The hell with what they did with Coulson, I want to know what they did with Whedon! This is ...ugh. Two thirds of the cast don't know how to show any emotion. And the writers don't trust them to do so either; they have characters walk up to one another, in fact walk up to anyone who happens to be in the neighbourhood, and tell them how they feel and how they felt in that previous scene and how they expect they'll feel soon. And it's not even as if any of their feelings were at all interesting! And what's with all the location work? This really looked as if someone did a shoot in Scandinavia, at the very least... perhaps they even had to go somewhere that looks like Belarus. And they do nothing with it! Just like with the jungle scenes in episode two, none of the locations matter in any way to the story, the theme or the characters. To say nothing of the fact that apparently everyone in Belarus not only speaks fluent English, but doesn't care that Americans in black suits are walking around asking questions. All in a day's work in Marvelworld, I guess, as long as you don't live in Latveria. If everywhere is going to be exactly like the US, why not place the episode in the US?
That was the first pic of the Stockholme Metro on Google. So yeah, seems they are doing on location shots. Anyone notice that Roxann Dawson directed? 6 degrees of scifi
hard call... the acting is so wooden I don't know what to blame. So far, it's all Clark Gregg being cheeky and the "lower decks" of the Marvel Universe setting that has me interested. Directing action figures seems almost irrelevant.
Now that things have played out a little more, they might be a little clearer. Or not. Skye joined the Rising Tide because she got involved with a hacker who gave her propaganda about how information should be free AND because she was hoping to seek out information about her birth parents. She wanted to get involved with SHIELD originally because the one clue she has to her birth parents' identity and her own background is a document SHIELD heavily redacted. I'm not sure what the third group you're talking about her being with. Ward seemingly just is a true believer in SHIELD's mission. May got frustrated by her inability to do anything but watch during the third mission. So she got over whatever her issue is with being involved in combat. I think the third episode does a pretty good job of showing at least some of the greyness of SHIELD. Everything Quinn said about SHIELD -- that they are squashing innovation by private parties, that they recruit people and play on their emotions and try to make them feel like they belong -- is seemingly true. So is what Hall said about how Quinn and SHIELD are equally bad in terms of experimenting without thought of consequences, and how SHIELD's last effort brought on an alien invasion. Moreover, Coulson's basically causing Hall's apparent death with no remorse and with threats to the person he tells to help cover up what happened is an example of not so shiny good guys. I took it to be in line with Coulson's version -- he believes he stopped breathing for 8 seconds before being revived. So technically, momentarily dead, as opposed to full on death/resurrection.
Uhm, pretty sure that Hall isn't dead, not by a long shot...Picture a version of Magneto on a gamma-irradiated cocktail of Venom, Erskine's Super-Soldier serum. Basically we've seen the conception, if not yet the birth of one of the most powerful big bads this side of Galactus.
Since I see less than a 0.000001 % chance that he'll be showing up in full on big bad form on SHIELD, and since I didn't actually drop the supervillian psudonym, I didn't really spoil anything. And in all likelyhood, neither did they.
I should have been clearer. Anyone who watched the episode to the end, or who is intimately familiar with Marvel Comics, either knows that Franklin Hall is canonically , or generally knows the origins of a comic book-style villain or saw that hand moving. So the vast majority of viewers knows Hall is not dead. What I meant was that as far as Coulson knew, he was causing Hall to die by shooting the window and causing Hall to be the catalyst. And as far as Coulson knows at the end of the episode, Hall is in fact dead and there's just a big mess of gravitonium that swallowed him up. My point was that shooting the window to cause an apparent death is not an action that a traditional comic-book good guy would have taken. It's a morally gray action.
Is anyone still watching this? It's literally painful now -- I feel myself clenching up when half of the cast speaks, and then again when I consider what the other half had to say. I wish someone would just tell me how the main story arc plot points are resolved so I can stop watching this thoroughly awful show.
I fell asleep on it three weeks ago, and found I didn't feel bad at all, and haven't gone back to it since. I guess this is going to be Marvel's "Birds Of Prey". A shame.
Geez, I'm still digging it. I like the interactions between Coulson and his team. This week's ep was a little much, tho. Shooting a fellow agent, even with a tranquilizer gun, should be enough to get you kicked out of the service.
I'm watching on the thesis that if it gets realy good, I'll want to have some idea of what's going on. I'm underwhelmed, but not bitterly disappointed.I might drift away eventually, but shows like this have a really long leash with me.
Coulson is literally the onlyl member of the "team" I like. The science geeks could be OK if they toned down their cartoony antics. I think it will get better once we start getting new episodes written and filmed after the series started. I don't think they will allow anything associated with Marvel and The Avengers fail.
One thing they desperately need to do is define a Big Bad. This "Centipede" thing is not it. With all of Marvel Comics to draw from, the evil technocratic organization should be AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics).
So let's see. Science Geek chick has tried to commit suicide and shot a superior. Hacker chick has been busted for being a double agent and then broke into SHIELDs computers to compromise a mission. They're still on "the bus"... which apparently now has VTOL capability. Think I'll start watching Murdoch Mysteries in that timeslot instead.
I would have expected the bus to have VTOL. What pisses me off are the retarded cliches. They bring in the rebel who is shown to be a spy. She then questions her superiors all the time. Then she "corrupts"s a good agent into breaking the rules for her. Then they use the lame ass excuse of "the rule breaking rebel was right". Its the same old trope of showing you can't be successful if you follow the rules, it's not exactly a new idea on TV. Just once I want to see the "loveable rebel" get killed in a horrible fashion because they think they know better. I admit I do fantasize about Skye... ...getting sucked into an engine on the bus.
Well, they killed the kid from Iron Eagle 1 right at the beginning of Iron Eagle 2 if that makes you happy.
It's still enjoyable, but hardly Must See TV - next ep follows up from The Dark World, so we shall see. For me it's core problems is that there have been too many similar shows of late (Fringe, Torchwood, Warehouse 13) and it's characterisations are so off kilter. They've taken the core of Buffy and added lots and lots of water - homeopathy characterisations... Coulson is effectively Giles, Fitz/Simmons Xander and Willow and Ward as a rather boring Buffy. Problem being this Scooby Gang are missing an awful lot of heart (no staff-inflicted pun intended.) They also need to come clean about Coulson's team, given the amount of latitude they've got they're obviously one of Fury's Special Projects, but this isn't going to be obvious to the casual viewer. They wasted Samuel L Jackson on a moderately humorous scene, he'd have been better used telling Coulson his team are a fail-safe after his superiors almost nuked New York to stop Loki. Hand's expectations they'd go and make their own extraction team further adds credence to that. I hope they turn this around, but right now I can't see it. It'll tick over, but it's going to end up as one bit wasted opportunity that may tie into something else. Given the fact Marvel have been taking risks with the Avengersverse, I'm somewhat surprised they tried to play this so safe.
I like the little Dollhouse reference at the end last night. It was either a colossal clue, or a colossal red herring.
I thought the revelation of the Asgardian who'd been living on Earth for a thousand-plus years was a good touch. Also intrigued by the interaction between Ward and Ming at the end. Not to mention there was no magic that put the two of them back to status quo after they'd been affected by the staff. But the show needs an overarching storyline. The one-and-done episodes are not doing it.
Yeah, I agree. But some shows lend themselves to the "arc" format and I think AoS would benefit from it.
You can work a hybrid between the arc-type shows (nuBSG) and anthology shows (ST:TOS). That lack of any sort coherence takes me out of TOS a lot. For instance, in Who Mourns for Adonais?, Scotty is willing to risk death to defend a woman's honor, but just a few episodes later, he's called upon to be a woman hater in Wolf in the Fold. Why? The plot called for it, obviously. But, bending your characters to make the plot work rather than using your characters to move the plot is a common failing in all of those old shows you like, Forbin. You can give me consistency and character development with out a months long arc. Just avoid the reset button.
I think there are a lot of shows now days who do that well. for instance, Castle has an overarching story in the background about who killed Beckett's mom and why, and another shorter ark about a seriel killer (NXK, i think they called him) but they are not the main arc of the show, they are just running through the background. Same with NCIS and the whole "Port-to-port" killer thing. A show can have an arc without being an arc based show.
