Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- Marvel meets Joss Whedon meets...TV!

http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/abc-greenlights-s-h-i-e-l-d-marvel-pilot-joss-whedon-to-co-write-possibly-direct/

To quote friend Abby on Twitter:

BOOM! Joss, Jed, and Maurissa to write S.H.I.E.L.D TV pilot for ABC. COUNTDOWN TO THE MUSICAL EPISODE.

That alternate opening to "The Avengers" making the rounds is like a bad parody of the opening of "Big Trouble in Little China."

http://www.deadline.com/2012/10/clark-gregg-returns-as-agent-coulson-for-marvels-shield-pilot-for-abc/

The most expensive television pilot ever at $14M. They're so concerned with privacy on this that the production company is sending people over to try to sneak onto the lot and get on the set, to test the studio's security.

So what happened after they caught you and tarred and feathered you?

It's being put in the perpetual spanking machine where they scrape at your dignity.

Bumping this for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PerIAuv27SQ

Whoever said it looked BBC is right on...surely John Barrowman is available?

The 'Barrowman for MODOK' campaign starts here.

It does look a bit like Torchwood, doesn't it?

it looks like an awful lot of this series takes place in hangars and garages

that's where most spy work is done

^^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro4nYzpyxvc

So this thing is on or something.

is this thing on?

Unfortunately. This is pretty dreadful.

Yep.

Really? I have it taped but haven't watched yet

i felt uncertain about dollhouse for most of its initial run but when i went back to watch it all at once it seemed quite a bit more solid, confirmed my confidence in the whedon machine

so as long as there aren't too many countervailing factors i would suppose they can get anything to work given some time to settle in

The script for this felt like it must have taken at least an hour or two of nonstop writing, counting going back and putting in the jokey stuff.

I saw a trailer for the UK showing saying that the US hadn't seen it before us. So surprised to hear they have. UK showing doesn't start until next Friday night, 2 days from now.

Maybe I should be more surprised that they'd bother to make that out in a trailer if it isn't true and if people have it taped already it must be a bit out of sync

Oh right, if it only started last night over there then that trailer was right at the time it was broadcast and its just a question of scheduling. Just watched teh trailer above.

If you're going to commission someone to review it, might as well go big:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/agents-shield-comic-creator-jim-636457

Lol awesome

Agree with the comments about the super-of-the-week guy being black not being even worth mentioning. Wtf, Steranko!

But yeah this show is obvious as hell and boring

"Oh I'm sorry, Mr Peterson, I'm afraid this bus transfer has expired."
"You're right. It was so obvious. Everything's become clear to me now. I'm not a bus passenger any more. I'm... very strong"

repeat x200

didn't know loeb was involved w/ this, put me right off

i know cobie smulders jumped around a lot and shot at stuff and all that in the movie, but i've been re-watching himym lately so it seems pretty weird that robin scherbatsky is hanging out with all these government dudes

I was trying to take all the talk itt with a grain of salt but then I watched it last night and holy
zzzzzz batman that shit was DULL

guh. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, since there's way too many characters to get to know right away and lots of explainy expositiony kinda stuff happening but jeez

Clark Gregg delivers every single line as if it's the final scene of a movie. *dramatic music* *roll credits* I love him, but that needs to stop, like, now.

for a show that was surely very expensive to produce it felt real cheap

that's whedon's MO. the avengers cost 220 mil and its dialogue scenes looked like TV

i sort of stopped paying attention halfway through and just did stuff in other windows, all the talking and fighting and whatever blew past me

old timey comics dude seems to have a point about the setup and the lack of menace, but (assuming this wasn't teased in the second half) i would expect whedon's long game to be aimed at something like a 'the government lied to us the reivers are us' / 'they are using the doll technology to erase people and make soldiers' / 'earth is hell and there is no reward for your selflessness, probably' reveal somewhere at about the end of season 1 or season 2, depending on how much they rush him, and based on this 'the world has ended / this is the new world now' premise for all kinds of omg-astonishment, but i don't yet have a clear idea of what the opposed forces / knowing/non-knowing insiders/outsiders are supposed to be.

(did they reveal what it is that they're keeping from coulson about how he was brought back from the avengers death? i assume that he is a robot or a mutant or a lab experiment or actually living in a computer somewhere or whatever, horror and despair at own existence to ensue at some point.)

Ha I liked this but as I was watching I was thinking ILX was probably shitting on it

that first trailer up there doesn't make me want to watch it. and i can definitely be suckered into watching something after watching a trailer. it looks like a boring mess. maybe they actually got 10 year old kids to write it.

didn't know loeb was involved w/ this, put me right off

Generally a very wise decision, but he's some sort of VP for all Marvel television projects now so he's probably only involved in a tangential way.

Really don't get the hate, this was 1000x better than the Distinguished Competition's effort in Arrow.

Yeah it was fun
I have bad taste in TV tho

Wtf with that Steranko thing
Apparently it's PC to have a black character!

yeah i'm not reading that. felt it was an ok cross of whedon team (ie firefly i guess) and ncis (this merger reaches its zenith in fitz, simmons)(predictably already crushing on simmons). found the superhero aspect a little tedious but loved the goofy spy tech (person i was watching w/ rolled their eyes at flying car but i was like 'yeah fuckit - flying car!'). hoping it will get much better (it's just watchable as is) but also worried that this episode represent the max of whedon involvement. man gina torres would've been great for ming-na wen's part though kudos for having a fifty year old woman be yr bad-ass on a network tv show.

It might get better after the pilot but I forgot how much tv series really nudge and wink repeatedly to get tv viewers on track. I mean, I know they're distracted and have to remember what's going on after commercial breaks but oh boy does that get grating over the course of a one-hour pilot.

"HAH, he has an OLD car" "Oh don't worry it's a CLASSIC"
fifteen minutes later
"Your car is OLD."
30 minutes
"There is NO WAY we could get there that quickly in THIS CAR"
* car starts to hover and takes off flying *

the entire "Do you think he really knows?" and "TAHITI" shit was just about as bad. We get it, he's a robot.

I wonder if Whedon or someone else had a conversation about BOFFINS and the entire reason the science/lab team has accents is so that he can deploy that word at some point

There is no way on earth that Coulson is a robot.

he's a life model decoy

like, one of the main repeated plot points of every SHIELD comics series or Nick Fury plot since Steranko's era is the repeated use of life model decoys, so they're probably going to use it at some point

So either something mysterious happened that's a new plot device that explains why Coulson has false memories, he was replaced (LMD!) or resurrected somehow, or possibly even more likely, Coulson was ALWAYS a life model decoy and there was never a human one during the course of the Whedon movie/tv series

sorry for comics nerdery but it's an obvious plot thing in the SHIELD stories and there's no way they're not going to touch on it in some way

xp you're a life model decoy

if such a thing exists, I could be, I'd have no idea, you see

Life Model Decoys are controlled by the actual person that they represent, though. They aren't autonomous, unless something really changed in the comics, up with which I have not kept.

Life Model Decoys are controlled by the actual person that they represent, though.

I don't remember this being the case in the comics.

LMDs going autonomous is a major storyline in the comic actually. there was an evil nick fury and everything.

the more recent bendis comics have done some work with humans controlling LMDs, specifically hill

anyways the LMD deus ex machina bailout gotcha was always the lamest and it's lame here too

anyways this was bad but not dire and i'm willing to be patient for about four episodes to see if they get super nerdy with continuity, write better stories or find a long form arc that might hold my attention

In Marvel's The Avengers, when Agent Coulson tries to talk to Tony Stark via phone, Tony tells him he's really talking with a Life-Model Decoy of Tony Stark, stating the possible existence of these robots in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

some good stuff in here

http://tomewing.tumblr.com/post/62410078391/my-captain-america-thesis

not ewing, quoted there:

Sonya said after reading the current Hawkeye comic that it felt like Matt Fraction sat down and was like, What would someone who chose to use a bow and arrow on combat missions be like in his daily dealings with tech and people? Agents of SHIELD S1E1 plays out like Joss Whedon sat down and was like, if Coulson really was that guy who asked himself What Would Captain America Do the way some people ask themselves WWJD?, what kind of decisions would that drive?

Just started this, and ... hrm, this show isn't so good, but boy can it potentially get so, so, so much worse, very quickly. Minus the micromanaging and budget of Hollywood ... I mean, jeepers, this ep is what they manage with Whedon's direct involvement.

A better move would have been to keep it a limited series - say, the occasional 10 eps - to air as a stopgap between feature films: answering questions, bridging/expanding the narrative, etc.

Maybe, but there's no way would they leave that cash cow so unmilked.

Well, that's a different matter, and indicator that this will get even dumber and cheaper faster.

Roads? Where we're going we don't need ... roads.

Man, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and the impression this show left was not good. I never saw "Heroes," but I bet it was better than this at first.

The general crapness of this show has real potential to devalue the Cinematic Marvel U. enormously.

In its defense, I think the opposite is true: it's crappy enough that people will recognize it as something else.

In its defense, most pilots are bad.

Ain't that the truth. But most pilots written/directed by a guy who understands the medium, respects the genre, and whose last movie and the impetus for this show made $1billion, plus who's generally regarded as one of the best TV guys of his generation, aren't usually this bad.

I dunno, I thought the Dollhouse pilot sucked too

it's stupid to judge a show by the pilot, esp when it's biggest crime was a monochromatic, smug tone - something that can easily evolve - rather than an intrinsic quality of the show (i.e. trophy wife is not actually about a trophy wife, and will likely never explain why this nice guy has two grumpy ex-wives AND a perfectly nice young one). but this is whedon's first project since becoming King Of Hollywood, so there is the possibility it will remain this stiffly cutesy.

That's sort of what I was getting at: this was a "sure thing" product from a guy at the peak of his commercial/creative powers, with a proven track record across mediums, with a built-in audience and a massive amount of good will engendered by the property that spans decades ... and this is what they came up with for the first episode? This is no mere "golly, I hope this gets picked up" gambit. This was a "wow, The Avengers made billions, we better strike while the iron is hot" thing. But this was ... not so hot. All it had to be was solid, but it was shakey.

family friendly + inclusive of people who hadn't seen movie + catering for television audience with no attention span = hot garbage

I was just thinking that as ridiculous as it got (and it should have ended much earlier), the closest in scale we've gotten to a Steranko-era SHIELD is the tv show Alias. One main character, covert spy stuff, unbelievable getaways and circumstances, mystical gadgets

keep in mind that while it's Big Names working Big Property, there's not a lot of precedent for a spin-off TV show that's supposed to work as a stand-alone and keep the irons hot for the next sequel. so there are going to be some kinks to work out - Whedon may be the god of superhero movies at the moment, but his tv shows were quirky cult things full of feels on off nights, not Big 3 procedurals. plus it sure sounds to me like they're implying agent coulson is a robot - he seems more stiff than i recalled from the movies, that whole "he can never know" bit - while it's possible the show will stay "Marvel Presents NCIS" things may get quirkier once "Marvel Presents NCIS" has been established.

keep in mind that while it's Big Names working Big Property, there's not a lot of precedent for a spin-off TV show that's supposed to work as a stand-alone and keep the irons hot for the next sequel

there is, it's just that it's often in animated form (Star Wars, Tron)

in prime time?

i'm not talking about toy selling spin-offs for kids

What do you think this show is?

it's on abc at 8pm, not disney xd

do you need me to explain how that's a different audience

true, but at the same time Law & Order doesn't usually begin with the characters looking at a toy store with actions figures of Law & Order universe characters

metaphors are real, do you see

fwiw Star Wars: Clone Wars ran in primetime, probably the reason why it scooped up primetime emmys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Clone_Wars_(TV_series)

if anything it's the model for a tv show that exists in-continuity between movies, majority of movie tie-in shows have been just continuations of the premise of a film

I'm sorry that I didn't recognize that the Marvel comics movies are ADULT MOVIES for ADULT PEOPLE

ANT MOVIES for ANT PEOPLE

http://digboston.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Adam-Ant300.jpg

I'm gonna keep watching. Just dying for a decent sci-fi-ish show right now. I dug Contiuum (and will probably still watch it), but it's pretty goofy, with all of TEH CORPORATIONS! hand-wringing...

Decent-ish: Continuum (lol), Orphan Black, uhhh maybe some other stuff

I keep expecting Broadchurch to go all sci-fi because of Tennant and Darvill

I'm sorry that I didn't recognize that the Marvel comics movies are ADULT MOVIES for ADULT PEOPLE

the point was that there's not a lot of precedent for a prime-time network show that's supposed to tie in between previous and next parts of the one of the biggest movie franchises ever. that there have been animated spin-offs on kids networks is beside the point (also tron: uprising and clone wars are both prequels to films already released).

it's a good point

was i the only one who could barely decipher the eurotwins when they were babbling?

like, one of the main repeated plot points of every SHIELD comics series or Nick Fury plot since Steranko's era is the repeated use of life model decoys, so they're probably going to use it at some point

LMDs are the worst, if they have any sense they wont infect the movie universe with them

i thought they were gonna remake coulson as the vision which i can cosign but who knows now

while i hope they go full cape they might just have him be the smug countenance of a computer system named vision (like jarvis with attitude) but still call him coulson

http://media.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/27233/Phil%20Coulson%20evolution%20to%20Vision.jpg

it's a show built around a breakout character of a billion dollar movie and he was just super annoying in the pilot, feels like a case of joss and co losing track of what made people like him

and GOD young hot main character dude was boring

Yeah, for a show with so many characters it totally lacked character.

yep

sort of baffles me that Coulson could be seen as interesting/likeable enough to have a primetime series based around him, but you know, big box office gets folks excited.

that episode 1 ending. so bad. SO BAD.

"Where we're going, we don't need quality writing."

Funny thing is, I believe the flying car is one of the few elements pulled straight from the early SHIELD stories. They should have left it in 1966 where it belonged.

if you thought Ep1 was bad...

Yeah, this is terrible and shows no signs of improvement. Tom Spurgeon's review is pretty accurate and gave it all the bandwidth it deserves --

I know that early-season episodes of a new TV series can be really uneven, but I was still fairly shocked how distressingly generic and cheap-looking and narratively slack Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed. There were very few characters but they still dramatically overlapped; much of the dialogue felt the same to me across the board. You could shove that entire cast into a CSI or a NCIS or some syndicated show about a mutant superteam without blinking, which I suppose is the point. The bad guys in last night's episode could have strolled over from the set of a Burn Notice or a Strike Back and not had to change clothes. Perhaps worst of all, I got no sense of basic physical stakes in any of the action scenes. I don't know. The Marvel universe was a rich, distinctive place for me to spend time when I was a kid and a teen -- I visited for years afterwards -- and I get the sense from today's Marvel comic books when I see them that there's still a feel to the place that keeps those readers enthusiastic. From this, I got nothing.

haven't seen last night's episode yet but I loved the pilot

couldn't bring myself to watch episode 2 after catching a glimpse on-air between dvr'd shows. Will go back if people say it gets interesting but man, sure looks like generic smug detective shit

but without the detection...

or andre braugher...

Well, two apparently shitty eps in a row makes things easy.

dear joss: stop. making. miniature dull action b-movies! please for the love of fuck make a tv show!

ugh i swear if joss wasn't involved I would be SO done with this. awkard, wooden, expositiony & sooo telegraphed. i just wanted the whole show to get sucked out of that plane so we could start over.

but i'm staying signed on. for now. but if it stays this flat I'll kill myself out of sheer boredom.

joss isnt really involved, he just did the pilot and handed it off to his brother... Jed Whedon (not joking)

His brothers have done some really good work on other shows (Southland etc.) but man this second episode blew.

It doesn't help that it looks so shitty compared to something like Strike Back.

i love buffy but i have a really hard time with non-buffy whedon, there was something about that show that balanced out his smarminess... a sort of emotional purity or something... his shtick is super hard for me to take otherwise

the only Whedon show I've unreservedly liked is Firefly; this one seems to be in a similar vein with bits of Chuck painted over the top

i couldnt totally handle firefly

admittedly I wanted to marry pretty much every female character on Firefly so that probably informs my appreciation of the show

There's a lot of shittiness to that pilot that totally goes beyond anything Whedon might specifically have done wrong. Hell, maybe he made it better! Because the show was bad on so many fundamental levels that I have trouble blaming the peripheral auteur, who is neither the showrunner nor even a real driving force of this mess. Starting with the casting: that bland dude and the hacker girl are so not Whedon archetypes. It's like they cast from some Hollywood hack list and struggled to make them convincing dialog spouters, which they were not. "Cabin in the Woods" (and most of his previous work) showed a knack for discovering unknowns and matching them to the perfect character. This one, on the other hand ... those Scottish (right?) twins were the closest to the Whedonverse we got. The rest of the characters were anony-nobodies.

Like, this is the guy who found leads like James Marsden, Alyson Hannigan, David Boreanaz, Nathan fuckin' Fillion...

I don't think they're twins...one is Scottish and one is English

fraternal

immortal hollywood icons like david boreanaz

well, he's been starring in a relatively successful drama for the past 8 years

Also, he was perfect as Angel. Unlike the wooden charisma vacuum in this show.

I didn't mean he discovered great actors, just great actors for his projects.

There's a lot of shittiness to that pilot that totally goes beyond anything Whedon might specifically have done wrong. Hell, maybe he made it better!

I read some story somewhere which claimed he did just that. As in after the fact. As in someone at the network saw however much of the show existed at some point recently and brought him back to do some major patchwork.

He did the same for the new Thor, reportedly.

I could only watch about five minutes of the second episode, maybe I'll try again later

which five? were they continuous or was it like five individual watchable minutes spread over the hour?

lol, I'm gonna end up watching this over the weekend and it will basically be pleasant-enough action TV and I will wonder why everyone is reacting like the show spent 48 minutes vivisecting kittens

i have set the recorder for this.
will become a sunday afternoon thing for me and mk2 who at 10 is probably the perfect age for it, so, i care not re the fine detail.
just crappy tv for me and the lad to enjoy.

DJP is pretty much otm, the show is entertaining enough

every time a poster blurb trails off like "entertaining..." I'm now going to assume the next word was "enough."

"Agents Of SHIELD is a pulse-pounding thrill-ride to the minimum!"

it's not *horrible*, i think my expectations were too high?

Entertaining enough for what?

for me to watch

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sdYIGsZ8dHg/TpPwRiDI2VI/AAAAAAAABVM/1MVvqN22iiE/s320/meralcosucks+government+is+great+for+me+to+poop+on.jpg

lol

I'm with Triumph. Gack.

I've been taping but still haven't watched

so how is this still

the blackboard stuff was miiiildly interesting but fuck this thing is a chore

dropped out midway thru last ep, life's too short

is another show i have no interest in

This show is kind of fascinatingly bad

yeah .. not good.
still watch it on sunday afternoon with young'un.
its really not worthy of an evening schedule.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/90040/the-check-in-the-agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-are-still-stuck-scooby-dooing-around-the-marvel-universe

this made me lol:

The show has taken a world in which Norse thunder gods and armored billionaires soar through the skies and made it as compelling as a commuter flight to Albany.

Good point re: this paradox:

With billions of future dollars at stake, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s creative process is almost necessarily more about the boardroom than the writers' room. This means that the late-night, cheap takeout–fueled inspiration that has led to some of scripted TV's most indelible moments won't be happening here. What's worse, an exploration of the Marvel U's most fascinating corners — like Wakanda, say, or the Savage Land — is also unlikely. Why burn something on a random Tuesday night in October when there's a chance of blowing people's minds with it on a summer weekend in 2019?

http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/10/24/shield-agents-steranko-entertainment-geekly/

caught up, i feel like i'm watching one of those syndicated sci-fi shows that were on in the 90s before all of that stuff was pulled into the sci-fi channel's orbit (and is probably still there)

but the '… will return in a moment' bumper makes it seem an AWFUL LOT like it is meant to be family-oriented, occasional dirty joke aside

I finally started watching this last night (after reading that it was going to be following up on the events of the next Thor movie). Everybody's being so hard on this show! It's nothing spectacular, but it's fun enough. Naturally, it doesn't hold a candle to the Marvel films or to Whedon's peaks, but I don't know if/why anyone is really expecting that to be the case. And the creators are in a uniquely weird spot inasmuch as they have to develop a show that fits in a universe established and altered by the movies, which I'm sure is a less challenging challenge when you're trying to figure out how your single Captain America movie is going to relate to the movies released on either side of it. And they're clearly planting seeds for interesting developments. And I'm really happy about the existence of a live-action series set in the MU. So I'm giving these dudes a major pass until/unless things start to legit suck.

That's pretty much where I am, too. Also everyone on this show is v v pretty.

They should have had Joss write a big list of Whedonesque quips that they could pepper throughout the series but not let him anywhere near the casting. He's assembled his typical mix of bland, wooden nobodies again. The science couple at least have accents which is something. It reminds me of the Alan Moore quote. "Stan Lee had this huge breakthrough of two-dimensional characters. So, they dress up in costumes and do good, but they've got a bad heart. Or a bad leg. I actually did think for a long while that having a bad leg was an actual character trait."

ya he is p bad at casting

I thought he got Firefly right

im not really a fan of everyone's nerd hero nathan filion... and everyone else in that show is p forgettable

fair enough, I dig Adam Baldwin's scene chewing and Gina Torres is my wifey

also Alan Tudyk has a very specific schtick that I have not yet grown tired of

man gina torres isnt forgettable c'mon

none of his regulars exactly set the world on fire when their series ended know whaddimean?

was the cast of barney miller forgettable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmmAdbDF1xA

Nathan Fillion is kinda overdone but I thought everyone else on Firefly was excellent.

Fillion is setting the hearts of TV Guide readers on fire; Castle consistently does well in their polls

also Summer Glau is kind of a geek icon now and Morena Baccarin is on Homeland now

I know Christina Hendricks wasn't a "regular" per se but still

lol finding out hendricks was on firefly was what made go 'ok NOW i'll check it out'

Gina Torres was in a show that lasted for a bit, IIRC?
Alan Tudyk is working
Kaylee was on Stargate or something

so pretty much Adam Baldwin, the Doc and maybe Preacher are the only ones making a living on the convention circuit.

i don't think the problem is with casting per se on shield. the problem is the combination of boring actors and boring characters.

baldwin was on chuck for years. he's been a pro forever.

oh my god that was christina hendricks???

fancy whore ended up on homeland

as dan noted

What does "set the world on fire" mean in this context?

Allyson Hannigan is on a long-running sitcom. Boreanaz is on a long-running crime drama. Morena Baccarin is on, Homeland, which I'm told is popular. James Marsters has never stopped working, whether on Smallville or some SyFy series or whatever. Gina Torres is always getting cast in something or other and is currently a regular on Suits, which does well for basic cable. Adam Baldwin was already well past his movie-star sell-by date when Firefly came around, but he was a regular on Chuck and never has trouble getting both guest slots and voiceover work.

Like, none of these people just disappeared. They're on TV almost literally all the time, and Alan Tudyk has a serviceable movie career.

many XPs

smg costars in the big new hit sitcom of 2013

Summer Glau is on Arrow

Amy Acker can always find work, too.

guys it's fine, all s1ocki meant is that he's not interested in these ppl, and actually that's okay

there's no need to save-a-Whedon

it is funny cuz there have been a lot of actors from cult or whatever shows i watched where i was like i wonder what happened to them and what happened is they got another show that is massively more popular than what i know them from

"he is p. bad at casting" implies some objective standard beyond "I don't care about these actors," but I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it.

if ruffalo as the hulk was his call (which i doubt tbh) i cant criticize his casting cuz i never would've guessed that would work

i get whats slocks is saying about filion, if only bc his style is a little bit too much '80s smarm for me, but i still liked him in firefly and serenity.

i don't even know what i mean by '80s smarm tbh.

if ruffalo as the hulk was his call (which i doubt tbh)

There's a thing on the Avengers DVD where he says Ruffalo was his number one choice from a list of many. Take with a grain of salt or whatevs.

it is funny cuz there have been a lot of actors from cult or whatever shows i watched where i was like i wonder what happened to them and what happened is they got another show that is massively more popular than what i know them from

― balls, Tuesday, November 5, 2013 11:52 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol that's true

i dunno i just guess i find them all very... actors that belong in the supporting ranks in a semi-successful network tv drama, which... they are! and there's nothing wrong with that. but i dont get worked up about them like i do performers on other shows i really like

It's a small-ish ensemble at the moment, though. I'm sure we'll lose and gain some folks soon enough (sure seemed like J. August Richards is meant to get pulled back into the narrative at some point).

The point of which being that "fan favorites" aren't always part of the initial ensemble.

i dunno i just guess i find them all very... actors that belong in the supporting ranks in a semi-successful network tv drama, which... they are!

haha yeah pretty much

i think it would probably be fair to wonder what kinds of roles/characters whedon can write best. some of his best work came from a combination of narrativized character history, and from working mythic/heroic/archetypal modes against jokey everydayness. which is why, say, zoe was a character in his sweet spot even if he didn't write much of a backstory for her in the 1 firefly season + movie, but wash's death in the movie could hit hard (because whedon is good at writing believable dialogue for actors to play characters who have history together). the doctor from firefly, less so, maybe because the zone his character-type came from barely had anything to do with those more heroic attributes that whedon is comfortable writing lines for. kaylee, kind of the opposite thing: mechanic-savant who can come through under pressure, but who generally inhabits the everyday aw shucks mode (which makes her a repeat of willow), so doesn't really present any writing challenges.

the comfort with the heroic aspect lets whedon work well with actors/performances that are maybe kind of meh, like hilo on dollhouse. but when the setup kind of excludes that possibility, or makes it code differently, like on s.h.i.e.l.d., maybe the whedon b-team don't realize that they won't be able to get the same effect. everyone involved right now, except coulson, has to be slotted into 'well-trained paramilitary agent or hanger-on', which means that any moves in the more heroic direction character-wise or line-wise have to be made in a constrained space. like, they can have ming na glower, and punch some people, but whenever she does it there are no notes like 'chosen one' or 'outlaw rebel' or 'reprogrammable sex doll/assassin' to hit in the vicinity, so there's less to compensate for/magnify a modest performance.

on dollhouse whedon's way of handling this, which was more of a problem there because of the storylines and because of dushku and because of the slightly more risky initial premise (more variability built in, a few more balls in the air as far as the elements of sci-fi-paranoia-speculative-alternaworlds go), tended to be to work with the extended series structure and build depth over time to make the more modest bits mean more. i'm kind of thinking that's not to be expected on s.h.i.e.l.d. because it's a big abc production, and because maybe the writers aren't whedon. but it could happen.

i thought kaylee was a pretty terrible character

man I had the biggest crush on Eliza Dushku and then I watched the first episode of Dollhouse ;_;

...and found out she was a memory-wiped, uh, whatever she was in that show??

that show was flat out unwatchable to me

obv it took me 3-4 episodes to realize this

I def went in going "yay, I get to watch Dushku every week ^_^" and came out the other side going "COME BACK JESSICA ALBA, ALL IS FORGIVEN"

i liked the backwaterness to kaylee's character, combined with occasional indignation at being condescended to, but that seemed to usually be a vehicle for the broader class disparities in the firefly world, not often specifically revelatory of her character. xp

eliza dushku found out she was a memory-wiped animal rights activist iirc, who found out about dollhouse-type stuff after trying to break into / maybe blow up a lab? i forget.

dollhouse is better than it seemed the first time around but they were just getting to the point of settling in when they got axed. :/

I thought dollhouse got better as it went and I think I liked it more than firefly.

he always uses these same kind of stock character types though, all of whom are really annoying: the bland corn-fed hunk, the tiny perky girl, the cocky nerd.

The cocky nerd's arc on Dollhouse is pretty good, though.

Look at the size of Adam Baldwin's melon!
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm588429056/nm0000284?ref_=nm_phs_md_4

'we need a shortcut'

<drives through field>

lol

Well, then: http://marvel.com/news/story/21476/disneys_marvel_and_netflix_join_forces_to_develop_historic_four_series_epic_plus_a_mini-series_event

If this succeeds it may render Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. superfluous to their long-term plans.

The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) and Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) today announced an unprecedented deal for Marvel TV to bring multiple original series of live-action adventures of four of Marvel's most popular characters exclusively to the world's leading Internet TV Network beginning in 2015. This pioneering agreement calls for Marvel to develop four serialized programs leading to a mini-series programming event.
Led by a series focused on "Daredevil," followed by "Jessica Jones," "Iron Fist" and "Luke Cage," the epic will unfold over multiple years of original programming, taking Netflix members deep into the gritty world of heroes and villains of Hell's Kitchen, New York. Netflix has committed to a minimum of four, thirteen episodes series and a culminating Marvel's "The Defenders" mini-series event that reimagines a dream team of self-sacrificing, heroic characters.
Produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Television Studios, this groundbreaking deal is Marvel’s most ambitious foray yet into live-action TV storytelling.
"This deal is unparalleled in its scope and size, and reinforces our commitment to deliver Marvel's brand, content and characters across all platforms of storytelling. Netflix offers an incredible platform for the kind of rich storytelling that is Marvel’s specialty," said Alan Fine, President of Marvel Entertainment. "This serialized epic expands the narrative possibilities of on-demand television and gives fans the flexibility to immerse themselves how and when they want in what's sure to be a thrilling and engaging adventure."

More on Marvel.com: http://marvel.com/news/story/21476/disneys_marvel_and_netflix_join_forces_to_develop_historic_four_series_epic_plus_a_mini-series_event#ixzz2jyGINQcy

Prob what Vin Diesel was talking to Disney about (I think it was Vin?) a few months ago

Too bad Terry Crews is already on a show because he is basically Luke Cage come to life

is hells kitchen still gritty

it got pretty bad when Daredevil built that giant castle thing and staffed it with undead ninjas

oh wait you mean irl

No, Luke Cage is gonna fight Gordon Ramsey.

gonna be a lot of interracial romance thought pieces about the jessica jones/luke cage dynamic and 85% of them will discuss scandal

has anyone EVER gotten daredevil right outside of the comic? the character seems impossible to pull off.

http://media.screened.com/uploads/0/587/237041-smithdd.jpg

xposting See, that's what they should have done all along. I know money is money, but if there's anything the zeitgeist-capturing cable dramas have shown, it's that people seem to appreciate a series that only run 10 or 13 episodes or whatever if it's really well done. Only in the US do we have these exhausting 30 ep runs or whatever it is. Make a handful of must-see episodes in a miniseries linked to a blockbuster series of movies and you've got yourself an event, one that also conveniently mirrors the crossover event model of comic books.

i would go with brubaker world for this whole thing

marvel must be so pissed that sony has so many of their most recognizable characters.. dgaf about iron fist.

Matt Fraction wrote a series of recent Iron Fist stories that are supposed to be amazing (haven't read them yet, they're on the list)

They're good Dan. Not as good as the Brubaker Daredevils but good; Fraction cowrites many of them with Brubaker. They're more heavily into lore and the idea of iron fists past and present and extradimensional. then they mix that in, unfortunately, with batman style "hey i've got a lotta money and not-for-profits" bullshit. i imagine they'll work off that storyline?

after Hawkeye and FF I'm basically a Fraction fanboy so I'll be getting to them

they're great, daredevil is boring

If (as appears to be the case) they're using the Bendis DD/Alias as the inspiration for this move, it stands the chance of being pretty damn awesome.

i'm fine with anything bendis-based really

Fraction/Brubaker Iron Fist is great - if you like Hawkguy it'll definitely appeal.

If (as appears to be the case) they're using the Bendis DD/Alias as the inspiration for this move, it stands the chance of being pretty damn awesome.

― Blood Ass IV: Blood Fling (Old Lunch), Thursday, November 7, 2013 1:48 PM

Cosigning this. I like the general tone that Bendis, Brubaker and Fraction have brought to spandex foolishness over the last 10 years, and the fact that DD/JJ/IF/Cage are going to be the protagonists of these is really exciting. My problem with the SHIELD series is that the tone feels off. The actors are playing is straight, but the writers are really mugging for the cameras too much.

I don't think Skye is playing it particularly straight

but aside from that I see your point

i've gone from impatiently waiting for comic book movies to fall out of fashion for good to pretty much completely supporting the marvel cinematic empire/being disappointed the SHIELD sucks

i'm not sure why

Bolt the door, Varg is loose! And he has access to Asgardian weaponry!

This week's episode was fun. Still not even close to being essential viewing, but it's getting fractionally better with each episode. Getting somewhat worried that the ''dark secret' quotient is rising every time we learn something new about a character's background, though. Does everyone on the team reallyneed to be tormented by their past?

head desking about this "did I fall asleep" reference to Dollhouse

When Coulson said that, my wife and I replied "For a little while" in perfect synchronization.

Does everyone on the team reallyneed to be tormented by their past?

You have seen Joss Whedon shows before?

With a few exceptions, nearly every Marvel hero is tormented by their past. That's kind of their thing.

trying to think of one who isn't... Kitty Pride? Wasp? a couple of the Young Avengers maybe?

Colossus. Banshee.
I guess cap lost bucky.

Banshee's wife died and he had a daughter he never knew about!

Captain America was frozen in ice for decades, it's one of his defining characteristics!

Didn't Colossus have a dead brother who turned out to be alive and evil?

yep, also his sister was kidnapped by demons and raised to be a queen in Hell

Cecilia Reyes wasn't tormented by her past; she was tormented by her present

I don't think Synch was tormented by his past...

Yeah, clearly it's a Marvel thing - it's just so obvious that every week they set aside 90 seconds to inelegantly seed another clue to some as-yet-unrevealed trauma. It's straight-up Claremont, I suppose.

All of the current marquee Avengers have angst-ridden pasts except mmmmmmaybe Thor and arguably Hulk (who IIRC didn't get angsty until he became the Hulk)? I don't know the extent of his Marvel backstory beyond his rivalry with Loki) Admittedly Cap's is "I'm a man out of time"-derived as opposed to being an enemy agent (Black Widow), a criminal (Hawkeye) or a self-serving alcoholic (Iron Man).

Yeah, Hulk itself has no demons - it is the demon. Thor, not very haunted. Fantastic Four, are they haunted by demons?

Thing was played as morose for a good long while because he hated how he looked but I don't think he (or any of the rest of the F4) had demons before the accdent

I think Reed felt some guilt about not being able to keep Doom from blowing his own face off.

Marvel recently added some experiences with antisemitism to Kitty Pryde's pre-X youth, didn't they?

Banshee's wife died and he had a daughter he never knew about!

Captain America was frozen in ice for decades, it's one of his defining characteristics!

Didn't Colossus have a dead brother who turned out to be alive and evil?

all this stuff isn't intrinsic to the character, it's development as they went!
and yeah, lots to blame claremont for

also moore, quite frankly

oh come on, you really can't blame Claremont for Scott Summers' orphaning, or Spiderman's Uncle Ben, or Hawkeye/Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch/insert random Avenger who started out as a villain here, or Hank Pym's descent into madness and abuse, etc etc etc etc; all of this stuff is intrinsic to the Marvel storytelling style and existed before either Claremont or Moore came onto the scene

pretending captain america pre-1960s was the same character as the modern one and the modern Marvel storytelling style is kind of disingenuous

superman's parents are dead, batman's parents are dead, tarzan's parents are dead... this isn't marvel, it's pulp history. marvel of the lee/ditko era (less so kirby i guess as his worldview was more about wide open vistas to the stars) was all about teen angst and there's been several multiyear periods where comics have wallowed in that mud. for people our age (looking right at you dan) claremont was the guy that did the most thought-balloony "but what if she finds out my TERRIBLE SECRET" bullshit that damaged the current gen writers

acting like i'm arguing with you about cap is kind of disingenuous btw

While we're on the subject of TERRIBLE SECRETS: Skye's going to find out SHIELD agents killed her parents, right?

Her father is Nick Fury iirc

He had her taken to an orphanage because he was sick and tired of these motherfuckin' babies on this motherfuckin' helicarrier

Man, I wish my name was Skye Fury. I'd be such a badass.

badass

this article about supes in context of this conversation is right on:
http://comicsalliance.com/superman-a-celebration-of-75-years-review-dc/
http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2013/11/Superman09.jpg

Of course. Because it’s about how something that used to be silly and fun is actually dark and psychologically traumatizing. Because we wouldn’t want anyone to come away from this celebration of Superman thinking that anything about Superman or his foes was silly in any respect. Everything is, AND ALWAYS WAS, Very Very Serious, so you don’t have to be embarrassed about liking Superman.

Chris Sims is usually otm, and that is a good article. I think it definitely applies more to DC's current approach than Marvel's, though - the sadface factor is way higher in Man of Steel and the Nolan Batman movies than anything Marvel Studios have produced so far.

Tarzan was a haunted motherfucker.

that's kinda the point: tough backstory = grim and gritty is a more modern perspective
vast oversimplification but it's easy to see where wwii vets wanted tough backstories = happy endings

Forks, can you expand a bit on what you're getting at here? I'm not sure I understand what you're saying - that SHIELD is aiming for 'grim and gritty'?

this isn't marvel, it's pulp history

forks OTM

no way in hell am I watching this show

I think the point wasn't that the show is grim n' gritty (because no) but rather that all of the characters have tortured moments in their past that drive who they are. It's just that we have yet to see flashbacks to before Fitz & Simmons were freed from the Congolese death camp where they grew up.

what i'm getting at is more in response to the question "which marvel characters DON'T have troubled backstories" than anything about the series, so my bad for the derail. I watched the first ep of this show, didn't like it and have been tivoing in the hope that word is that eventually
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klAMteHP4eY

The show is totally fun and enjoyable. I can only really find fault in the fact that, while tying fairly extensively into the Marvel film universe, it only operates on the extreme outer fringes of the Marvel Universe proper (pre-Graviton Graviton, Victoria Hand, and Jasper Sitwell are among the highest-profile MU cameos thus far. I mean, come on.).

(I've been reading Marvel stuff since I could read and I barely know who those people are.)

So Coulson is basically a zombie? Or something? And instead of asking for answers from the man who had them and was willing - eager, even - to talk, Coulson just bailed like it was nbd? That was... disappointing.

Haven't see newest ep, did they reveal he is NOT one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Model_Decoy

Nope, he ain't an LMD. The explanation is both weirder and more pedestrian than that.

Yeah, I think the most recent ep is a good place to jump ship. They built up to something unsatisfactory as usual and everything feels wrapped up so I don't feel the need to find out about anything. Save what's his face who's now lost a leg. But who cares. zzzz. Bye, show.

I was just about to ask if this show has finally started getting good, and it sounds like the opposite.
Oh well, they can't all be winners.

is it true that he escapes captivity by way of giant tweezers he had on his person for some reason?

100‰ true, sadly.

afaic this show just exists now for me to watch the first 30 minutes going 'that Skye girl is a babe' and then get bored in time to change the channel for Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Whatshisface who's now lost a leg is going to become Dethlok, surely?

aw don't make me want to watch this now

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Dethklokband.PNG/300px-Dethklokband.PNG

ok if they bring in dethlok I may have no choice but to watch. I'm sure marvel is doling out any actual proper MU characters with maximum stinginess.

I'm still wondering how Dethlok wound up teaching at the X-Mansion

He got there via the X-Force death squad

Makes sense. Now we just need a Doop cameo in the movies

well this thread is now definitively more entertaining than the show

Doop needs to lead x-force

Finally watched last week's. Why are so many people acting like the Coulson resurrection is all tied up and, thus, unsatisfactorily explained? There's clearly more to come. Still digging the show. Tweezers were weak, though, for sure.

Read something a week or so ago from one of the people working on the show which pointed out (as I don't think I'd realized before) that Captain America and Hulk were the only super-powered humans that existed prior to the advent of the series and that the escalation into a world of powered folks is gonna be a slow burn. I'm feeling way more chill about their superhero/villain stinginess after reading that, as I wholly support that approach.

Hmmmm maybe this show is about to get a lot more fun:

Bill Paxton's going to be playing John Garrett in four episodes, staring in late February/early March. Executive Producer Jed Whedon explained the reason for bringing Garrett into the show:

We wanted to bring in a rough-and-tumble former cohort of Agent Coulson with a little bit of attitude and cigar-smoking swagger.

. . . when Garrett got his promotion to Level 7, he refused to sit behind a desk and doesn't like the formalities of S.H.I.E.L.D. He's going to help Coulson solve some mysteries and is not afraid to rig an explosive or two.

Maurissa Tancharoen said that he'll appear in a "surprising" way. No word on whether the show's version of Garrett will be a cyborg like his comics counterpart. See a photo of Paxton in his SHIELD duds below.

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/19cgwk25e653rjpg/original.jpg

It'll be interesting to see whether he can overcome the zero-charisma dialogue

It's Bill Paxton. I would watch him ham up the phone book.

Bill Paxton deserves a better gig than this; maybe a Weird Science sequel or something, I don't know.

guess i'll check out at least one episode of his run

Paxton was great in "2 Guns," for anyone that missed that surprisingly entertaining '80s throwback gem.

dethlok confirmed. but i'm still not coming back to this boring pointless show...

http://www.nerdist.com/2014/01/confirmed-deathlok-and-lorelei-to-join-marvels-agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d/

did not know deathlok was black? there's like eighty iterations but was he originally? not like it's a thing, just curious.

iirc the third one was

The Moench/Buckler original -- yeah, but it was not made super-apparent because he looked so gray and corpse-like after becoming Deathlok. I remember a scene where he goes to see how his "widowed" wife and kid are doing, and they're black and I had the "oh, this guy is/was black" lightbulb moment. Marvel was starting to introduce interracial relationships around this time, so I wasn't 100% sure.

yeah, it turns out dead men don't have a discernible skin color in the marvel u

rotting flesh colored

Shit just got real. Clairvoyant revealed! No one can be trusted! The show to this point all feels like an intricately-constructed prologue to the new world Whedon et al knew they'd be inhabiting post-Winter Soldier. Although the show jumped from 'fun' to 'pretty good' a while back. You naysayers are missing out.

Funny, I don't feel tardy.

But the acting and dialogue are so bad. I mean lethally bad!

Eh, not really. Especially compared to a lot of dramatic TV acting. I don't have any issues with the core cast. If anyone's struck me as particularly hammy and off the mark, it's been Paxton.

there was a coded message... and that message was HYDRA

man, can I even keep watching this

They should adapt this to the big screen with bigger budgets and better actors. Oh, wait ...

me and my kid caught up with the uk showings yesterday/today.
really enjoying series 2.
yes, the acting is bad, but its totally fun dad-n-kid popcorn gubbins.

ATTN Hayley Atwell fans - ABC have ordered the Agent Carter show to series

oh and they've renewed this thing as well

wow, i'm 20 episodes behind

i started watching this again, it's alright but also terrible

just when i was starting to recontextualize it as an homage to corny 80s action cartoons it gets less silly

Joss should write a dream episode where they all re-enact "In Like Flint."

It's definitely got more interesting post-Winter Soldier. Still eminently skippable, though.

Man, whoever got off the boat needs to get back on, because Kyle MacLachlan is Kyle MacLachlan-ing it up all over the place this season.

^^^^^^^^^^ this

Been meaning to jump back in. Will I be missing much if I just start with the first ep of the second season?

Yeah, kinda. Most of the episodes during the first 2/3 of season one were pretty new viewer friendly, but it's been one consistent narrative since then.

Pretty much you need to start from where Winter Soldier left off.

So that's ep 17 ("Turn, Turn, Turn") onwards.

ok I guess I'll try that. Thanks

This show has become incredible

Tried checking back in this week, still find the writing and acting style completely insufferable

Hmmmm what kind of TV shows do u like?

I mean in terms of genre-y stuff I guess I need more wit, or more creatively staged action, or both, IE Strike Back, Banshee, even technically Justified. Even Sleepy Hollow is wittier. I just find both of those things super lame on this show, especially the attempts at zingers (like the Ron Burgundy line this week). Also the whole evil-superdad thing feels like a third-rate Xerox of Alias or something. And Chloe Bennett is awful. OK, I think that about covers my complaints.

I really wanted to like this show. Unfortunately it's terrible.

Except now itt making it seem like it gets a lot better? Or shd I just watch Sleepy Hollow instead?

The first 11 episodes of S1 are absolute garbage. 12 episodes in, they deliver the first non-terrible episode. As soon as Bill Paxton shows up it gets alot more entertaining & watchable on the whole but "better" is subjective. The last 5 eps of the first season are pretty fun and set up the 2nd season well. So far this season has been about as good as this show gets. Last one was surprisingly gross. I'd think twice about letting kids watch this show even though I'm guessing they're a prime demographic.

I'm not sure I can get through the first 11 for all that backstory tbh. Back to the grindstone while I do some sit-ups or something.

Sleepy Hollow is still pretty good! Last season strayed a little but still v watchable thanks to Captain Woolpants

Backstory is either easily explained or breaks down into easy single statements imo.

Seriously, all you need to know from the first dozen eps of S1:

Skye was born in China and was rescued by SHIELD agents after a massacre of the village she was born in.
Skye was raised as an orphan and became a hacker for an Anonymous stle organisation.

Phil Coulson died in The Avengers.
Phil and Mei used to have a 'thing'.

Grant and Skye fancy each other a lot but haven't done anything about it.

Fitz is secretly in love with Simmons.

I think that's everything.

Lost patience with this show when I found out that the reason behind Coulson's resurrection wasn't what I had think most people originally thought. Wasn't a big thing or anything, but was the straw that broke the camels back for me in terms of being able to enjoy this show. DC definetly has a better track record to date of utilizing the propertys it owns through television. Never thought I'd enjoy a CW show about Green Arrow more than a Whedon-adjacent take on Marvel.

Oh thank god for Forrest. Looking forward to this last ep (and season 2!).

I really hate Arrow and can never go back there so I have to stick with SOMEthing. And even Joss Whedon's explication explanations of crowd-sourcing problem solving on The Twitter aren't as bad as Arrow's hyper-violent vigilantism & sexism.

Sleepy Hollow got as boring as early SHIELD for me

*spoilers*

So yeah, Skye and her dad are Inhumans, leading up to the movie in their timeline, and that is why they had no reaction to kree blood. Right?

I mean, Coulsen could have been a LMD but they're using it as a movie jump-off and this is just as plausible.

I don't know if this show's ratings are good or bad, but I wonder if it's sort of immune to that sort of pressure, in its role as table-setting for future films.

*spoilers*

So yeah, Skye and her dad are Inhumans, leading up to the movie in their timeline, and that is why they had no reaction to kree blood. Right?

Her mum was something as well, as she was unaged between the two clips with Nazi Dude who's become young again. I'm guessing the Diviner is some device that can tell whether bodies have the Terrigen or not and kills those that don't (to bring it into current Marvel canon).

x-post on a different topic: I didn't really like the first series of Arrow that much but stuck with it, the second series was great in parts and the third so far has been solid enough but I'm kind of indifferent to it. Barrowman chews up the scenery dreadfully but is maybe the best thing about it. The Flash otoh is straight up awesome and pushes all my Flashgeek buttons EVERY WEEK. We had Ralph Dibny and Bea deCosta namechecks in the last ep! He's got a Cosmic Treadmill (which isn't cosmic yet, but whatevs)! Captain Boomerang is coming up soon!

Oh hai The Bronze

I can't even tell if it's a shout-out to fans or just the inside of Whedon's head, at this point.

Lost patience with this show when I found out that the reason behind Coulson's resurrection wasn't what I had think most people originally thought. Wasn't a big thing or anything, but was the straw that broke the camels back for me in terms of being able to enjoy this show.

Call me skeptical, but would most comic fans really have preferred Life Model Decoys to Kree and Inhumans?

Also, just for the record:

There is no way on earth that Coulson is a robot.

― My question is primarily riparian (Phil D.), Friday, September 27, 2013 9:55 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

having s2 described to me and... sounds like season 2 of heroes and a million other crappy sci-fi shows tbh, just awful. how many characters do they have doing the "am i evil or actually 100% a good guy" dance?

i watched all of s1 and never thought it got any of that "better" people keep talking about

how many characters do they have doing the "am i evil or actually 100% a good guy" dance?

Kyle McLachlan. That's it.

Ward's been established as a good guy (albeit with the inclination for questionable deeds and his own motives), and Flower Dress Girl is neither (this was resolved as far back as the Clairvoyant reveal).

I heard the name of the show and I was all like, "ugh, I do not lile the name of that show, I'll bet it's stupid and also terrible".

I don't know why I get so defensive about this show. Except that I like it and most people who complain about it don't even watch it (or haven't seen more than a handful of episodes).

IT IS NOT GREAT BUT IT IS GOOD, STOP PICKING ON IT, GEEZ.

'it's not great but it is good' is otm. it started awful and got steadily better and now it's consistently entertaining, with characters that are getting more fleshed out. plus tyra from friday night lights is in it now! and kyle mclachlan is clearly having a whale of a time chewing the scenery.

the flash is better tho. actually, do we need a standalone flash thread?

(or haven't seen more than a handful of episodes).

i saw the entire first season! and half of the first episode of season 2 before i realized i was a thousand percent bored and can't give a shit. i also overhear my gf listening to it and constantly ask her to explain these awful things

it got "better" because of the events in the movies and it'll never stop feeling like a cheap little supplement to the movies (and i say this as a big fan of the movies)

I feel like that's the central issue I have with most of the criticism. Everyone is comparing it to the movies. I like the movies a lot and I like AoS a lot, but they're both doing different things. AoS is like a well-plotted '70s or '80s genre show. It's not terribly ambitious but it's solid at doing what it does. Not all of the actors are great but I like everyone on the show. It's fun.

And I'll double down on the 'well-plotted' aspect. The writers/showrunners have done a fantastic job of planting seeds and following threads. A season and a half in and it's maintained a solid through line with very little extraneous action. Not many genre shows maintain that level of consistency and coherence, and it's all the more impressive given the balancing act they have to do with the movies.

yeah, that's true. if the current story thread turns out the way it appears to be going (the eternals!) then they'll be introducing a major aspect of the overall universe on tv rather than in the movies, which would go a long way to making the show seem more significant than it ever has before.

d'oh, inhumans not eternals

have you actually watched this show, Ward is evil as shit

Best to get on board now, folks, instead of scrambling to watch multiple seasons of preamble in anticipation of The Inhumans.

Turns out Skye and her father are established Marvel characters! I didn't see that one coming.

One seriously underheralded element of this show: the fight choreography is top notch, better than I've seen in a lot of movies even.

This show got tons better from sesason 1 to 2, from crap to pretty great. Also better than most Marvel movies.

http://ww2.sinaimg.cn/large/5d2598e9gw1elc8qpkrrig206t05ab29.gif

yep, this is getting good. they've been playing an admirably long game and it's starting to pay off big-time.

kyle maclachlan has been so good.

his hair has been fucking spectacular

He may have set some kind of "perspiring on screen" record this week.

Show has now regained equilibrium at its Black Guy quota of 1. Things were getting unstable for a while.

I never imagined I'd get a chance to see McLachlan in a WWE wrestling-style fight scene

Turns out Skye and her father are established Marvel characters! I didn't see that one coming.

I never imagined I'd get a chance to see McLachlan in a WWE wrestling-style fight scene

truly we are living in an age of wonders

looks like their cheat for the cinematic universe to get around not really having the rights to mutants is to use the Inhumans as a partial replacement

that's basically what they've been doing in the comics too

if u think about it black bolt is basically mouthclops anyway

lol

I've always thought Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch would make more sense as Inhumans than mutants

As of this week it's been retconned they're not Magneto's children.

WTF

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/12/todays-axis-7-will-retcon-scarlet-witch-quicksilver-forever-spoilers-obviously/

oh great another crazy wanda stunt

just like her dad

agent carter was fun! hayley atwell is great.

Seconded. I feel like most people have given up on the MCU's televisual presence at this point (at least until the Netflix bombardment begins), but it's totally worthwhile. And, one hopes, decreasingly vestigial.

I guess at least six million households (how the hell do tv ratings work, wtf) watched it and most of the people I know have said they're going to watch it off hulu later this week

Well, by "most people" I really mean "most people who are otherwise way into the MCU".

I think those are the only people watching this stuff on the regular so that they can complain about it on the internet

It was ok, but there were some serious RMDE moments. "People I care for..." *single tear trickles down cheek* "...tend to get killed." Apartments with 10 p.m. curfews complete with a Facts of Life Mrs. Garrett character. Jarvis' 9 p.m. bedtime, which apparently doesn't apply when he has to go to New Jersey.

There is such a huge chasm between the MCU feature films and MCU network tv shows, tonally, and there is already such a huge suspension of disbelief in accepting superheroics and "implosives" and such. I have a really hard time with dumbed down dialogue and cardboard characters on top of that suspension.

the casting was good, though

as was the tone overall. Pretty enjoyable generally

i really enjoyed it!

best thing about it is that it cut straight to the chase & you're off on an adventure right away

it's fun. kinda feels dick tracy-ish.

love the cutaways to the capt america radio program

For some reason, I was thinking 'Indiana Jones-y', but 'Dick Tracy-ish' is much more OTM.

One disappointment: I was excited when it looked like they might be setting up Andre Royo as an ongoing heavy. Oh well.

also reminds me of Batman: the animated series (more for the score than anything)

that's the best sell i've heard yet

:D

i am really taken with this show, not gonna lie

It was tosh but enjoyable. More kind of reminded me of Lois and Clark -- certainly an early '90s vibe. The second episode was a ton better, especially the action scenes -- they might be low budget but that also means zero CGI, so yay.

low budget usually means more cgi, imo

unless you believe they really blew up a truck

Ok, small-scale CGI is better than clusterfuck planet destroying CGI at every movie conclusion

The weird thing about Netflix is that you have no idea what shows are actually "on" in the non-timeshifted world. I just finished watching season 1 and I'm like "OK now I can go look at the ILX thread about this" and WAAAA- there's a second season already.

Well, back to not reading this thread. Season 1 was strangely watchable despite being, in every objective sense, pretty bad -- clunky line after clunky line, every whiff of romance almost unbearable to watch, barely a hint of Whedon. It's kind of like the Marvel Universe version of Hemlock Grove.

I will watch season 2 when Netflix has it.

What's happened with series 2? Is it just taking a mid season break and returning shortly? Wikipedia which I guess I shouldn't be relying on for information anyway has no broadcast date or other info beyond episode 10. So I'm hoping that's just a glitch not that there's nothing beyond that cliffhanger.
I tend to check Wikipedia's Episodes pages for broadcast dates/amount of episodes when it has just occured to me that there may be such info from the channel website. Is a bit easier though since I don't really know who's doing what when I'm getting most things as d/lds.

Enjoying Agent Carter. Like the touch of her having to put up with a media representation of a fictional her substitute on the radio show. & the representation of cultural morés, inherent endemic sexism etc which she has to deal with.
Can see the Dick Tracy vibe and maybe the Batman AS thing too.

S2 isn't copming back until Agent Carter's off-air.

shield comes back in march (?)

anyway agent carter is like a mini season, only 6 eps to fill the shield break

Yeah. I looked at the wikipedia episodes page again and next episode is March. 16th I think.

Agent Carter is really rad imo

right!?

hayley atwell is so good

peggy and jarvis are a great team

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I do wish it was slightly goofier though, being played a bit too straight for my Marvel tastes.

i went back & rewatched the Cap America movies, super-impressed at how, like Colson in Agents of Shield, its like she walked the movie straight into the show

walked *off* the movie

hope agent carter gets to a terrestrial tv channel in the uk.
me and the young'un have totally got into agents of sheild.

http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp201/sharonjoy666/B6997634-B198-4E0D-87DF-EDDAA0BF9D8F_zpsuwg7gvjz.jpg

This week's Agent Carter was the first one that I really loved. The routine with the table was what tipped it over the edge.

Easily the best episode since the pilot. Also the first one not to use period music in a fight scene or montage, which was a help.

yep, that was great. hayley atwell is so, so good in this!

this past episode made me want to go back and binge watch all of the ones I missed prior to it, although I never felt lost or like I was missing pertinent info that would impede my enjoyment of the episode

I have to wonder if relatively nonexistent expectations are fueling some people's enjoyment of this over SHIELD. Like, the level of positive fan buzz over this seems roughly equivalent to the negative buzz over SHIELD, but SHIELD is equally good and fun as Agent Carter, imo. Although Hayley Atwell is certainly a selling point in favor of the latter.

(I promised myself I'd stop getting defensive about SHIELD.)

As much of a FOOM borderline Marvel Zombie as I am I've found the DC shows I've seen (mostly Arrow) more entertaining than either of the AGENTs shows

that was a satisfying wrap-up - what a fun eight episodes. i hope they get around to making more.

Agreed, nicely done overall.

I've just been assuming that there must be an AoS plot point being set up by AC. Though it is really enjoyable itself.
So yeah do hope it will return but am looking forward to more AoS. Is this continuation of the same series or a new series?

Continuation - picks up from the last episode.

Show has now regained equilibrium at its Black Guy quota of 1. Things were getting unstable for a while.

― Οὖτις Δαυ & τηε Κνιγητσ (Phil D.), 11. joulukuuta 2014 23:26

I've been catching up with this series, when they introduced Mack in season 2, I told my flatmate, "Oh, now they have more than the one required token black guy, wanna bet one of them is gonna die?". Though I expected it to be Mack, because Tripp had already been established during the previous season.

I have to say, I can't for the life of me understand why people compare Arrow favourably to this series? I've tried to watch the first season of Arrow, but the characterization and actors in it are just so horrible (especially the main guy), all the characters feel like stiff underwear models spouting tired cliches. Compared to them, the protagonists in AoS feel way more lived-in and human. Okay, Skye was a bit too wide-eyed and Mary Sueish at first, but as her story arc has progressed she's become more tolerable too. And everyone else in this is pretty great! Even Mr. Handsome got way more interesting once he was revealed to be baddie, and his actor has stepped up his game accordingly.

We've blown through the first two seasons of Arrow over the last several weeks. Lots more groanworthy moments than on SHIELD, for sure, but it's pretty entertaining trash. And it's certainly improved over time. But, yeah, definitely a lesser show (and not just because I'm a Marvel Zombie). I agree with you in that I'm generally not as concerned with the relationships of the characters on Arrow as I am with those on SHIELD, but Arrow is all action and twists and turns and raising stakes and it does what it does just fine. It just serves to underscore the relative subtlety of SHIELD, which I think is one of the show's greatest strengths (and possibly one of the elements that keeps a lot of fans of the MCU from getting onboard).

Also started watching the current season of Arrow alongside Flash, which serves up a whole other contrast (I'm already super into Flash two episodes in, and Grant Gustin immediately came across as more likeable and charismatic than most of the cast of Arrow when he first appeared as a guest star on that show, so I'm really glad he got a showcase of his own).

the relative subtlety of SHIELD

I can't even imagine what Arrow must be like if it makes SHIELD look subtle.

Arrow is a wet dream of a libertarian "rugged individual" nightmare imo. Couldn't stomach it.

Going purely off of the promos, I thought people watched Arrow for the abs.

I'm more into the delts, but there's a little something there for everyone.

Arrow is a wet dream of a libertarian "rugged individual" nightmare imo. Couldn't stomach it.

most superhero stories are this to one degree or another, tho, and tbf a large part of ollie's arc in arrow is him realising that he very much needs other people around him (and not just to admire his abs)

I'm not SUPER familiar with Green Arrow as a hero but my impression of the bits of him I've seen in the comics is that he's the less suave, more dickish Tony Stark

Arrow suffers badly under the weight of its need to have season plot arcs, would be better if it was just baddie of the week stuff like Flash is. Suicide Squad eps remain the best thing about the show, and the minor recurring characters (Deadshot, Cupid) are far better fleshed out and more compelling than the main Scooby Gang. It's also vastly inferior to Flash and you can't help comparing the two given the shared(ish) cast and crossovers.

SHIELD has been lucky in that it has been able to use the conspiracy thriller elements of Winter Soldier as a springboard - the best eps all came at the end of S1 and so far S2 has been so intent on acting as a seeder for the forthcoming Inhumans film that it doesn't quite know what it's supposed to be. Kyle McL's scenery chewing has been great if you like that sort of thing.

My big problem with SHIELD at the moment is the treatment of Grant Ward - it feels like they're trying to SHOCKING TWIST him in every episode and he doesn't feel like he has a character any more. Also TWO SHIELDS think is weak, seems like they're trying to glom on to Winter Soldier again rather than do something new.

I'm not SUPER familiar with Green Arrow as a hero but my impression of the bits of him I've seen in the comics is that he's the less suave, more dickish Tony Stark

he's basically batman in all but name in the tv show, to the point where his main foe at the moment is ra's al ghul

but my impression of the bits of him I've seen in the comics is that he's the less suave, more dickish Tony Stark

Silver Age stuff is just wacky inventor stuff, kind of like poor quality SA Batman. Come 1969 Neal Adams turned him into Super Democrat and in the GA/GL era him and Hal drive across America like the Odd Couple of US politics - Hal is Mister Conservative and Ollie just wants to be free, he wants to ride his machine without being hassled by the man and he wants to get loaded. But not heroin because he hates that. He then gets a job at a left-wing newspaper to rock the vote.

He gets Crisis-ed out of existence, then reborn grim 'n' gritty. He got blown up thwarting some eco-terrorists that he had infiltrated.

He then got brought back to life during the Hal Jordan post-Parallax and Kevin Smith did a LARKS job with him and Stanley and his Monster before it all went Winicky and we got HIV and all other types of superhero sadface. Blackest Night sadface. Brightest Day sadface. More sadface.

In the Johnsiverse he's just kind of nothing. Last year or so has mirrored the tv show and is much better, like a serious Hawkeye.

It may just be because I'm reading the stuff at the moment, but Arrow has somewhat of a silver/bronze-age Spider-Man feel in terms of being somewhat more of an ensemble affair centered around the titular protagonist. Lots of secondary characters on their own little side journeys.

best GA imo

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/73958/3669479-green_arrow_earth-31_007.jpg

really liked how they ended up dealing with cal in the last few episodes. ward also. the characters all seem pretty vivid with interesting, outlandish motivations and stories now.

also the action sequences are pretty uniformly actually worth watching

awesome finale... ramped up the crazy right away

fight scenes are consistently well done, i enjoy them

cliffhanger ending was O_O

This show gets such an undeservedly bum rap. I'm glad it's sticking around. Nuts to the haters.

i'm really gonna miss kyle maclachlan chewing the scenery. his jaunty 'there goes the feeling in my legs!' after getting hit with a barrage of stun bullets is still cracking me up.

the action sequences really are fantastic, maybe a new benchmark for tv fight scenes.

mclachlan really gave a good vaudeville villain; and the tender stuff was handled well

Well I've now finished watching the entirety of Season 2 and I have to say this show is really terrible. "Then why did you watch all the episodes?" a) I watch it while I wash the dishes, about 20 mins a night, gotta watch something b) I feel some kind of loyalty to Whedon and there were, very occasionally, some Whedony moments c) Kyle MacLachlan.

But I don't know why else. The dialogue was impossibly bad. People literally uttering sentences like "He's a loose cannon!" Characters interchangeable lumps with backstories taped to them like post-its. MacLachlan very occasionally achieving a kind of manic enjoyability but mostly seeming like a pro trying to do the best he can with terrible material.

In terms of acting and writing quality I guess it reminds me of Continuum but Continuum, equally ridiculous and faulty, somehow had more fun wrapped up in it.

Sorry to be a hater but sometimes you watch something you expect to be well-made and it really disappoints you!

Thanks for sharing.

When does the 2nd season of Agent Carter start? Haven't seen anything of it and I think there's supposed to be one of it before there's another SHIELD.
Di finally see Ant-man over the weekend and noticed the cameo of representatives of HYDRA

I assume that it'll air during SHIELD's winter break like it did last year.

I thought it was going to be on before SHIELD returned so wouldn't be in a show interval like that.
THought i'd seen that said somewhere.

It was just renewed a couple of months ago. I don't think they've even started filming yet. SHIELD starts back up next month.

They're killing it this season. Tonight's episode was like a quality, old school sci-fi anthology installment (and was even basically filmed in black and white). The show finally feels comfortable in its own skin and stands on its own outside of the MCU proper. And I don't care that I'm the only person who appreciates it.

i just like that every week i can count on seeing familiar faces from ER, LA Law, NYPD Blue, and Ally McBeal

i'm enjoying it too, although i'm becoming increasingly distracted by clark gregg's weirdly plastic-looking hair

seriously, it's like receding lego man hair

Finally saw the "4,722 Hours" episode. Really glad I've stuck with this show

I agree that this season has started pretty strong, though I don't think last season was that bad too... Admittedly it wasn't as good as the first one, but the first season managed to turn the mandated-by-the-movie-continuity plot twist into an awesome mid-season premise change, and the rest of the season rode on the shockwaves of that twist. And I didn't think the whole "real SHIELD" thing from last season was very well thought out, it's always feels contrived when the writers try to extend an internal conflict between the heroes as long as possible... But again, they managed to end it with a nice twist, when we found out Gonzales was more decent than we thought, and Jiaying was the real bad guy.

So yeah, I think AoS can get a bit formulaic (for example, they've teased a Fitz/Simmons romance for two seasons now, and just when it seemed like it was gonna happen, "4,722 Hours" throws yet another hurdle at it), but most of the times they manage to come up with some unexpected twists to shake things up again. Plus the acting is still pretty high-quality for its genre, compared to series Flash or Arrow, these guys are pure Shakespeare!

For some reason the episoe 4 from this season doesn't seem to have been circulated from the sources I normally get it from.
Wondered if there had been a crackdown or something, but the 4,722 Hours appeared.

You guys, now the Secret Warriors are happening and there's like an actual team of superheroes among the Agents. Y'all are missing out.

Right on!

just caught up on a bunch of recent episodes - it's been really good! the inhumans / hive storyline is the best it's been since the winter soldier fallout episodes

Well, of course you wanna talk about it now, when I'm like a month behind. Sheesh!

well get a move on then ffs!

This is honestly the first time since the show started that I haven't been watching week-to-week. I don't know what's wrong with me. Or rather, I don't know what's wrong with me in this particular instance.

Agent Carter cancelled, and it looks like Marvel's Most Wanted (starring Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter) didn't get picked up. Booooooooo, ABC, boooooooooo.

Agents of SHIELD pretty decent now, at least

This is sad news, though I guess that means Bobbi and Lance can return to AoS? I like both characters and their actors are pretty good, and the way they were written out felt kinda contrived anyway.

Maybe there's a still chance Netflix might pick up Agent Carter, since they already distributed the last two seasons, practically in real time? Though the period setting would make it more costly than DD or JJ...

Shame about Agent Carter. Fans seem to be blaming poor quality of the 2nd season, which is bonkers, the first series was well ropey.

I thought the second season was quite good up until the finale, which fell inexplicably flat. The bad guy whose mega powers had been hyped for several episodes was defeated just like that, and the climax with the [SPOILER] felt like it kinda too easy to solve as well. It'd worked much better if [SPOILER] had actually sacrificed himself, IMO. Plus the romantic triangle between Carter and Sousa and the scientist guy was mostly needless.

But Hayley Atwell and the not-Benedict Cumberbatch English dude were great throughout the season, like they were in the first one too. I'd love to watch a show where it's just two of them solving crimes.

You're right, the finale was weak, but not in a "retroactively destroys the whole season" way, at least

I wish they could continue on netflix or something, i love agent carter so much

We'll probably just need to wait out the one year that most ABC dramatic series last and then Hayley Atwell will be freed up to do that third Netflix season.

With two Marvel shows knocked in the dirt, I wonder what this portends for Damage Control. At least AoS got picked up for a fourth season (it's really good, guys, seriously!). I'd be tempted to think that Marvel is swinging its future televisual focus solely towards Netflix if it weren't for the Cloak and Dagger show that's coming soon on ABC Family Fusion.

Agents of SHIELD Star Says Marvel Doesn't Care Enough About Its Own TV Show

Valid points. P.S. The season finale was pretty kickass.

It's being pushed back an hour next season. Which the network says is because they want to go darker but it could also be seen as shuffling it to a timeslot where it's likely to die on the vine. Frankly surprised they even renewed it for a fourth season so I'll take what I can get.

SPOILERS!

The finale was pretty good, but after all the "SOMEONE WILL DIE!" teasing, it was pretty disappointing that they went for easiest option and killed the most expendable main character. I was half expecting that they would kill Coulson, with maybe some hint in the stinger that he might still be resurrected. That would've provided some interesting change in dynamics for the next season, with everyone adjusting to his loss, May or Mack becoming the new director, etc. Though based on the "6 months later" scene it looks like one of them might've become the director anyway.

Also, while I knew they wouldn't kill Daisy, because she's pretty much the main character, the one the viewers are supposed to identify with, I didn't like how SPOILER sacrificing himself in her stead took away her agency. After all the shit Hive did for her, she deserved to be the one who ultimately defeats her. Also, this resolution makes that whole "Lash's destiny wasn't to kill Hive but save Daisy" mumbo jumbo from the previous episode a bit pointless. Turns out saving Daisy didn't really help them at all in defeating Hive.

I agree that it's kinda sad how neither ABC or Marvel seems to care that much about AoS. It seems Marvel Studios are putting more effort into developing the Netflix shows, and ABC simply doesn't know or care about how to market this series. I sorta understand why Agent Carter flopped, it was tonally so different from anything else in the MCU (even if that uniqueness was exactly what made it great). But AoS is pretty much in the same genre and has the same tone as, say, Winter Soldier and Civil War, and considering how popular they were, and how solidly written and acted the seriers remains, you'd think it'd be a certain success?

I think the issue with it now is that it bought 100% in to Inhumans, and Marvel appear to be abandoning Inhumans in the cinema. Whereas the link tv to film worked brilliantly for Winter Soldier, because the events were playing out at the same time in the two different arenas, in this case all the seed work looks like it's gone to waste and because it's so integral a part of the show it's difficult to see how it's going to continue.

Having said that, Season 4 is confirmed but I expect it to be all about Daisy's return to the fold rather than exploring the post-credits Doctor Radcliffe SPOILER.

This series has been fairly satisfying but has, at times, felt directionless. The Primitives, in particular, felt like a cost cutting exercise to use one set of shitty makeup repeatedly to reskin repetitive fight scenes and not like they were ever a serious part of Hive's plan. Hive was definitely underused/shoehorned in - it seemed to me that the whole thing was about the IMAGINE WHAT THE VIEWERS WILL SAY WHEN BRETT DALTON APPEARS AHA rather than a real sense of narrative, and then once in the series was a Maguffin to remove ALL the hanging threats the series has introduced to date e.g. Lash, Malick.

IMO the Inhumans thing has in general been a positive thing for the series, because it's provided it with convenient a way of including new characters and plot elements, so the protagonists won't just have to fight against HYDRA or some other shadowy conspiracy all the time. But you're right that it does make it feel disconnected from the movies, since Inhumans have never even been mentioned in them, even though their existence is now semi-public knowledge. It was pretty weird having Civil War center around registering superheroes without no one even mentioning all these powered people popping up all over the world.

once in the series was a Maguffin to remove ALL the hanging threats the series has introduced to date e.g. Lash, Malick.

I don't really agree with this... Lash and Malick were only introduced this season, so they were part of the whole Hive plot arc to begin with, even if they first appeared before him. And IMO it was a good thing Hive was built up so much before we actually saw him, and even after that he wasn't over-exposed. His whole deal is that he's the Devil, and practically unbeatable, so he could only be defeated with the highest of costs. If they'd used him more and made him more into a regular recurring villain, that would've diminished his scariness.

I was thinking more that Marvel had an Inhumans movie on the slate, which was why they were introduced in AoS, and now they either don't or it's pushed back until everyone's forgotten it exists (depending on which gossip you believe). A cynic would say it's due to needing something to replace/allow X Men in non-Sony product (cf Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are not mutants in the Avengers films) but that Spoiler-Man in Civil War holds out hope it's not necessary.

Malick had so much HYDRA baggage it's hard to see him as anything other than a substitute, which was made explicit around trying to open the portal(s). Lash was an Inhuman related plot that morphed into the trite "every Inhuman exists for a purpose" schtick that got trotted out multiple times in the finale. If Lash's purpose was to save Daisy, then killing all those other Inhumans was just for shits and giggles then? And it's OK, just collateral, because he achieved his 'purpose'? (Also let's not go into the determinism aspects of this.) And I get that Hive needs a huge cost to destroy, but that's then out of balance for a small team of mainly non-powered people that are basically high tech spies. Leave that sort of epic stuff for the films.

Lash and Malick were only introduced this season,

I thought this about Malick, too, but I started rewatching the movies recently and was surprised to realize that he's in the first Avengers movie.

Lash and Malick were only introduced this season...

― Tuomas, Thursday, May 19, 2016

wat?

more goth daisy plz

so uh ghost rider is going to be appearing in season four

i didn't see that coming

well uh I guess the android takeover is in progress

I thought that was a pretty badass episode. Like a well-done mashup of The Thing/The Terminator/The Matrix without being as cheesy and awful as something like that sounds on paper. Pleasantly surprised that anyone else is still watching!

ahaha if anyone's still watching they dropped a MODOK easter egg

I'm still watching, tho it was a close thing after the Ghost Rider half of this season.

Yeah, I'm still on it although I missed the MODOK thing.

Ghost Rider half was pretty awful, the Hydra fake world felt... inconsequential? I thought they should have played the section up where they had no idea who was an LMD and who wasn't for longer as that was possibly the most interesting bit of the season. That said, loved the unhinged ADA in the last ep when she was learning emotions and got dumped.

i have no idea what MODOK is, but i have to say this season has been off the chart bonkers, but very entertaining.

have to be careful not to read too much here, as in the UK we have just got to the fake world part.

i've got a pretty big backlog of these to work through but the promise of any kind of modok-related content is more than enough to get me to get back on the horse

Myself also - we got to the bit in Season 3 where they visit the alien world, and there is much drama and then everyone escapes except everyone escapes - and there are still 12 episodes to go? Fuck a US television season.

the Hydra fake world felt... inconsequential?

Huuuuuuh?!? This does not compute at all, particularly wrt one specific member of the team who I won't mention for the sake of spoilers. But also that story hasn't quite wrapped up yet.

This has been the best season yet, imo.

I am legitimately ashamed of myself for missing that MODOK reference. Sending back my FOOM card as we speak.

Since the other UK people are behind I won't spoiler it either but I was specifically thinking in terms of the one big showmance and how it played out. Once they were back it was just status quo despite what happened out there. The Daisy plot there seemed to be all about the relationship (dodging spoilers there hard beyond that statement) and I felt the relationship between it an the real world was really badly explained - if you died in either world you died in both, except for the people who were already dead who were then alive? And I didn't really like the ADA resolution at all, which again was handwaved by "remember that thing we did?".

Second half of Season 1, post-Hydra reveal and close to Civil War (plus Bill Paxton chewing it up) is the peak I think.

Maybe it's just getting lost in the morass of shows at the moment, with all the CW stuff getting to season finale too, but this season just hasn't stood out for me. Wasn't keen on the Ghost Rider section, LMD had promise but pulled the wrong levers imo and noting it's not resolved yet but Agents of Hydra has been v patchy.

Yeah, man, I feel like we're watching different shows. I'm not usually crazy about alternate/virtual reality storylines because they tend to leave no lasting impact, but they've found some very novel ways to make the trip into the Framework matter on a number of levels (and I wasn't even thinking about the team member who chose to stay plugged in and the effect this might have on said team member). And, yes, it's not over yet (although it appears that Ada's Darkhold machina is not likely to deus ex some of the Framework-related things that I thought it might).

Re: the laws of the Framework, I think it's been relatively consistent but these things are rarely entirely coherent so I just have to let go at a point (see also: any and all time travel fiction). But my understanding is that there are already pre-existing avatars of everyone in the world within the Framework, and if you enter from the real world you'll inhabit your avatar (even if they're unfortunately buried in a shallow grave, say). But if you subsequently die in the Framework, your IRL body also dies.

I felt the relationship between it an the real world was really badly explained - if you died in either world you died in both, except for the people who were already dead who were then alive?

It's virtual reality! Anyone in the simulation, whether they were dead, alive, or never even existed in the real world were completely simulated. That wasn't Ward, and that wasn't Mac's daughter -- they were computer simulations of those people. I'm fine with the "you die in VR, you die in real life" since that's the oldest "I'm plugged into a computer" trope there is. I am not sure why the rest of it is confusing.

And I've botched it by stating it poorly.

Anyone in the simulation who was not a real life person plugged into a machine was simulated.

imo the only real question, which is completely irrelevant to the plot of the show as presented, is whether all of the simulated people were Ada-style artificial intelligences based on all the data the computer crunched, or if they were just non-player characters reacting to stimuli.

xpost Yes. There's a simulated you walking around inside the Framework. When you enter the Framework, you inhabit that avatar. And they suggested fairly strongly that when you leave the Framework, your avatar will continue on without your consciousness to guide it. Except for those instances where, while inhabiting your avatar, either you or your avatar die, in which case it's Game Over for both of you, man.

My interpretation (and this is largely speculative because I don't think it was even necessarily implied) is that the Framework is kind of a hybrid between a virtual and an alternate reality. There's a lot of techie algorithm-ing involved but the thing is also to some extent Darkhold-derived. And that, I assumed, is what accounted in large part for the Framework's ability to so completely replicate an entire world's worth of people without any uncanny valley-ness. Because, for instance, how on earth would you program the complex existence of Mack's daughter such that he can't see right through the simulation?

Like my hunch is that the Framework just exists now, independently of any earthbound hardware. It's a whole separate universe unto itself that can be entered via technological means. We'll see how my theory pans out next week, I guess.

you're linked directly into his brain, just override any suspicions with a strong "it's her" xp

loved the Ophelia claim that it was another world, Fitz isn't evil now.. and neither is she!

whatever, lady

You're both right, this is just symptomatic of how little the show has impacted on me and how little I seem to be able to engage with it.

I'm the guy with decades of Marvel & DC continuity in my head - even the volumes of unbelievably shit stuff over the past 5 years - and still struggle with how leaden the concepts have been here.

Rebirth has stolen your joy, aldo.

kudos to the actress playing Aida having done two distinctly different characters and three versions of the same android/simulation/human character

The two-shot with her and Fitz in the containment cell in the last episode is the highlight of the season.

her "wait... what?" reaction to Fitz saying he only can love Jemma was great

Also, since you brought up the DC shows earlier...I'm so much more invested in this show and the characters and their relationships than I am in any of the stuff happening on the CW. I cannot think of a DC character they could kill off that I'd be at all affected by, but moments like the Fitz and Simmons reconciliation this week...man, that got to me. And I'm all 'they've got to run the Trip avatar through Ada's body-making machine!' and 'we can't lose Mack!' As opposed to 'oh, did [REDACTED DC CHARACTER] just get killed? (yaaaaaawn)'.

kudos to the actress playing Aida having done two distinctly different characters and three versions of the same android/simulation/human character

― mh, Friday, May 12, 2017 11:15 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was seriously going to follow up with this exact comment. I don't mean to overshoot or anything, but her performance has been some Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive, 'wait, is that the same actress?!'-level stuff.

For me the whole ADA storyline has been a kinda boring cul-de-sac of a story

The ada character felt like pure fanservice from the off with her sexy corporate chic attire & quiet smolder oh she might love me oh she might kill me ... the IDEA of this story is a huge eyeroll for me

there have been entertaining parts & i dont hate it completely but it feels like a placeholder story while they figure out a new arc, it just does not interest me

I know it makes me a 5 year old but I dont caaaaaaaare about lady robots & fuckin virtual reality worlds & i just want to see them fight bad guys in a normal marvel way instead of whatever this endlessness is

I think you mean "normal marvel movie / netflix show way"

half of the comics just churn crap in a much worse way than this!

but yeah, the "two guys secretly build a HOT ROBOT in their garage" bit was kind of a red herring for the much creepier reality that a scientist built a robot that looks like his dying friend (?!?) and ends up being the key, along with supernatural shenanigans, to letting the real one keep on living virtually

imo they dropped the ball on showing Agnes living her life -- she was literally kept on an island in the virtual world so she wouldn't find out her permanent home was a fascist wonderland!

i think you know i meant that since i usually dont talk about comic books much

hey lady I don't share all my interests on this board, I'm not going to make any assumptions

i aint reading any of the last posts, but ...
i am glad others are watching it.
they have totally raised their game with this season.
so many LOL moments and !!!! moments.
it's a massive weekly highlight for me and my 13 year old kid.

xpost fair enough lol

I know it makes me a 5 year old but I dont caaaaaaaare about lady robots & fuckin virtual reality worlds & i just want to see them fight bad guys in a normal marvel way instead of whatever this endlessness is

― Yoni Loves Chocha (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, May 12, 2017 12:40 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was gonna say but mh beat me to it. Every fourth Marvel comic you pull out of a random stack is likely to be about lady robots and/or fuckin virtual reality worlds (particularly if it's a stack of Marvel's popular '80s title Lady Robots & Fuckin Virtual Reality Worlds).

good book

The most recent episode with the "it's all too much!" Aida breaking down was the first where I appreciated the actor's ability. Nicely done. And I do appreciate how it may take a lot of LMDzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz episodes, but there's a payoff with the tv MCU gaining a Madame Hydra. Reminded me a lot of the Cap movies working the Purge actor into Crossbones.

sidebar (spoilery?)
I'm not that sad that Mac stayed behind tbh, they've not given him a whole lot to do for a while now.
he just kinda frowns and stands around now.