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

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.