Wednesday, December 11, 2013

A Rant and a Mea Culpa

First the rant:

Spoilers to follow, if you didn't see this week's episode of Marvel Agents of SHIELD.

This article on Tor.com really gets to the heart of my problem with the series so far. I enjoy it well enough, but I don't consider it must-watch TV yet. It's too generic an action show. It doesn't really feel like part of the Marvel-verse. I kept hoping Captain America or Iron-Man or someone would swoop in at the end of the episode and rescue Coulson, because... Coulson! I get that they wanted the show to be about the non-super-powered beings at SHIELD who take care of the stuff the Avengers, et al, can't, but by building the show around Coulson, one of a very few non-powered beings who is connected to the Avengers, means not having those super-powered beings be part of the show in some capacity makes for a dull show, especially at the slow pace the mysteries of Coulson's death and Skye's parents are being played out. In addition, as a cliffhanger, this was dullsville. I'm betting tonight's Arrow will school SHIELD on how to do a mid-season cliffhanger/finale (and when did mid-season become a thing?).

Arrow started as a show about a non-powered hero and has kept powers out of the show, until slowly introducing them, probably with the Flash tonight, but maybe later on, yet has moved storylines in 2 timelines forward at a pace that keeps ratcheting up the tension/suspense without defusing it, feeding us info at just the right times. SHIELD feels old hat while Arrow feels fresh and exciting. The folks behind SHIELD could take a few lessons from the folks running Arrow.

And the mea culpa: I'm behind on my comics reading again, partly due to being too tired to read due to not sleeping enough and partly because I was getting out my holiday cards. The comics stacks keep growing. *sigh*

2 comments:

  1. Shelly, if you are too tired to read...then man, you are too tired!

    I too have been trying to get into the whole Marvel,Agent of Shield show, but it is just too...slow. Although I DO like Agent Coulson, and happily sat through a broadcast of Thor on FX last night. A shirtless Chris Hemsworthy is a sight to behold. Also Lokil

    Uh...where was I?

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    1. Yeah, I'm going through a period where I can't fall asleep when I get in bed. It's happened to me before, so hopefully it won't last too long.

      I keep watching SHIELD because of Coulson and I want to know why he's still alive and who Skye's parents are. But seriously they need more Avengers cameos.

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