There are few shows that people love to hate more than “Agents of SHIELD”. It seems that no matter what takes place in an episode, it can’t live up to whatever hype fanboys have built in their minds as to what they expect a Marvel property to look like. Whether it’s a cool guest appearance by Jamie Alexander (Lady Sif), an introduction to a kick-ass villain (Deathlok) or even just an overall well-done episode (“Tracks”), the geeks launch out of the woodwork to express their hate and revulsion about this ABC show.
This isn’t to say that AOS has been great or even good since it came out in Fall 2013 — it hasn’t. In fact, if you’ll remember, I was pretty critical about some of the early episodes (especially the second one), and there were a few times when I wondered why I was sticking with it.
These reasons became immediately clear when it returned from hiatus with their new “Uprising” plot arc. Not only have all the pieces been put into place to form something completely badass, but the show is starting to build on the narrative it wove during the first half of its season and is poised to deliver an intriguing and fully satisfying ending. It took longer than it needed to, but as Agent Coulson himself, Clark Gregg, said, the first half of AOS was akin to eating “the healthy stuff” and saving “the dessert” for later. AOS is definitely in “deep dessert” right now.
It has improved in leaps and bounds since it debuted, but that doesn’t seem enough for the rabid fanboy or hipster critic who wants to scoff at everything the show is doing, and I’ve wondered why. Then it dawned on me that there are a few things people are either expecting or overlooking in this series, and it would behoove them to look at it again in this light.
1. It’s not “The Avengers”
This almost seems silly to have to bring up, but too many people went into AOS expecting “The Avengers” on the small screen. Well, there was no way in hell that could happen. Let’s not even think about the kind of monetary investment the network would have to make in order to bring even a fifth of the technical and special effects from the movie into the TV show. Even a network as rich as ABC wouldn’t be willing to drop millions and millions of dollars on an untested show in an effort to deliver what was found in the movie it is related to. Sure, if the series became an astronomical success, you might see the special effects get jazzed up, but it’s simply not going to happen in a first season unless you’re HBO or, to a lesser extent, cable.
Second, you’re not going to be able to have a TV show featuring the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Samuel Jackson (even though we got a cool cameo) or even Chris Evans or Hemsworth. These actors are incredibly busy not only working on other Marvel projects but also movies of their own, and the schedule needed to film a series is much more time consuming than working on a feature film. Ben Affleck had to drop out of a series he was working on just so he could devote the time needed to star in the Batman-Superman movie, and he’s free to do pretty much whatever he wants. No way was Marvel going to let an ABC show cannibalize the stars of their tentpole features, and especially not on a pilot season.
Plus, AOS needs to be able to make up its own mythology instead of relying on what’s come before. Remember how desperately they tried to play fan service to the movies in the first half of the season? Yeah, that was pretty lame and felt like they were pandering to us instead of delivering a cool story we could get into. AOS deals with the people who have to live in this world populated by gods and monsters in order to show how they handle the incredible situations they are put in with nothing more than their wits and training to survive. Are superheroes allowed to be in the show? Of course, and we’ve gotten a glimpse at a few super villains as well as the inclusion of Lady Sif and Deathlok, but the ones with all the flashy powers should be the side dish to the story and not the main course. Personally, I’m much more excited to find out who The Clairvoyant is (more on this later) than whether or not Graviton or Blizzard are going to escape and wreak havoc on the world. I’d rather have the slow build subtlety brings as it is much more interesting than the flashing fireworks and blaring alarms we are used to getting.
Speaking of which:
2. Series need time to develop.
Few, if any, series are masterpieces out of the gate. Think about it; almost every single series that we now hold in the highest of regards started out mediocre at best. “Seinfeld”, “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer”, “Friends”, “Angel”, and many others just didn’t hack it for their first season. Even “Game of Thrones”, which is probably my favorite show on air had a ton of exposition and introductions to do for the first season that made it seem more like we were reading out of a phone book than actually learning about the rich world George R R Martin had created. This isn’t a bad thing, and in many cases is necessary to set the stage to build the story that all of us will fall in love with.
I mentioned earlier that “Agents of SHIELD” is building its mythology from scratch, and that’s precisely why it has taken some time to get us involved in these characters and where they are coming from. Sure, we had Coulson to fall back on, but if you think about it, aside from his dating a cellist and being obsessed with Captain America, what did we really know about him? And even if we had been given a full character bio, the fact is he’s a completely different person since being resurrected from his death in “The Avengers”, so it was bound to take some time to get to know him again.
As stated before, I’m not excusing how long AOS has taken to get us attached to these people or that some are still one-sided cardboard cut-out tropes, or that they inexplicably turned one into two (Fitz and Simmons?), but to complain that we don’t have fully fleshed out characters this early in the game overlooks that they had to build from nothing. If recent episodes are anything to go by, the writers have finally found where they want to take these people, and we can see their evolution taking place in front of us.
3. The events from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”
I’m going to try to refrain from as many spoilers as I can here, but if you aren’t caught up on the series or have seen the movie, you might want to skip this bit.
In hindsight of The Winter Soldier, last week’s episode, “End of the Beginning” can now be looked at as a huge sign as to what to expect the rest of the season. Agent Sitwell’s leaving The Bus was explained, and the reveal about The Clairvoyant suddenly had HUGE repercussions based on what we now know about SHIELD. Not only did Winter Soldier turn the MCU on its head, it created a massive fallout for AOS, and one that the producers and writers have said will be addressed in the coming weeks of the show. Maurissa Tancharoen, (executive producer and showrunner for AOS) revealed as much on Twitter the other day:
They’ve been planning this for awhile, and only now are we starting to see the fruits of their labor. Hell, next week’s promo directly plays into what took place during “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”!
Not to mention that everyone has been frothing at the mouth to guess at how the events of The Winter Soldier will affect Avengers 2, but haven’t any of them stopped to realize that a lot of this could potentially be revealed weekly on the small screen via AOS? We still have a year and change to go until Avengers 2, so wouldn’t it make sense that what takes place in “Agents of SHIELD” could very well have an impact on that movie? So long as it gets renewed for a second season (and all signs point to this happening), Marvel will have another 20+ chances to lead us into Whedon’s next blockbuster, and I don’t see how they could pass up on this advantage.
“Agents of SHIELD” had a rocky start, and I didn’t really buy into it for the first few episodes, but then I gave it some room to grow, and I’ve been really happy with the result. I’m not going to sit here and claim it’s perfect or that it’s been the best new show of the season, but it has definitely evolved into one of my must-watch shows that I look forward to seeing each week. And if the writers are as smart as I think they are, all of us who are keeping up with it will be in for a wild and wonderful ride over these next few weeks.
If you’ve been as patient as I have and stuck with it, then I hope you’ve come to love it as much as I have. If you’re one of the people who gave up early, then maybe you should go back and give it another chance. However, if you are one of the fanboys who want to sit and bitch about something you’re not watching or intend to, then leave the rest of us alone because we don’t have time for you. We’re too busy enjoying our well-deserved dessert.