Agents of SHIELD Needs More Work

Agents of SHIELD.  Or rather, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.  Or, more specifically, Disney's Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.

Whichever way you slice it, I watched the pilot episode of this spinoff from the Marvel Film Universe twice now.  My review: (shrugs shoulders).

It's not horrible, but it was certainly not in the Realm of Greatness that one would expect from a property that has such an amazing pedigree: Buffy/Firefly/Avengers movie god Joss Whedon directed the thing; Joss Whedon co-wrote it; acclaimed comic book writer/veteran tv writer Jeph Loeb is an executive producer; and it's based on classic comic books by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko. 

With all that going for it, it was merely okay.  And that is not okay.

In fact, The Hollywood Reporter enlisted Steranko to review the series for them.  He pretty much nailed it on the head.

Some highlights: "No menace, no tension."  Too many storylines, therefore "who in hell am I supposed to root for?"  "(Jeph) Loeb categorized the series as "SHIELD meets The X-Files." Great premise, but barely in evidence."  And "SHIELD needs to be much tougher, much stranger, much edgier to reach its potential!"

When I was watching Agents of SHIELD, I found my thoughts drifting off to the new Sleepy Hollow series.  YIKES! 

Firefly Anniversary

Firefly - the amazing "space western" series created by Joss Whedon - first aired on September 20, 2002.

Whichever idiot in charge of the Fox Network at that time axed the series after airing just 11 episodes.  They even ran the episodes out of order (plus, they didn't bother to air the pilot until just as the show was canceled).

I grew up on re-runs of Star Trek: TOS, so that is my favorite tv show.  Firefly is a close second.

Series executive producer Tim Minear shares some memories of the final moments of production in this piece from MTV's Splashpage.