As much as I love comic books and the film products they
inspire, my viewership of non-animated superhero television prior to Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D. was
limited to a few reruns of the 1960s Batman
and Lois & Clark: The New
Adventures of Superman,
and a single episode of Smallville. Furthermore,
last night’s premiere was the very first show created by Joss Whedon I ever
watched (cue shock and dismay from fans of Buffy
and Firefly). So in reviewing the episode,
I get a bit of an advantage in being able to critique it solely on its own
merits, rather than just measuring it against those other works intentionally
or instinctively.
By those merits,
the program is pretty average. I realize it’s a pilot, and therefore the tone
and direction of the show could change in subsequent episodes. But last night’s entry followed the formula of a genre of which I’m not very fond: the police
procedural. Maybe I’m just spoiled by the age of shows with ongoing plotlines,
but the new-case-each-week formula doesn’t keep my interest. Just an hour or
less isn’t enough time for a story to get very compelling, especially when it’s
always conveniently resolved at the end.
Being in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, the methods the characters use are a little less scientific
than typical police work, their equipment more sci-fi than what most cops have
at their disposal. Still, every one slides right into the typical procedural
roles. Clark Gregg’s Agent Phil Coulson, whose apparent death in The Avengers
is revealed to have been averted (I’m not spoiling anything there because Coulson’s
return was revealed in the show’s marketing), is the boss figure. There are two
new faces just being introduced to the fray: introverted combat expert Agent
Ward (Brett Dalton), and underground hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet) who goes from
trying to expose S.H.I.E.L.D. to aiding them. One might assume these two will
become the main leads. There are the eccentric personalities that work more in
the safety of the station (or classified headquarters in this case) instead of the field in Fitz
(Iain De Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge). And there’s Ming-Na Wen, who gets the least amount of lines or screen time, but best I
could tell fills the archetype of the veteran who wants to slow down but
reluctantly gets forced back into action. Oh, and this week’s case involves a laid
off factory worker (J. August Richards) who has super strength, but can’t seem
to control his temper.
Aside from the problems
with procedural story execution I’ve already discussed, the cast seems a little
stiff. The only one who really seems comfortable in his role is Gregg, and that’s
only because he’s played Coulson since the first Iron Man five years ago. The humor and banter between the characters,
one of the most appealing elements of the Marvel films, just falls flat here (the obvious “Fitz-Simmons” pun fails so badly that it would have been
appropriate to edit in cricket chirps). But then when the show tries to be serious,
it’s almost funny in a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek way. Almost every piece of
serious dialogue is of the corny intrigue or pump-up-the-audience variety that fills
movie trailers. In this case, literally, as much of the serious dialogue
consists of sound bites already shown in the promos.
But, again, this
is the pilot, and pilots themselves are almost like long ads for the rest of
the series. Now that the show’s introduced the characters and their roles in
the narrative, maybe now the cast will loosen up like Gregg and show a little more
spark, and they’ll move on to stronger development and storytelling. The revelation
of where Richards obtained his powers (I won’t spoil it, but it continues a
plotline that began in Iron Man 3)
gave me a little hope in that regard. So did an interlude where an agent
recovers an amulet left over from the Chitauri invasion in The Avengers. Both could make for some interesting continuing
stories with the potential to cross over into the upcoming Marvel films (maybe
we’ll even see cameos by Iron Man or the
other Avengers if we’re lucky), or at least form a story thread that will
somewhat connect standalone episodes. It's worth giving it at least a couple
episodes to find out where these elements are going.
On the downside,
the episode’s ending—a blatant ripoff of Back
to the Future—is very random and confusing, like something more fitting for
a surreal comedy. I’m still not exactly sure how I feel about it, but the
feeling isn’t a positive one.
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