Im sorry everybody, but I have to give up on Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. I just cant take it. Ive always said that its not really fair to judge a show by its pilot, but I got about 20 minutes into Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.s second episode and realized I desperately didnt care. Cant care. Will never care, because theres nobody to care about. Theres so much wrong with Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. its hard to even know where to start. But we can start with the title, because I think its indicative of the problem. Why not just S.H.I.E.L.D.? Well, because if it was just called S.H.I.E.L.D. the public might not immediately recognize that its a Marvel property, I guess, and if they dont instantly know its a Marvel property, how would they know theyre supposed to watch it? When youre managing a brand, you cant leave anything up to chance. Im guessing the only reason the show wasnt titled Disneys Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., You Know, From the Avengers Franchise! is because it wouldnt have fit on a cable guide grid. And thats the problem. Branding. This isnt storytelling, its brand management, and its as obvious and safe and non-threatening as a commercial for Bounty paper towels. Hell, it even *looks* like a commercial for Bounty paper towels; bright, colorful, idyllic and spotlessly, flawlessly, gleamingly *clean.* ... Holy shit, Im in love with this Bounty paper towels analogy, because the casting is like a Bounty paper towels commercial, too: Aggressively non-threatening and overwhelmingly homogenous. During the pilot I had several acute episodes of prosopagnosia - face blindness - not necessarily because the characters all look exactly alike...except I cant finish this sentence, because they all look alike. Theyre as alike as Matels Barbies of Dolls, the base bodies stamped out of identical molds, with slight variations to hair and make-up, but essentially interchangeable. Even the costuming choices, with the now-uniform slim-cut tailored leather jackets for the action sequenc- NO. ... NO, GODDAMN IT! I could write a novel on whats wrong with this show. The tiresome fish-out-of-water plot device, Colsons disappointing transformation from comically beleaguered normie to smugly preening alpha male, the inevitability of each plot points resolutions, hell, even the artificiality of the sets bothered me. The mobile command set is the soundstageist looking set that ever sat on a soundstage. Glossy, gleaming, no expense spared, you can almost smell the fumes off-gassing from the new carp- DAMN IT, IM DOING IT AGAIN! NO! Look, Iron Man was pretty great, because Robert Downey Jr. is a hurricane of charisma (always has been), and Tony Stark is the perfect platform to that force of nature. Lets not forget Iron Man was the first movie in the franchise, before there were concrete plans for it to *be* a franchise. Marvel hadnt been sold to Disney yet and there wasnt nearly as much oversight on these movies as there is today. Jon Favreau had the freedom to mold the film into something charming and fun, to make the movie suit its strongest asset (literally. heh.). But lets face it, the other Marvel movies were sort of boring and shitty, and Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is particularly boring and shitty. The saddest thing is, it had a chance. It could never have escaped its offensively antiseptic family-friendly Disney atmosphere, but it could have creatively overcome it by keeping S.H.I.E.L.D. outmanned, outgunned, and charmingly plucky in its (often failed) attempts to manage the affairs of superheroes. By instead framing its protagonists as mass-manufactured standard action-adventure heroes, Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lost its chance to tell a special story, unique to its circumstances. It lost its chance to be any good. Amazing to think that the man who conceived Firefly ended up with...this.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 12:21:27 +0000
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