I’m a bit surprised that this show wasn’t seen as favorably as I thought considering how apeshit people go for Joss Whedon’s proverbial cock. Perhaps this is why Dollhouse didn’t live up to the expectations his fanbase expects him to, yet they won’t ditch him, because after all, he did Firefly and Buffy. They were great, right? For myself, I am not a Joss Whedon fanboy, so setting him aside, I actually find Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to be quite good. It’s not the best show to grace television, but it executes itself in a fairly consistent manner and sticks with a format that has worked for a dozen other shows on television.
The Opposite of Star Trek
Star Trek has had twelve feature films, ten based on two television series, and two original films, being the latter Star Trek reboots by J.J. Abrams. It’s safe to assume that the movies were the result of the television series. Yet one of the flaws of them, mainly concentrated in the TNG movies, was that they never felt like movies, more like two-hour specials, or multi-part episodes. Deep Space Nine and Voyager failed to make movie debuts due to Star Trek falling out after the end of Enterprise up until the reboots. The fate of it returning to television after so long still remains in the balance.
What Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D has done is the opposite, it has taken its effective pilot, The Avengers, and spun in to a television show based on minor characters from the same universe but who did not star in the movie, except Coulson. It’s the type of show that you can easily do whatever you wish with it because that universe is easily malleable. There are plenty of minor characters. You don’t need to rely on the heroes. You don’t need the Enterprise.
That is what excites me about this show, it’s less the show and more the concept. The success of this show means that shows like Star Trek, or even Star Wars when you consider Disney has the license to that, can exist in today’s television that is dominated by trendy meta-sitcoms and police procedural shows.
The Built-In Audience
Critics of the show are whining about Disney’s involvement in this, how they control the strings, and with it they created a show that had the hype before it even started. We all know the power of the “focus group”. They test these concepts before they air believing them to be solid investments before the season is completed. It’s not a new phenomenon. Japanese animators know what anime fans want, they deliver each season. They know you’ll suck it up and ask for seconds.
Comic book nerds are as malleable as the show itself, and they’re ever-increasing in number now that it is socially acceptable to be a nerd. But just like the new Star Trek movies, they’re not the focus of this show. The focus of this show is the casual viewer, the kind of people who watch the other shows, like NCIS, Criminal Minds, CSI, or Law and Order. AoS plays a lot like these shows, fusing police-procedural-type investigation with supernatural and action themes not unlike The X-Files or Sliders. But the fact it is based on the Marvel universe brings with it the comic book expert, the folks who grew up on the comics and heroes, and know the universe better than filthy casuals. Perhaps it was hasty of me to dismiss the new Star Trek movies back then as part of the old guard where here I am with AoS and I don’t know much about the universe of The Avengers at all.
But that works in this show’s favor, because when you don’t have to rely on pleasing the hardcore crowd, you can still play in the universe and come out with excellent results. For that, you need a cast of characters that are effectively blank slates, containers you can fill and mold as the show goes on. Which leads me to a better comparison for this show.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D versus Knight Rider 2008
Does anyone remember the 2008 reboot of Knight Rider? The iconic 1980s television show about a man and his car, Michael Knight and KITT, facing criminals and organizations that operated above the law and hurt the innocent. It was the kind of show that worked in the old days of television because the “Western” appeal was still big then. NBC tried to reboot the show in 2008 casting Justin Bruening as his son Mike Traceur and a new KITT, based on a Ford Mustang rather than the iconic Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am. The show was a complete failure and ended after one season.
The reason it failed was not the source material, but the execution of the source material. The original Knight Rider was a science-fiction spin on an old western, only it wasn’t a man and his horse against a rival gunslinger, it was a man and his car against rival gangs and organizations. It played fast-and-loose, where the focus was always on Michael and KITT to get out of their jams much like MacGuyver would around the same time period. Even though Michael and KITT had limited support, they were effectively vigilantes, mercenaries for hire.
The new Knight Rider tried to “institutionalize” the man and his car into a government organization fighting terrorism. Traceur and KITT weren’t just deploying on to the street, serving the common good, they were sent out to neutralize terrorists. It’s not surprising that when you have Chuck airing on the same network at the time doing well with a similar concept, in an era of heavy anti-terrorism promotion in the media and arts, that the studio thought this concept would fly. It didn’t. Not only was it downright insulting to “The Hoff” and his legacy, but they ruined a franchise that worked fine on its own without NBC’s involvement.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D fortunately escapes some of this because S.H.I.E.L.D is the organization, and was no different in the comics. Quite the opposite, Coulson and his team are demonstrating their willingness to work outside of the operational confines of the system, or they try to anyway, with the seventh episode being a test of their willingness to work outside of the box. By the time Knight Rider 2008 got to this, the show was cancelled. The anti-terrorism theme is something that really can’t be leaned upon anymore in television, because it has been over a decade now since 9/11. While it is important not to forget what that meant to us as a country, it shouldn’t define our cultural components of entertainment. Even NCIS, a show that often deals with terrorists as bad guys, spends episodes focusing on crimes committed by regular people or other military officers.
The Marvel Universe
One of the best things about a television show set in the Marvel universe is that the possibilities are endless, especially when this one, based on the movie, which is not connected to the comics, means the writers can play with almost anything and anyone in it, so long as they adhere to the basic laws of the universe, being that it is Marvel, there are superheros, and S.H.I.E.L.D exists and has a purpose in that universe.
I’ve often quipped in some of my anime reviews that the characters in a show are less important than the universe around it. A good story to me is less about who is doing what, but where they are doing it. Game of Thrones is a world where political strife meets hand-to-hand combat, where intrigue meets desire, and yet if you were to remove every character from the show and start over with a new one, you could achieve the same state after a season or two of them settling in. This is how long-running soap operas or seasons of Doctor Who go so well, because even though the characters change, the setting does not. This is why I am convinced a new Star Trek show could be made without a single cameo by an old cast member. You just need writers willing to work in the universe and create a cast around it that adhere to its constants and constraints.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D has this very same opportunity. Most gripes I hear are about how the cast is boring, predictable, colorless and flavorless. I have to disagree. Coulson being the exception because you knew him before the show started, May is stoic but tough and caring. Ward is gruff and straightforward. Fitz and Simmons are smart, but socially inept. Finally, Skye is the wild card, while being completely predictable. The archetypes never change much with these sorts of shows, really. NCIS by comparison has the stoic but tough and caring Gibbs, the gruff and straightforward Ziva, the same but goofy DiNozzo, smart but socially inept McGee and Abby, and the wild cards Ducky and Palmer. You obviously can’t have a cast of like-minded people, otherwise nothing would happen. Much like NCIS, AoS interjects situational comedy in-between to maintain a light-hearted atmosphere and promote unity amongst the team and give it a human-like quality. We’re not watching Seal Team Six, we’re watching agents of an organization fighting to protect people from enemies unknown and forces incomprehensible to normal convention.
That being said, I do have some gripes about the way some of the characters play out, but mainly Skye. Truth be told, her character is unnecessary, and the reason for that is they have not made her necessary. Seven episodes in, and all she has managed to do is hack a couple things, and get herself into trouble for another member of her Anonymous group. She offers nothing to the team, and Coulson often asks “Do you want to be a member?” and I weep a little when she answers yes. She only wants answers to her parents, nothing more. She pretends to care about the others, but looks the other way whenever possible. I almost feel like “The Rising Tide” is more of a satirical jab at its real-world counterpart, “Anonymous”, and by extention, Wikileaks. It’s a subtle jab at those who believe that information should be free and that governments are holding all of the keys and secrets claiming it is “for our own good”. They play up her involvement with the group as often as possible and spend several minutes debating the ideology around those who engage in information warfare against the government. It’s not a bad topic to explore, but her relative non-involvement in each episode means she is either poised to defect again, for a larger plot point centered around The Rising Tide, or she will discover something she shouldn’t about her parents that S.H.I.E.L.D was involved with, which was the allusion made in the last episode.
TL;DR
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D is a show that I believe will help re-ignite some much-needed diversification in television programming by giving us a show that plays every angle and balances itself for every audience. It satisfies the nerds while giving newcomers to the fold a portal in which to further fall into the rabbit hole that is the Marvel universe. The cast fits their roles perfectly, and their characters have plenty of room to grow and branch into new things as more episodes are made. It can easily get two or three seasons, maybe more. It also does not rely on the star power from the movies to drive it, barring a cameo or two to keep it fresh.
Caution to the wind, however, this is likely Disney’s pilot test for future Marvel shows, and possibly even Star Wars on television if this show succeeds. This could be bad given how Disney has a penchant for putting profits over quality. I’m not sure how marketable other Marvel properties are for television, since movie actors rarely appear on TV for less money, but it wouldn’t be out of the question to expect something else similar to AoS to appear if it does well.