Today begins the sixth week of the broadcast television season. At this point freshman shows start to establish their groove, what makes them tick, showing of their personalities and quirks. In turn, we, the viewers, begin to get clearer picture of which shows are worth our time. This year’s freshman class is already outdoing the previous years’ by miles and miles. Brooklyn 99, Trophy Wife and Back in the Game are all immensely fun. The Originals, a spin off to the CW’s top rated Vampire Dairies show, is TV to talk about. But none of these shows came close to the preseason excitement that Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. generated.

For many of the people who’ve been enjoying the movies and general comic book fans they couldn’t wait for the premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which on this blog will, A, never be referred to as “Marvel’s” anything as it’s a TV show and no other company tries to put the company name ahead of the new property, and B, will henceforth in this article not include those dots because I don’t want to waste five minutes typing out one word). I got swept up in the excitement, ready to see some of the lesser superheroes and side characters of the Marvelverse come to life on my television.

Through the first three episodes SHIELD started hinting that it wanted to see other people, it might not want to hang out with the comic book crowd. It played hot and cold in episode four and five, trying too hard to get, but it really doesn’t want comic fans. My desire to love this show partially blinded me to what SHIELD wanted to be not what I wanted it to be and now that I’m ready to get off the hype train it throws minor references in my face, trying to bring me back.

There are a major issues with Agents of Shield, the most glaring of which is the gap between who its audience is and who it WANTS to have as its audience. Shows based on comic book properties usually had some camp and goofiness while trying to pass off superpowers as normal activities. Shield, a government agency that tries to keep the supers in line plays it a little closer to the vest. Over the first five episodes it has close to fully rejected the idea that it’s a super powered world, striving to be a hybrid of NCIS and CSI with a splash of James Bond thrown in. Using the tie-in to the Marvelverse as a honeypot, ABC and Marvel wanted to recreate those shows’ success for a younger generation, using the mission of the week format to stay fresh and new. Balancing the procedural nature of cop dramas with the serialized stylings that young television viewers look for now is a tough needle to thread. Made even more difficult when you see the list of interested parties involved.

For SHIELD, there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Disney doesn’t want anything to screw with the money train, ABC wants a massively successful procedural that could potentially last for years, and Marvel wants to expand their movie dominance to the silver screen, destroying the DC beachhead in the process. The show runners and writers are tasked with making their overlords happy, while maintaining the high quality of The Avengers. In some respects handling them is easy, Marvel puts their logo in front of each episode, a pompous move that no other company does, but it’s what they demand, but maintaining quality is never easy.

The decision to tie SHEILD into the movieverse post avengers hasn’t help make the staffs’ lives easier, as crafting interesting, compelling stories, with actual stakes while simultaneously not encroaching upon anything that might be touched in a later movie is hard. Made even worse when you realize Marvel has movie plans into 2021. Characters that normally wouldn’t be seen in a theater might be languishing in future scripts preventing their appearance in the television show. The fear of locking in an actor to play a specific character has led to the creation of an all new cast, with new villain, both sides tied back to the comics in name only.

SHIELD hasn’t even pretended it’s in a comic book universe, unless you count near incisive references to “the battle of new York” (did you hear about what happened to New York?) and the tags at the end of the episodes were they pretend the movie stars might actually be in an episode of TV. Instead, comic fans get bones, passing mentions to Z list villains and evil organizations

At the end of the second episode, there was a scene with Samuel L. Jackson, reprising his role as Nick Fury. This tag, only served to highlight another major weakness, how bland the cast is. Out of the five original characters created for television only one of them is able to induce any emotion outside of boredom or hatred, Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May.

Wen plays a bad ass no nonsense agent who just got pulled of self-imposed desk duty, previously being one of the best in the field. The other four new characters range from bland (Brett Dalton as Grant Ward) to annoying (lain De Caestecker as Leo Fitz and Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons) with a stop off at uncomfortable (Chloe Bennet as Skye).

NCIS has been able to exist for near eternity, because many of the viewers would tune in for an episode where they get laid off of work, go get a beer and shoot the shit for forty five minutes. The focus of characters before plot, before set pieces and exotic locales allows NCIS to do whatever it likes, as people just want to see their friends after a long day of work. Meanwhile over in SHIELD after five hours of television the pair of scientists have the character depth of a teaspoon. Generically named Grant Ward, a man who works better alone, could be killed at any moment without eliciting a response from the audience, save for a yawn. And Skye, a paint by the numbers mary sue hacker, has spent more time either naked or running without a bra than spending time defining her character.

There was a moment in the most recent episode, where a big reveal about Skye’s backstory was supposed to make the audience understand her better, instead left me yawning and annoyed, as the future plot twist in that entire story line only took a moments’ thought before they become appeant. A watershed moment, hurt, not just by the predictable turns the future of the show will take, but by the fact that the defining scene for Skye in the episode was when she was half naked, sleeping with a sudo enemy.

That’s not to mention the plot holes her existence creates. How is one person, holed up in a van able to hack into a government agency whom is supposed to be a supped up version of NSA. SHEILD should, theoretically possess the most secure networks in the known world, and she gets in with what looks like relative ease. It’s a minor thing, but Whedon shows don’t normally make these obvious mistakes. If it stood alone as a problem it could be ignored, carried by the rest of the show, instead its another chink in already weak armor.

With her role in the show as a cypher for the audience, she completely her tasks, just barely, but the rest of the cast (again minus Wen) sets such a low bar for quality that it wouldn’t be a stretch to call Skye the second best new character of the show.

The two scientists are annoying, but that’s more a fault of the script than the actors. The back and forth between the two of them coupled with their lack of field knowledge in only serves to highlight what the script does give them, interaction with each other. They are treated as if they are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, using techno-rich speed talking to sing to one another. Their fast pace repartee feels disingenuous on multiple levels, they’re supposed to be SHEILD agents, so even if they are only scientists they should know how to act in pressure situations.

SHEILD is a Joss Whedon show, of Firefly and Dollhouse fame, pre Avengers. And instead of having a character like Tropher Brink, capable of explaining science fiction technology as if it’s the realist thing in the world, we are treated to blabbering idiots, covering up the fakery of technology with incisive talking. For a guy who has made so many genre shows, I expected better in this area.

The final member of the cast is a character already introduced to the audience, Clark Gregg as agent Coulson. His first appearance in the role was in Iron Man, a limited cameo, serving as an intro to shield, he was nothing more than a talking government suit. The rule of conservation of characters brought him back in Iron Man 2 where his role was slightly expanded upon, continuing to grow in Thor and The Avengers.

He found a place as a foil to Nick Fury. While Fury had no issue going off book to accomplish what he viewed as “the greater good” Coulson played everything straight. Being a normal human, plus the dry humor he gave his character and whip smart dialog from the avengers script allowed Gregg to shine using limited screen time. When he died in the fourth act of The Avengers at the hands of Loki he was forever cemented in action movie lore, his final quip serving to show he was a soldier till the end as his death served a greater purpose.

What started as a limited role in 2008 ended with a level of fame in 2013, his story reaching its natural conclusion. People don’t come back to life, at least in real life. But suddenly Marvel discovered they had a popular new character on their hands, more popular than some of their headliners, they didn’t want to give him up.

Seeing the success that DC had with their television comic book property, Arrow, they used Coulson to headline SHEILD. Bringing him back cheapen his death, a not so popular move amongst a few fans, and with the words of Joss behind him, and the larger than life super actors to bounce off of, Clark falls flat.

The role of mini Nick Fury that he occupies is on that requires a certain sense of gravitas, a screen presence that Gregg just doesn’t seem to process on an weekly basis. It’s not an easy task living up to Jackson’s level but Gregg doesn’t come close. The character that hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions that people fell in love with has become flattened, back to a pancake.

He isn’t Jackson, he strengths aren’t the same, and shoving him into this role for the sake of audience enjoyment only cheapens his role in the movies, saying nothing of the fact his death is worthless in hindsight as he finds himself back in the land of the living after a magically trip to Tahiti.

I think one of the reasons I view Agents of SHIELD so poorly is because of the other comic book show on broadcast television right now, The CW’s Arrow. Currently in its second season its smashed the preverbal ball out of the preverbal park weekly this season. From the creepy to the campy, with call outs to a huge number of fellow comic book characters, Arrow seems to do little wrong. Not to mention the excitement that has fans in a tizzy with the promise of introducing The Flash in future episodes.

The two shows stand oppoisite of each other, as much in style as in company name. Arrow revels in camp, while wearing a dark and edgy hood, Agents of SHEILD plays it straight, trying to show a serious show within a super hero world. Arrow drops DC comics references every episode, going back to the pilot, meanwhile SHEILD only references things that have happened in the movies, not serving up Easter eggs to their loyalists, but instead pissing off everyone with the incessant remarks while reminding everyone that the show isn’t better than a second class citizen.

In the online yelling chambers, some have argued that you can’t compare the two, as Arrow had a bumpy start to begin with, not really becoming good television until after the 9th episode. The early quality of Arrow is definitely shaky; it was still a better show episode against episode in the first five. SHEILD has danced around the shared universe aspect of its mythos, only introducing the viewers to graviton and a Z list character in its five episodes, Arrow went for in from the word go.

In Arrow, five minutes into the pilot the camera pans over a post with an arrow through a mask, a mask worn by the popular anti-hero Deathstroke (Slade Wilson). Episode two we were treated to a fight with Deadshot, a popular batman/green arrow villain. This trend continued every episode, the producers trying everything in their power to hold onto the comic book audience, asking them for patience while they figured out to make the show work. They experimented with some things, bringing in an actress to play huntress and creating new characters like a body guard and a stepfather figure, while removing some of the liberal out of Arrow so he could be more of a killer. Parts worked, Diggle threatened to steal every scene he was in the first few hours. Some of it didn’t, the huntress episodes were an unwatchable blight and as the midseason finale served to almost sink the show before it found its legs.

The patience of its fans was rewarded in the back nine episodes, when the horribly scripted relationship drama faded to the background as Arrow sprinted toward its big finale.

Shield on the other hand, in its choice to be NCIS for kids has forced it procedural aspects to the forefront. Forgetting the necessary ingredients of good characters, it’s burning through the good will created by the movies as its only currency. SHIELD gives us no reason for patience.

We are roughly a quarter of the way through SHIELD’s first season the performances of a bland hacker, a loner cardboard Clark Gregg, a pair of singing scientists and an awesome real life Mulan, leave a lot to be desired. The mysteries of the week are lame, and without anything to related this show to the Marvelverse save for references to a movie mean I have no real attachment to it. If this is Marvel’s effort into the silver screen, if this is what they and ABC think we want, think what we deserve, it speaks to a serve lack of understanding of what made their movie franchises so popular in the first place, doesn’t speak well for their future shows.

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