flightpath07]

Hey, isn't Graviton Canadian?

Oh, one other thing i forgot to mention in my above post: This series definitely seems to be in line with the movies and not so much the comics. Again, not that surprising. I think this is just Marvel's way of making sure the movies are on everybody's minds, even when they currently aren't on the big screen. Not saying this is either right or wrong, but as long as they stick close to the movie storylines then any chance of varying off and featuring other Marvel characters (ie Alpha Flight) are slim to none.

Oh, and i am glad that others found the characters bland as well. I was worried it was my current anti-Marvel bias clouding my vision. (No, wait...that was just the use of dark colours. Why aren't there any bright colours anymore?)

[Garry/Al-Fan]

I thought it was good, and Coulson, Skye (hope I got the spelling right), and Melinda are the most interesting to me, but the dynamic of all the agents [and 'Centipede' and the flying car] will keep me watching for a while. The 'Hooded Hero' got the ball rolling, and that's about all I'll say about that.

[Jason Eberly]

Hey, isn't Graviton Canadian?
Oh, and i am glad that others found the characters bland as well. I was worried it was my current anti-Marvel bias clouding my vision. (No, wait...that was just the use of dark colours. Why aren't there any bright colours anymore?)

The new Crayola crayon box: 64 shades of grey.

[Le Messor]

as long as they stick close to the movie storylines then any chance of varying off and featuring other Marvel characters (ie Alpha Flight) are slim to none.

Au contraire, I'd think they'd use it as a chance to bring in other heroes that probably won't be in movies.

Oh, and i am glad that others found the characters bland as well. I was worried it was my current anti-Marvel bias clouding my vision. (No, wait...that was just the use of dark colours. Why aren't there any bright colours anymore?)

The new Crayola crayon box: 64 shades of grey.

Lol!
Bright colours are unrealistic. They don't exist in real life. Didn't you guys know that?

~ Le Messor
"Life's a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth

[Le Messor]

Just watched it. I enjoyed it, but I agreed with FP's original post pretty much all the way.
I didn't find the characters toooo vanilla... assuming we get to know them more as time goes on. The hard killer guy was a bit of an informed attributes guy, though.

I hope they start to mix it up. I hope this isn't spoilery, but if it is, you've been warned:
The Marvel Universe is broad and rich, and full of all kinds of weirdnesses and all suchlike. It has magic, and battlesuits, and mutants, and aliens, and gamma radiation tied to magic beasts... and then there's Alpha Flight issue 2...
In the first two episodes, we've had the agents deal with two macguffins, and both were tesseract-powered gamma radiation things with alien metal. I mean, kudos for mixing all the movie Avengers together, but if that's all we get over and over, it'll get real old real fast.

They did reference Project: Pegasus, though. Good on 'em for that.

~ Le Messor
"Live long and prosper."

[Phil]

Yeah, my feelings are pretty much the same as everyone else's, though to be fair I've never enjoyed a Whedon series from the start.

[Flightpath07]

Episode two; I found it only marginally better than episode one.

I am almost ready to file this one under "never should have been tried, what were they thinking".

I wonder how many non-comic or non-Marvel people enjoy this tv series? I talked to a few people at my work who have seen this, and they all hate it and have already stopped watching it. As well as the complaints already raised here, i also heard "the cgi is embarassingly bad". People also seemed to hate the flying car, for whatever reason.

[swh_comicguy]

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S


Graviton: http://marvel.com/universe/Graviton

[Alphan East]

I may be in the minority with this... but I actually like the show.
While I was secretly hoping for a few of the Marvel Universe "B-list" characters to pop up (Cloak & Dagger would be fun... just saying), I'm enjoying the characters that they have introduced. I believe Ming-Na Wen will turn out to be the breakthrough character... she has real presence in this series. Also, the two techies, Fitz & Simmons, are just fun to watch. And the dialogue is very entertaining, start to finish.
Agent Coulson has been transformed from a supporting role in the movies to the lead dog... and whether its the scripting or the acting (or both), he is pulling it off.
I'm trying not to expect much as far as visual effects and CGI go. I think we've been spoiled a bit by the movies, which have $200 million plus budgets... a TV series just can't match that.
My son and I have already made watching it a weekly thing... and something to look forward to.

[Le Messor]

I may be in the minority with this... but I actually like the show.

I did too... sorry if I gave you the wrong impression there.
I found it open and fun. Definitely one of the better offerings out there.

I just see some room for improvement, as well.

~ Le Messor
"Live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so."

[Phil]

I didn't dislike the first ep, just found it a bit bland and generic.
The 2nd ep I actually disliked though.