MARVEL Agents of SHIELD

[J-Sun]

Ratings for #1-3 by demo and total audience in millions (only the demo really matters):

1 - 4.7 - 12.12
2 - 3.3 - 8.66
3 - 2.9 - 7.87

So, obviously, it premiered well (though not through the roof given the incoming buzz) but then dropped precipitously (30%) in its second episode - not a successful first episode. The demo hit for the third was still significant (12%) but maybe it's bottoming out - a similar curve would get it a 2.7 or so next week but, if everybody feels like we do about #3, maybe positive word of mouth could even get it to 3.0 again. But it has to be an expensive show to make - but it must have great potential tie-in value. I'd guess the ABC folks are disappointed but it's probably safe as long as it does bottom out in the 2.5-3.0 range. ABC averages about a 2.1. It really needs to beat that. For instance, Terra Nova suffered from tepid ratings and expensive production costs and didn't survive. (Even at its worst, SHIELD has been better than Terra Nova, but quality doesn't pay the bills.)

As far as #3 being so different from the first two, it's odd - Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen co-wrote all three episodes. The only difference is they didn't have a third cook in the kitchen for this last episode, where #1 had Joss Himself (in what may have been his weakest premiere, unless it was Dollhouse) and #2 had Jeffrey Bell, who will be flying solo for #4.

Alien: Resurrection?

Gah. Did not happen. Doesn't exist.

 

[Bob Whitely]

I definitely enjoyed episode 3 better than 2. hard not to. Let's hope as J-Sun says, they don't get much lower. Better yet, let's hope they stay at Episode 3 quality or better.

I just would feel more comfortable if they gave us more assurances that they weren't going to mess with the Marvel universe too badly. I'm still upset over Avengers 2 and hoping they clean that up.

I don't believe there were Alien movies beyond 1-2, or at least my friend and I have a standing agreement to pretend 3+ didn't exist because we couldn't stand them. Aliens is one of my all time favorite movies - in the top 5 anyway. I loved Alien too, and I'm not even into horror, though anyone that knows me knows I'm into blended-genre, which it was, of course.

 

[J-Sun]

Episode 4 didn't get the positive-word-of-mouth bump to go all the way to 3.0 but it did beat the 2.7 extrapolation (after being adjusted up a tenth over the preliminary ratings) with 2.8 so, while it may fluctuate, it's probably basically leveled off and should be safe for awhile - if it does hold about here all season, it'll likely be renewed.

I forgot to turn it on until 20-30 minutes in, though, and what I saw looked kind of "meh" again.

 

[ctg]

Well, to me this was one step forward and whole episode felt like it was very well done. I especially liked them using European countries and still getting away by being total Americans. F*ck Yeah.

 

[Mouse]

Watching this for the first time now. Don't know what episode this is but it's utter bilge.

Several things:

1. One of the women is in the van and can't reach the pedals to drive away before another van rams them. Instead of simply adjusting the seat, she piddles about with a gun that, like the seat, she doesn't know how to work and they get rammed anyway.

2. A character's being given instructions by someone they can't hear. The instructions are written. The character giving the instructions uses the word 'lift' instead of elevator. Therefore, they are English. Erm... what? No. England is not the only country in the world to use the word 'lift.'

3. Apparently you can tell a person's sexual orientation just by looking at them.

4. The person who is being given the instructions is a black woman. A white man puts on these special glasses so that the person controlling her sees what he sees instead of what she sees and so thinks he's her. But um... what about his male, white, hands?? These are presumably very much in shot when he punches someone in the face.

There were more but it's just so awful I can't even concentrate any more.

 

[J-Sun]

So we can mark Mouse down as a Huge Fan. How is everybody else feeling about it? I notice a steady drumbeat of Bleh in the media:

Why Marvel’s ‘Agents of SHIELD’ Isn’t Totally Super @ variety.com, Oct.2
Only You Can Prevent Boring Fires. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: “The Girl in the Flower Dress” @ tor.com, Oct.23 (episode review)
Entertainment Geekly: How to fix 'Agents of SHIELD' @ ew.com, Oct.24
and the prize-winning title:
Review: What's W.R.O.N.G. with 'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'? @ hitfix.com, Oct.29

There may have been some positive reviews but, if so, I haven't seen them. The general tenor seems to be "It doesn't totally suck but it needs to be 'fixed'." Which I think is more than fair. I may tune in another time or two and see if they can get it going but I'm about out of patience and interest. How does the Chronosphere feel?

 

[martin321]

I saw the first two episodes and then decided that there were better things I could be watching, so I stopped at that point. It wasn't terrible, just very average.

 

[Dave]

How does the Chronosphere feel?

I stopped watched after the 1st episode. The posts here almost convinced me to watch the 2nd because it got better with the 3rd but ultimately...

I decided that there were better things I could be watching.

 

[J-Sun]

Looks like I was wrong about it bottoming out - ratings the last three weeks have been 2.8, 2.7, 2.5 (last night's). So the pace of the fall actually picked up a little last night and is quite a long way from the 4.7 premiere.

Here's a tor.com review (spoilers) of last night's episode.

Last night's episode was actually one of only two I liked (the other being the check-your-brain-at-the-door fun of "The Asset" (the gravity, throw-trucks-in-the-air episode). So I disagree with aspects of the review. It's a paint-by-numbers episode but those things need to be painted.

(This paragraph has spoilers.) I feel like we did learn more about Simmons and about Fitz - she's not a mousy dedicated scientist just out for truth, justice, and the Marvel way, but has a bit adventurousness to her and a sense of fun. And, if we were supposed to know this, I missed it - we knew the two were a tandem but I didn't realize they had been so close for so long or that, while she needs him, he definitely needs her and seems to actually have followed her into Shield. Or that they'd failed their field assessments and, if not, she'd probably be very happy to be much more active. And we learned that she will make the ultimate sacrifice. So I feel like I know them much better and even like them more. The show should have been doing this all along with all the characters.

I don't find the "mystery" of Coulson all that interesting. He's been cloned or there's actually a computer chip in his android head containing his last brainscan before he died or whatever - who cares? The point is, we know something's wrong with him. Since he died, and all. Yeah, check. IOW, the ramifications this has on his day to day activity ("that's not the Coulson I used to know") is interesting, but I don't really care about the mystery or its solution. I liked the scene with doomed firefighter, but I suspect he was compassionately lying.

I do agree that we're not wrestling with the problematic nature of Shield enough.

And I disagree that the show has to compete with jaded comic book fans. It's a TV show and it would be a fatal mistake to try to cater to any other audience. Originality is overrated. It just needs to tell good stories well. It needs to develop good characters. And it needs to be about the sociopolitical realities like the NSA and other entities, explored through the, um, prism, of Shield. Good fun stories with a little serious extra.

Anyway - regarding your comments, martin321 and Dave, I don't have cable so have just American network TV and all I watch besides football is Person of Interest, Elementary and (barely, for now) Grimm and Shield. So there's not much better for me to watch - though there's certainly better things I could be reading. My big problem is that, while Shield is pretty mediocre, it comes on at 8 while PoI comes on at 10, which means two hours in the same night, but two *separated* hours, which sucks. I still expect to quit watching Shield at any minute but last night's ep bought the show at least one more week's watching for me. But I totally understand folks already having given up.

 

[ctg]

I think the show is doing great, and knowing how well Whedon put together his other series I'm suspecting this one will develop a cult status within a year, while the mainstream audience moves away leaves this to the geeks. Also knowing that there's going to be strong movie ties, I really doubt Fox will have balls to send this in the bin.

PS. I absolutely love the humour, the interaction between the characters and them growing stronger towards the end of the season. Also there are quite many Americanised flaws in the characters. So thumps up for that.

 

[Ice fyre]

Well have watched a few of the series so far, think were up to five, Channel 4 in the UK, the series has taken a break here. Overall I quite enjoyed it. So far so good, not bad not fantastic, quite watchable, nice nod to Marvel main Universe as the chap who fell into the Gravity producing element is indeed a bad guy known as Gravitron. We shall see what they make of that in the future.

I feel its gearing up, as the shows go on I feel a tension starting, yes its cheesy, but what were you expecting ...yellow spandex? To be fair this is new ground for Marvel, the whole shared universe thing is new to everyone. I have patience and I think I shall be rewared, I like the "New" Coulson but the hints he is different are far too heavy.

This is going to be a very slow burner but i09 has a very postitve review of later episodes, so am going to keep watching and hoping for cameo's from the Big bang guys!

 

[thaddeus6th]

I liked tonight's episode. There's room for improvement, but tonight's was pretty good and, as J-Sun wrote on the preceding page, it was good to see a bit more of Fitz-Simmons.

The fact the female cast is entirely attractive does not diminish my interest.

 

[J-Sun]

Last week we had Simmons and this week we have Fitz. I liked last week's pretty thoroughly. I was thinking how it got near, but avoided, the ham-handed "we like Tara so you have to like her, too!" episode of Buffy. I liked this week's, too, but it was even more predictable and did sort of fall into the "excess of character appreciation" trap. Still, it was okay.

There's a line in this Steranko lament that hits precisely on what I've been thinking for the past couple of episodes. It talks about the show having character development "at a pace too stunted to win my approval" and I've been thinking that (a) if they'd just shown slightly different versions of the magnetic truck throwing ep, the Simmons ep, and the Fitz ep 1-2-3-bang!, then I'd probably have been enthusiastic about this show and (b) it would have been even better because they wouldn't have had to make up for lost time and be quite so heavy in the Fitz-Simmons eps. The rest of the eps could have been thrown out or arrived at differently, later.

But, despite the fact that I and some others have liked the last couple, it appears to be too late - the ratings still haven't bottomed out as Shield aired its seventh consecutive lowest rated episode, returning a 2.2 this time. That's actually getting into the danger area and, either way, has to be a crushing disappointment to all suits involved.

 

[I_Voyager]

I'm a little disappointed in the show.

I really did enjoy all of the Marvel Universe movies thus far. I figured after having fleshed out a very involved and detailed Marvel universe, a show could advance the whole story world from where it is to somewhere interesting in time with the next movies.

Instead, the TV show feels like a separate entity joined at the hip by a few jokes and half-ass references. They could have used the first two seasons to develop more Avengers, super-hero quality characters usable in future movies. They could have created conflicts worth remembering and referencing in the movies. Instead its a slow moving episodic adventure.

Nothing is drastic enough to be satisfying. Every challenge feels like a walk through the park. "Tahiti is a magical place" is getting old. Advance the story already! I get it, there's an underground movement and these conflicts are like leaking mysteries before the big blow-up. I get it, the new girl is personally connected. I get it, it's gonna help justify the Scarlet Witch and the magic element of the Marvel world. It's just, you could do SO much more to advance the whole Marvel Universe cannon with a TV series and they're just... Not.

Way too many "I died in the Avengers movie" jokes.

I do enjoy the combat and technological vision. I do enjoy the overall wit that Whedon puts into all his shows.

 

[J-Sun]

Instead, the TV show feels like a separate entity joined at the hip by a few jokes and half-ass references. They could have used the first two seasons to develop more Avengers, super-hero quality characters usable in future movies. They could have created conflicts worth remembering and referencing in the movies. Instead its a slow moving episodic adventure.

That's an interesting thought. I think conceptually the TV show was definitely supposed to be second banana to the movies but there's no reason this had to be. But I think taking issue with that is more about the concept than the execution. I never expected this to be "theatrical movie" material - just better than it's been.

I forgot to include a link in my last post - if anyone wants to read a review of the last episode there's this one at tor.com.

 

[ctg]

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has always been chock full of comic-book Easter eggs, but last night’s episode — directed by Jonathan Frakes — was its first official intersection with Marvel’s cinematic universe and a follow-up to its latest superhero blockbuster, Thor: The Dark World. It also marks something Marvel fans have been waiting for since the series premiere: a sign that this show could actually get good.
Crossovers are often the weakest points of series, but this is just the opposite, taking S.H.I.E.L.D. up a notch from “has potential” to “solidly good television.”

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Gets Good, Finally | Underwire | Wired.com

 

[Juliana]

I forgot to include a link in my last post - if anyone wants to read a review of the last episode there's this one at tor.com.

Tor does great reviews. This week's is especially funny: Luna Lovegood, anyone?

 

[Yog-Sothoth]

Agent Coulson: Thor follows me on Twitter ...Thor knows my name....Thor came to my birthday....Thor is the godfather of my children...alright, alright, ALRIGHT already we know you know him, so stop milking the bloody Avengers and start introducing OTHER superheroes that most likely will never receive their own films!

And no I really don't care what happened in Tahiti, no need for those breadcrumbs, give me more Graviton type of episodes. I noticed all the good ones were written by Jed Whedon and Maurissa, maybe having them write everything would be better. This feels more like the live-action side-episodes of the 90s GI-Joe cartoon than what it potentially could be; a hybrid of X-Files and Heroes.

 

[Ice fyre]

I read somewhere that the events of Captain America 2 will directly impact on the Agents of Shield, what that means I have no idea.

 

[Jonathan C]

The rumour was that AoS will tie into Cap 2 (AoS will finish before Cap 2 even comes out, unless they mean season 2). It might mean that the main villains of AoS will be tied to the villains of the movie (or the same as). The film seems to be about SHIELD becoming more dangerous and extreme and it might be adapting a comic book storyline where the Secretary of Defence turned out to be the Red Skull in disguise, so a world where their own teammates might be villains would tie in pretty easily.