by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

1×07:  “The Hub”

The way I see it, there are three base models for any given episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to follow:

1) Freak-of-the-week procedural;
2) Superhero-oriented; and
3) Espionage.

So far, we’ve had several freak-of-the-week investigations, with some dalliances in superheroics, and we still haven’t answered the question of whether this show can establish and contain its own set of superpowered heroes and villains.  Because of this, there’s a part of me that rues and laments the fact that the show takes place so early in the Marvel cinematic universe.  Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

1×06:  “FZZT”

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the determination to do what’s right despite our fears.”

“It’s okay to be afraid.  It’s okay to fail.  But to not even try?  That’s unacceptable.”

“It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.”

Ruminations, resolutions, essential truths or platitudes, these are the things we tell ourselves as we face that which we may not be able to, the types of thoughts we hope can give our lives meaning in what may be our last moments.  That’s what I was thinking as I watched Coulson talk down Diaz — the final firefighter who would die at the hands of the virus that was the subject of this episode — in what was the strongest moment of “FZZT”  It was grounded, emotional and natural in a way that so much of the rest of the show isn’t and hasn’t been since the pilot, and it was a strong moment for Agent Coulson, the hero, and Clark Gregg, the actor.

Then there’s the rest of the episode.

Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

1×05:  “Girl in the Flower Dress”

“So whoever took him knew about his power.”

That’s an innocuous enough statement, but you don’t know how much I appreciated hearing it.  You don’t know how much I really started to hate Heroes and every time they would call them abilities or gifts in an attempt to stay just this side of realistic.  Just call them what they are!  They’re f*cking powers!

I know this show isn’t Heroes.  And I know that, even at this early stage, it’s probably never going to get that bad (even if by this point in its first season I was a Heroes devotee whereas I’m mildly disappointed in Agents).  But one thing Heroes and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have in common is that they both have Jeph Loeb in the production chair.  Comicbook fans may hold much of Loeb’s writing work in high regard (see:  Superman:  For All Seasons and Batman:  The Long Halloween), but TV watchers in the know mostly remember him for helping to ruin Lost before totally ruining Heroes before becoming Marvel’s Executive Vice President, Head of Television.  I don’t know why his name in the credits stood out to me more in this episode than any other, but I will say this about Loeb:  he’s an amazing writer (his DC work from the early 2000s)… but not usually (everything he’s done for Marvel since 2006).

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by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

1×04:  “Eye-Spy”

Towards the beginning of “Eye-Spy”, Skye, our intrepid viewpoint character poses a question more meaningful than I think the writers originally intended:

“There are people in the world with superpowers, right?  What if this woman had esp or something?”

That’s the essential problem that our heroes should be facing every week.  They live in a world where the rules have not only changed, but many of them don’t exist anymore.  Super science, sci-fi tech, gods, and powers are all now potentially par for the course.  That makes it really hard to pin down exactly what’s going on, and it’ll make it even harder to shore up a set of working theories on whatever the case of the week is.  But what happens when all the rules are breaking around our heroes?  What happens when they run across their first truly unstoppable superhuman force?

Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

1×03:  “The Asset”

“This transaction combines Marvel’s strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney’s creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories.”

Those were the words of Robert Iger, President and CEO of Disney, when Disney bought Marvel in back 2009.  The thing I wanted to key in on is “library of characters.”  One of the reasons that long-standing superhero comicbook publishers like Marvel and DC have such a large library of characters is because they’re constantly inventing new characters to fit the latest concept/intellectual property (IP) they’ve come up with.  These characters eventually outlive their usefulness and are discarded whenever the next new IP(s) are being developed, replaced by new and, often-times, similar characters.

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By Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

1×02:  “0-8-4”

In 2011’s The Avengers, about half-way through, Loki remarks “How desperate are you that you would call upon such lost creatures to defend you?”  The original Avengers comic is built on the idea of heroes that don’t belong coming together against a common foe.  But that was the ‘60s, and by now, the Avengers — as characterized by the super-soldier, the god, the armoured knight, and various other hanger-ons —is one of the most visible archetypes on which superhero teams are built.  The answer to the question “How desperate are you…” is supposed to lie in the idea of making do with what you have, but the real truth is the certain knowledge that a team without conflict, without markedly different character types, would make for a boring story.

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by Thom Yee

Why I’m watching… Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

How could I not be watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?  The Avengers was the third highest grossing film of all time.  We get to follow a specialized S.H.I.E.L.D. team through the Marvel Universe we’ve only begun to explore.  Agent Coulson is back!  But how?  If ever Marvel and ABC had a hit on their hands, it would be Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Frankly, what kind of confused, alcoholic, unemployable, angry loners won’t be watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

There’s a problem though.  I still don’t really like Joss Whedon.  While I think the show’s got enormous potential, and I think Whedon’s team has a better shot than most at successfully show-running the series through suitably intriguing and action-packed seasonal arcs while maintaining a measured approach to storytelling, I still think elements of Whedon’s scripts are awkward and unnecessarily silly (“Don’t touch Lola”).  It’s those little Whedonisms.

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