{"id":1555,"date":"2013-11-06T17:09:25","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T23:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2013-11-06T17:09:25","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T23:09:25","slug":"why-i-dont-like-agents-of-shield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/2013\/11\/06\/why-i-dont-like-agents-of-shield\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Don’t Like Agents of SHIELD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yeah, I know, not very skeptical, but I think that this tells us a lot about our culture.<\/p>\n

When I grew up, there were some shows I loved to watch. \u00a0Knight Rider, AirWolf, the A-Team, Battlestar Galactica, and the like. \u00a0Friday nights were like Christmas, because all the science fictiony, cool, male 12-44 demographics shows were on then. \u00a0But even then, I was vaguely disappointed. \u00a0If you remember Airwolf, then you remember the exct same flight and air battle scenes every single time. \u00a0The A-Team, far from being the elite special forces units, never actually hit anything with a rifle. \u00a0And KITT just kept getting faster and loaded down with more incomprehensible gadgets… go, go gadget frequency analyzer.<\/p>\n

Even some of the modern shows that I think are great have that same “monster of the week”, “today’s episode has no effect ever again” kind of program. \u00a0Rory Williams, called “The Centurian” in the Doctor Who universe, should be called “The Man Who Died”. \u00a0I recently rewatched the Matt Smith series and I counted no fewer than five times Rory died. \u00a0Yet that didn’t seem to affect him very much as he always reappeared, no worse for wear. \u00a0How many times could Murdoch escape from mental institutions before Ph.D. level psychologists and psychiatrists realize that he’s playing them? \u00a0Even Daniel Jackson in the SG-1 series died three or four times.<\/p>\n

To me, who likes a rich story line and characters that change over time, it quickly became boring. \u00a0One highlight was an American interpretation of a Japanese import called Robotech. \u00a0But I guess when you have dozens of people writing the stories and you can’t do permanent harm to someone just in case someone else needs that character for their story… well, it gets kind of boring.<\/p>\n

Buffy the Vampire Slayer changed a lot of that. \u00a0It probably wasn’t the first really serial show and it wouldn’t be the last, but it remains one of the best… except for the last episode, Josh had a great chance there and missed it.* \u00a0But we watched Buffy, Giles, Willow, and Xander grow and change… pretty radically. \u00a0Just watch the first few episodes and then watch the episode where Xander and Anya almost get married.<\/p>\n

Stargate SG-1 (and spin-offs) eventually got to this point. \u00a0I really enjoyed the SG-1 Atlantis crossovers and the deep mythology that filled their universe. \u00a0It was mostly consistent and made us want to know more and figure everything out.<\/p>\n

Now we turn our attention to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. \u00a0This was given so many advantages right from the start that it should have been an instant success. \u00a0Josh Whedon is involved (not very much and I hope his career survives this one). \u00a0It takes place in the Marvel Shared Universe which has a massively devoted following, some of the absolute best actors and actresses in the business and some record breaking movies. \u00a0It also has the greatest bit part character to ever appear in movies, Phil Coulson.<\/p>\n

I want to love this show. \u00a0But even with all those advantages, it feels like we’re back in the 80s watching one of those Friday night, Greg Larson specials… and not a particularly good one. \u00a0Maybe Streethawk or Manimal.<\/p>\n

We’re four episodes in and there’s been no power, no emotion, no real decent stories. \u00a0There’s never been a situation that felt like there was any real danger or world changing events. \u00a0These people live in a world with Thor, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov, and Nick Fury (which, admittedly had a bit part in one episode). \u00a0And it’s almost like no one cares. \u00a0Several billion dollars worth of damage to NYC and no one ever mentions it.<\/p>\n

The characters are wooden… the actors are fine. \u00a0I like all of them (with the except of the male science geek… whoever plays him). \u00a0But the only history in these characters (and the two most interesting points of the entire show) are the mystery of Coulson and why is May called “The Cavalry” \u00a0and why does she hate it. \u00a0Honestly, I couldn’t caare less about Ward or the geeks (and I am a geek…). \u00a0Skye’s character would have been more surprising if she hadn’t been a ‘traitor’… which is taking the definition of traitor pretty loosely.<\/p>\n

If this show just stopped, I can’t imagine anyone writing in to complain or say how it should be saved (like Firefly).<\/p>\n

I really think that even US audiences are beginning to find series arcs interesting and fun, rather than the monster\/planet\/villian of the week type thing that we grew up with. \u00a0Even when others write the episodes, it’s possible to unify them into a coherent long-term arc of character development and plot. \u00a0It’s been done before… and done well. \u00a0And it’s been done by someone who is ‘involved’ with Agents of SHIELD. \u00a0I wish he would step back in.<\/p>\n

This show could be awesome. \u00a0But it’s not.<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

*If you need to know what I”m talking about, then read the comic book Fray: Future Slayer<\/a>\"\"\u00a0and then imagine if Willow had caused the events that resulted in Fray’s world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah, I know, not very skeptical, but I think that this tells us a lot about our culture. When I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,529],"tags":[589,342,590],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-fiction-2","tag-agents-of-shield","tag-science-fiction","tag-tv-shows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}