Friday, March 28, 2014

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

Despite being comic related, I really don’t enjoy the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show. The pilot was all right, but it quickly devolved into a boring semi-spy mish-mash with no point or direction. It might help if someone told the producers it takes place in the Marvel Universe, which for years was a magical place with all sorts of creativity. I stopped watching some time ago, but friends I trust tell me it has gotten better. That’s hard to believe, with photos like the one below coming from the show’s publicity department:

TV Deathlok
Comic Book Deathlok

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Original Deathlok Luther Manning? Cool. His replacement Michael Collins? Cool. A guy in jeans and a sweatshirt with a xylophone strapped to his chest? Not cool. I think I’ll continue to stay away from the smell of this show.

4 comments:

  1. How can you have access to a library of intellectual properties, a backlog of classic story lines AND a track record like Marvel Films and then allow this to hit the "airwaves"? Sadly, I've come to firmly believe that Joss Whedon's success with the Buffy TV series and the Avengers film are mere flukes when you look at his other work.

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  2. Mark, I hate to say it, but I'm really starting to agree with you. Avengers was great, but Dollhouse and this show are awful. I used to think Whedon could do no wrong, but now I just take each of his projects as they come, knowing some may be terrible.

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  3. Allow me to add a tangential thought - TV is not Film. Film has budget and time. TV of this kind, for the most part, has neither. Why are there so many scenes on the airplane? Because the plane set is paid for, or at least on a payment schedule, and so that is were they're going to shoot some footage.

    What I don't understand is why the scripts are building these characters. Where are their interesting characteristics? Where are the funny asides that teammates toss at each other? Writing is cheap - trust me. The Scoobies were characters and they were interesting to watch. Frankly, Firefly had less interesting characters.

    Coulson (sp?) is a good example of a fine actor not given enough to work with. This guy can act. And his character died and came back. Give the man some storylines to work with.

    So there.

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  4. Great points. For the record, I don't expect movie budgets or SFX in television. But Marvel definitely has the money to hire the best and make it look great. Instead we get square jaw guy, jeans/xylophone guy and the most dull storylines imaginable (at least when I was watching). When do they admit they made a mistake and move on?

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