Deutsche VersionAgents of SHIELD retrospective
So I wrote this a while back, posted it elsewhere, then forgot about it, until I was reminded the day before yesterday that this wouldn’t be all out of place here, either. So let’s talk about a TV show that I found really disappointing once more: Agents of SHIELD.
At the start, I was [really excited about it](http://ferroequinologist.de/en/blog/2013/9/Agents+of+S.H.I.E.L.D+Checklist). Then I was disappointed. Then I got angry. Then it got better again, so by now my feeling is mostly “meh”. And what a big “meh” it is; I’ve been putting this off for more than a week after the final episode of season 1 aired and I still barely have the energy to get through this post.
The show certainly means well, although it really tries more to be a Joss Whedon show than a Marvel property. I guess the writers had prepared a checklist pretty much like the one I posted above and were trying their best to [fast-track through it](http://ferroequinologist.de/en/blog/2013/9/Agents+of+Shield+-+Checklist+filled). This became very apparent later on when the characters basically outright stated “That bonding over a common enemy thing? Might as well do that now, nothing else interesting going on this episode”. And never forget that “the Bus”, their plane, is for all points and purposes the Serenity from Firefly. Similar looks, capabilities, identical internal layout including which character owns what space.
What it lacks is the depth and complexity that real Whedon shows have. For all of the characters, their motivations, strengths and flaws can be described in two sentences at most. Instead the show tries to keep our interest with layers of mystery and question after question. Lost has been getting a lot of shit for this, but there can be no doubt that Lost did it way better. The story of Coulson’s resurrection, for example, is in the end neither particularly complicated, nor does it mean much for his character both in how it happened or in how he reacts to it. It’s also kind of stupid. But in Agents of SHIELD, kind of stupid is probably the biggest compliment you can make, considering that the show is so very frequently extremely stupid.
For example, take the episode 0-8-4. How many trained Agents of SHIELD and peruvian military police does it take to stop one Land Rover filled with I guess about three or four insurgents? I don’t know, but it’s gotta be more than 6 and about 15, respectively, because they try and fail. Then there are things like where the “adorable quirky” (annoying) scientist guy gets to go out in the field with the actually competent person. Yeah, Fitz isn’t field-rated, I get it. But are you seriously telling me he’s never even seen a spy movie before?
It all works out for the heroes because the villains are just as stupid. Take the excavator thing: The bad guys didn’t need an excavator to open the secret SHIELD truck; it had normal doors (with some boxes stashed behind to throw anyone who opened the doors of track, so clearly they weren’t welded shut). They don’t use the excavator to open the secret compartment within the truck either; that job goes to a blowtorch. And they paid for the excavator in gold bars, which seems hardly reasonable. Of course the gold bars can be traced back to the main villain’s gold mine, something that a gold mine owner probably should have known. Oh, and the entire plot hinges on Malta not being a member of the UN or EU (it is, of course, a member of both organizations). This is some serious multi-level idiocy going on here.
Later episodes pick up the slack quite a lot, and at turns even make fun of themselves, for example when Skye reveals that her name (given to her at the orphanage) was Mary Sue, or my personal favorite: When Agent Hand sees all of Team Coulson’s incompetence and deduces they must have been Hydra all along.
But at that point the show was doing exactly the same thing as „Captain America: The Winter Soldier“, and boy does it not hold up. I get that a TV show with a limited budget can’t look as good as the Hollywood blockbuster, but the longer running time should allow it to have better human drama. It doesn’t. Captain America wins on all fronts here with Cap as an all-around good guy who never actually becomes boring, an interesting friendship with Black Widow, inspirational speeches that actually work on me (and I’m a long-standing cynic) and real pain over the thing with Bucky. Even Falcon with his amazing lack of screen time has more personality than most of the Agents of SHIELD group.
Also, somewhere before there, I think I’ve kind of stopped caring. I mean, the final resolution to “how and why did Coulson get resurrected?” was “Nick Fury did it because Coulson is a nice guy whom everyone likes”. Seriously. And my reaction to that was “eh, could have been worse”.
Finally, to wrap this up: The show doesn’t look that good. Don’t get me wrong, it looks perfectly okay in a late 1990s kind of way. But we live in an age where Heroes, Lost, Breaking Bad or further out of the field Gossip Girl have established strong visual identities on TV. Whether it is through the choice of color, editing, or other things, these shows have character. SHIELD is, visually, less exciting than Bones or Castle.
In total: Agents of SHIELD is really not worth the bother. The later episodes are at least not offensively stupid anymore, but there isn’t really anything else to get passionate about either. Season 2 has been announced, but I’ll probably skip it. Here’s hoping that these Netflix shows or Agent Carter do better.
Written on June 16th, 2014 at 06:26 pm
