Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[Avaitor]

And it's clear that Joss Whedon has a thing for Eliza Dushku and/or he really wants her to be a star; she dominates most of the scenes and Whedon keeps putting her in all of his shows. I keep wanting to say to Joss, "Geez, just ask her out already!".

That's not Eliza though- Skye is played by Chloe Bennett.

But you can totally tell that Joss totally wanted Eliza for the role.

[GregX]

They should've known better than to try to make a TV show set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with no big name MCU actors (except for Clark Gregg), no superheroes and none of the big name characters.

It's not even that. This show could have been good without any of those things. But the writing sucks, the acting sucks, the SFX sucks (and it has a much higher budget than other shows which use their limitations wisely).

They should have known better than to try to make a TV show set in the MCU without quality writing and acting, which the movies mostly have.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Agreed. If all these movies really needed was powerful heroes and spectacle to be good, then on that end, something like Captatin America should not have worked as well as it did (given how much less of that stuff it has relative to the other MCU films). That film still managed to make a hero without any real superpowers or special gadgets just as interesting as any of the best heroes out there, mostly through good writing and acting.

The cast on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. may have no super powers, but I never gave a crap about that to begin with. If anything, the lack of super powers could have worked as a strength to the show, letting us see how more ordinary people operated in the MCU, and the smaller-scale problems brought up as consequences and after-effects of the big events that the "suits" had to tackle in the movies. The problem is that these characters are so god-awfully boring. Their personalities feel completely artificial, and I have yet to see any interesting layers to a single character on this show. They are very much characters who are defined by their respective roles on the team, and nothing more.

I'll probably watch the Thor: The Dark World tie-in episode this week (though I expect that to be just as boring as the rest), and after that I'll probably call it quits as well.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, tell me how that goes, and if anyone shows up. I'm only expecting Selvig to appear, but still.

I'm basically done unless it makes a 180.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I don't see a 180 happening anytime in this season. I'm pretty sure that it'll just stay as consistently bland as it has been so far. The only chance this series has for a complete 180 is if it gets renewed for a 2nd season and the writers actually manage to take all of the feedback and criticism that this series has got in order to make it better. If this series did somehow manage to get a 2nd season, I'd only be willing to check out the first episode of that season, and if that didn't manage to do a thing to change my mind, then I'd be done with this series for good.

As things are going right now, though, the ratings are pretty sub-par from what I hear, and considering how expensive it must be to fund a TV show, I'm not sure if it'd be wise for Marvel to keep pursuing this.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Wow, looks like just about everyone has soured on this show. At least now I don't feel bad about bailing on the series after the second episode. 

[Avaitor]

So EK, was this episode any good?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It was as good as every other episode in this show so far....

....Which, in other words, means that it was piss-awfully boring. How you take a plot involving an actual Asgardian living on Earth and make it into something so mundane and uninteresting is beyond me. Fuck this show.

[GregX]

It was as good as every other episode in this show so far....

....Which, in other words, means that it was piss-awfully boring. How you take a plot involving an actual Asgardian living on Earth and make it into something so mundane and uninteresting is beyond me. Fuck this show.

You want some good fantasy, come watch "Game of Thrones"

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm seriously wondering just how much involvement Joss Whedon even really had with this show. I mean, I'm not one of the people who considers the guy to be a writing/directing genius by any means (at least as far as TV shows go; I've never read any of his comic book material), but I have always thought of him to at least have standards much higher than this show. I'm really starting to wonder if Marvel just made it look as though he had more of an attachment to this show's development and production than he really did. Outside of the first episode which he co-wrote and directed, I don't think I've seen any single episode this season (so far  that directly has his name attached to it in the credits (other than being a producer).

You want some good fantasy, come watch "Game of Thrones"

Looks like I'll need to start collecting the DVD sets for Christmas.

Meanwhile, I still have the DVDs for Bordwalk Empire lying around and I haven't gotten back to it in a while. I'll need to fix that when I free up some time next month during my break from rotations.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, I know with Dollhouse and this show, he let his brother and sister-in-law do some writing because he was busy with Avengers stuff. And no Tim Minear to even stuff out.

Also, The Wire. Only $18 a season.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, it's more their fault than his, it seems. I've heard mixed things about Spartacus, on the other hand.

[Silverstar]

It's funny; everyone at Toon Zone thinks Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is great. If you read their posts, the show is awesome and keeps getting better. I guess TZ exists to be the polar opposite doppleganger to Animation Revelation.

[Avaitor]

I don't think it's just a tz-AR thing. From what I've seen elsewhere, including in person at an even at my local comic book shop last night, the opinions on the show seem to be pretty divided. A fair amount of people think that the show is improving, while there's plenty who agree with those that just don't give a damn about it.

[Avaitor]

I'm not watching the show, but apparently the ratings have been up in the past couple of weeks. Not by a whole lot, but any gain matters.

Which means it might get a second season, which potentially means it can improve. We'll see though.