Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (SPOILERS)

[The Romulan Republic]

The first episode is at 8:00 PM today.

As a fan of the Marvel films, I'm looking forward to it. This will also be the first time I watch one of Joss Whedon's shows when it starts rather than out of order years after it ended.

Edit: I thought it would be nice to have a poll like we do for Doctor Who episodes.

[Ahriman238]

Don't have a tv, and don't get the live stream here. Looks like I'll be picking it up in 2 or 3 days when ABC puts it up on their website.

[Broomstick]

It suffers from being a first episode. The characters and their dynamics aren't established yet. The only character we actually know is Coulson. Some of the intended humor fell a bit flat or seems a tad forced.

That said, it had a coherent plot, it did tie into the movies without the movies being a requirement to understanding the series.

Definitely liked the line - I'll have to paraphrase - about being shanked by the Asgardian Mussolini.

I'll give it a few more episodes. If they can get some chemistry going in the ensemble I think it will do alright.

[Bedlam]

Definitely liked the line - I'll have to paraphrase - about being shanked by the Asgardian Mussolini.

So it goes from Coulson's death in Avengers being faked then rather than being a prequel?

[Broomstick]

I get the impression that there was nothing faked about Coulson's death so much as Fury took advantage of a situation that occurred. Coulson was definitely skewered by Loki and certainly was near death, perhaps was even clinically dead for a brief time before being resuscitated. I don't Fury planned for Coulson to wind up in such a state but when Coulson did Fury used it to his own ends.

[RogueIce]

Pretty much what Broomstick said. Coulson wasn't breathing for eight seconds or so (though it gets longer every time he tells it) and he went off to "Tahiti" to recover, but apparently it's not really Tahiti and he doesn't know and must never know. So basically how he survived is still up in the air, whether we'll get answers or if that was their way to hand wave I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[The Romulan Republic]

I was disappointed by this episode. The humour wasn't very funny, Coulson seemed out of character, the dialog wasn't great, and new characters seemed cliche (though that may change after they've had more time to develop).

The guy who was Spoiler

given extremis

was a pretty interesting character, however, and I think the idea of connecting it to Iron Man III by having the plot involve Spoiler

extremis

was good.

And I just realized that I forgot to include a spoiler warning when I created this thread. I am sending a P.M. to a moderator to ask them to fix that. My apologies.

[Lagmonster]

My wife said "Life Model Decoy" several times while nodding and winking towards the screen while Coulson was on. I think Stark mentioned them on a phone call to Coulson in Avengers, if I'm not mistaken, so they've at least been acknowledged. So that's a possibility, I presume?

[Ahriman238]

and it's online.

I liked it enough. It had some issues with being a first episode, and the comedy was hit and miss (though I did get a kick out of Coulson injecting Ward.) But it ties things together reasonably well, and even shows a bit of people's reactions to the battle in the Avengers.

[Iroscato]

I enjoyed it, it was solid and smart, and I'm interested to see where it goes from here. I was genuinely surprised by Spoiler

the Extremis link, and also thought the murky details of Coulson's brush with death were nicely done. Am I the only one who squeaked a little bit upon seeing Ron Glass, AKA Shephard Book from Firefly?

[Majin Gojira]

Joss can't help but recruit old friends for his shows.

And we love him for it.

[Iroscato]

I also noticed Whedon's favored trick of taking established situations and turning them on their head Spoiler

such as Coulson seemingly threatening Skye with the truth serum then pumping Ward with it.

His grubby fingerprints were all over this

[Grumman]

I thought it was pretty good, but not really what I'm looking for in a series yet. Two of my favourite comic series (eXiles and Secret Six) are about C-list teams whose stories cut across the breadth of their respective universes, but so far Agents of SHIELD hasn't done much more than name-checking.

I'll wait and see if it grows on me.

[Ted C]

Don't have a tv, and don't get the live stream here. Looks like I'll be picking it up in 2 or 3 days when ABC puts it up on their website.

I caught it on ABC.com last night.

[Ted C]

Definitely liked the line - I'll have to paraphrase - about being shanked by the Asgardian Mussolini.

So it goes from Coulson's death in Avengers being faked then rather than being a prequel?

It was never going to be a prequel, and there's a clear implication that what happened to Coulson was a lot more serious than "he stopped breathing for 8 seconds".

[Ahriman238]

I can think of a handful of things they could have done to save Coulson or preserve his services they couldn't or wouldn't tell him about. But I'm still going with "recorded his consciousness and built him as the Vision." It's a longshot, granted, but it would be so satisfying if done well.

[Tsyroc]

I can think of a handful of things they could have done to save Coulson or preserve his services they couldn't or wouldn't tell him about. But I'm still going with "recorded his consciousness and built him as the Vision." It's a longshot, granted, but it would be so satisfying if done well.

That's an interesting option.

I know a lot of people have been saying the current Coulson is an LMD. Prior to the show there was the possibility that the Coulson who got shanked was an LMD but that seems unlikely with the hints given in the show (stuff he should never find out about etc...).

Along the lines of your Vision idea it could still be Coulson but he might have a lot of robotic parts. In the limited series Electra: Assassin. A S.H.I.E.L.D Agent (Garrett) is saved by the cybernetics division. He's mostly a robot but still has some human bits.

I think I'd prefer the LMD or Vision idea though. During the show they have Coulson dodging something once and I thought the little bit the showed on how he did it seemed a little odd. It could be meant to just show he's really good but I thought it might imply he's not exactly or entirely human anymore.

[Alkaloid]

It was OK. I do like the way they carried over the idea that Coulson is a kind of Nick Fury lite, putting together a baby avengers unit.

[Crazedwraith]

Just saw, its on terrestial telly here. Which is unusual for a brand new show.

I've think I'm mainly airing the consensus here. But it was okay. Mostly held back by being the pilot I think. Introducing a whole team of people in one episode... well they're all pretty much bland thus far. And none of these guys are from comics right? It was nice to see Agent Hill, I was thinking before I saw it she was TV actress. It was also nice to see Shepard Book and Gunn and my are they looking older.

ON the negative the powers were very TV. And It seemed a little on the nose with some of the 'everything's changed since avengers' stuff.

IN the plus, that last scene with Coulson's car. Friggen hilarious.

[Batman]

I very much liked it. Pilot, so there wasn't much in the way of character definition (no surprise there) for the team. Coulson doping Ward instead of Skye would have come out of nowhere if I hadn't read this thread beforehand, and I really liked the ambiguity they threw at how, if at all, Coulson survived. I also liked the way they handled the sequence where it initially looked like Ward, against orders, terminated Michael Peterson when what he actually did was deliver the third option.

I'm not entirely sure how Coulson was acting out of character. That man didn't have character for most of the predating Marvel movies, he was just a SHIELD flunky who happened to have a name. It wasn't until Avengers that he really turned into a character to begin with, and I'd say the Coulson we saw in this pilot jives reasonably well with what little we saw of him in Avengers.

I positively loved Lola being able to fly.

As series pilots go, I've seen far worse than this one. If they can keep up the quality I'm looking forward to this.

[Justice]

Was alright for a pilot. Gregg is still great as Coulson and definitely has more room to have fun as the character. He was easily the most consistently entertaining part of the show, playing a guy who has been around the block enough to smile and play along with the classic tropes. Agent Ward is kind of stock, but I liked his introduction op (lot of fun spy stuff) and he already had some character development and a hook. Melinda May is also pretty interesting as the veteran who has obviously seen a bit too much and just wants a desk job.

On the other hand, the science twins tenuously striding the line between quirky and irritating, while Skye... I just don't care for the bubbly, snarky hacker. Hopefully that will change as episodes go on, but from the pilot I was completely uninterested whenever she was on the screen. The bad guy was not bad, but I kind of wish we had seen more of him and get more of a feel. Of course...
Spoiler

there is always the possibility that he will be joining the team, given that he was merely neutralized rather than killed.

The special effects were handled nicely as well, even the ending bit looked good enough on TV. The plot was nice and tied well into the movies, though the pacing felt a bit clunky at times. I'll chalk that up to them introducing everyone in this episode rather than waiting further down the line. Definitely something I'll be catching again.

[Alkaloid]

I can think of a handful of things they could have done to save Coulson or preserve his services they couldn't or wouldn't tell him about. But I'm still going with "recorded his consciousness and built him as the Vision." It's a longshot, granted, but it would be so satisfying if done well.

Funnily enough, I caught a bit of the avengers on TV today and noticed when Fury was discussing the aftermath of the carrier attack with Stark he mentioned losing "my one good eye."

At the time I thought he was talking about Hawkeye being turned, but now that you mentioned that the timing and context make a lot more sense if Coulson is the one good eye, and if they were planning that its some pretty good foreshadowing.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm pretty sure he was talking about Coulson in that scene.

I want to see the Avengers' reactions when they find out Coulson is alive. But that's more likely to be shown in a film than on this show.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I wasn't sure about the obvious use of Stark Tech with the car at the very end, seemed like a pointless gimmick than anything else. Though given Stark was somehow able to "fix" Pepper when she'd been injected with Extremis it's a safe bet he'll have something to do with this guy.

Pretty hard to miss the namedropping of most of the characters from the Avengers, though I have to wonder how (or if) the series is going to tie in with Thor the Dark World seeing as it's just a month away.

[Kojiro]

It was passable, good even for a pilot.

Things I liked:
Ron Glass/J August Richards- always good to see a Joss alumni.
Coulson was pretty sweet. It's nice to see him with a bit of a free run.
The jet- it almost felt like a shiny black Serenity. Hopefully the crew can come together the same way.
All the tie ins and name drops.
The truth serum bit.
The end bit, about what the average guy was as to those with powers.

Things I didn't like:
Smulders seemed to play Hill more like her HIMYM character than the movie (or comic) Hill (especially refering to Thor).
The age of the team- Skye, Fitz and Simmons in particular and to a lesser extent Ward. That many young geniuses doesn't sit right.
Magic Forensic tech- this sucks in any show, though in fairness it wasn't a scratch on the IM3 absurdity.

Things I noticed:
-Longshot was named as the person selling the alien tech (Chitauri neural interface I believe). Longshot is a known Marvel character, not technically a mutant. That said Longshot is also generally a male while this one was a woman. Either way Longshot was in there.
-The Avengers themselves are not level 7 clearance (though Stark has almost certainly unofficially exceeded this).
-SHIELD vehicles are clearly marked as such.
-No reference to the characters from Item 47.

I'm curious to know if they'll ever bring in a 'higher level' of character or just continually slum it. Or perhaps just establish a host of lesser Marvel characters for later movie use. I can't see them affording any of the big names (or the CGI budgets for most of them) though they might get Fury on the video phone to tell us just how serious the season finale is (I'm sure he'll call often, not that we'll hear him).

Wild speculation time!
At this point I'm almost certain that Guardians of the Galaxy will be the first run in with Thanos (or his machinations) which will tie in with Avengers 3. Age of Ultron will tie in with Ant Man/Hank Pym who I'm guessing will be responsible for creating Ultron and Ultron will in some way modify the (I suspect) cyborg Coulson into the Vision. AoS will introduce us to Pym, hint at Coulsons 'repairs' and set all that up so Vision can take part in A2 as villain and A3 as an Avenger against Thanos.