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

[Lagmonster]

I find Skye to be consistently the weak point of the whole premise. The activities surrounding her character are interesting, but she seems to float through a parade of weak stereotypes while creating needless antagonism for the team. I don't care that she's supermagichacker - she's just so freaking unprofessional, foolish, and smarmy.

There has to be more to her than tits and a magic hacking power, because as presented right now I use Skye's screen time as snack and piss breaks. I recall even thinking, "Now would be a good time to head to the kitchen, because they're going to spend five minutes showing Skye fumbling around and then getting captured". Granted that they gave her a single moment of strength when she teased a heel turn and then freed herself, only to immediately meet my exact expectations by having her need Ward to charge in and save the day.

[Ahriman238]

I was really thinking that the only reason Hall wasn't the damn hero is he pulls a gun on Coulson instead of saying "Thanks for the rescue, but I have to make this right. Take your team and evacuate the compound. Tell Fury I said sorry, but this is too much even for him." At least stopping him from sacrificing a few to save many still plays into Coulson's "nobody is nobody." shtick.

That said, we have Graviton. So there will be major MCU characters. Maybe not often, but there.

Skye's clumsy infiltration was predictable and dull, but forgivable given her subplot, her ditching protocol to sweet talk the villain with the unvarnished truth, and her growing connection to the rest of the team, particularly Ward. There were a couple great character moments there.

[Alkaloid]

I was really thinking that the only reason Hall wasn't the damn hero is he pulls a gun on Coulson instead of saying "Thanks for the rescue, but I have to make this right. Take your team and evacuate the compound. Tell Fury I said sorry, but this is too much even for him." At least stopping him from sacrificing a few to save many still plays into Coulson's "nobody is nobody." shtick.

I did a bit if wikiing on Graviton because I've never heard of him, and ends justify the means sort of things seem to pretty much be his shtick. Good intro as well, tied to FitzSimmons and Coulson as Spoiler

proteges and creators respectively.

Honestly I'm having issues with the show now. It seems to be a genuine attempt to translate comic books to TV directly and it's coming off way to camp and more than a little goofy as a result. I'm enjoying it for what it is for now, but the tone needs to change soon or I don't see it lasting.

Also they have now put so much effort into convincing people Coulson is a robot that I refuse to believe he is one.

[Iroscato]

Not a great episode really, though I liked Graviton's origin story, and having no prior knowledge of the character, had to read up on it afterward. Seriously starting to go off Skye, not that I held much investment in her to begin with. Almost every line she says is either a cringe-worthy wisecrack, or a cringe-worthy complaint of how weird and unfair everything is. It barely worked for the first episode, let alone two more, and I am not buying her as an extremely gifted super hacker extraordinaire.

However, the rest of the show is staying strong, and for now I'm happy to keep watching. I'm a helpless optimist

[Grumman]

Not a great episode really, though I liked Graviton's origin story, and having no prior knowledge of the character, had to read up on it afterward. Seriously starting to go off Skye, not that I held much investment in her to begin with. Almost every line she says is either a cringe-worthy wisecrack, or a cringe-worthy complaint of how weird and unfair everything is. It barely worked for the first episode, let alone two more, and I am not buying her as an extremely gifted super hacker extraordinaire.

I mostly agree, but I did like her cringe-worthy attempt to borrow Whathisname's story about his brothers in this episode. Under those circumstances, I think you're entitled to a rambling metaphor with the moral that shooting you would be bad.

[Batman]

Also they have now put so much effort into convincing people Coulson is a robot that I refuse to believe he is one.

Err-what effort would that be? Other than there apparently being something hazy about Coulson's memory of his recovery and there apparently being something about his recovery Fury/Hill don't want him to find out, going by currently available data all we know is...he did survive in some way, and there's aspects of it SHIELD doesn't want him to know. That makes him a robot...how?

I liked how they never actually confirmed whether or not SHIELD had that truth serum leave alone if it was used on Agent Ward in the pilot.

And why, exactly, did dropping Hall into the gravity thingy cause it to stop?

[Gaidin]

Honestly I'm having issues with the show now. It seems to be a genuine attempt to translate comic books to TV directly and it's coming off way to camp and more than a little goofy as a result. I'm enjoying it for what it is for now, but the tone needs to change soon or I don't see it lasting.

Wasn't the show always goin gto be the comics that human characters could handle anyway? And not necessarily in the sense of a character vs a specific type of bad guy like the Punisher vs the Mob. They were always meant for the small time supernatural that you don't need the heavy hitters for it seems. It's a risk, but ABC is more willing than, say, Fox to try it.

[Tsyroc]

Honestly I'm having issues with the show now. It seems to be a genuine attempt to translate comic books to TV directly and it's coming off way to camp and more than a little goofy as a result. I'm enjoying it for what it is for now, but the tone needs to change soon or I don't see it lasting.

That's pretty much exactly how I feel. I like the show, it's reasonably fun, and entertaining but the underlying campiness of it kind of grates because it's supposed to be tied to the Marvel cinematic universe which is a quite a bit less campy. Maybe it's a side effect of having so much Coulson with his deadpan humor, but some of it just comes from the production itself. The CGI gravity goo, and the vault door that the workmen were trying to mime being really heavy just take me back to Lois & Clark, or the not quite working bits of Smallville. The show is okay how it is but I hope it gets better and a little more "realistic" as it moves along, and if it doesn't I hope it doesn't impact the quality of the future Marvel movies.

[Themightytom]

I feel like Colson's presence somehow excuses the campiness because he was the campy character in the movies anyway. Does anyone feel like they are severely overplaying the "mystery" of Colson, ie, beating us over the head with it? Do I have to even spoiler tag that
Spoiler

he's a clone

or is it really as obvious as I think it is, because they're making it seem SO obvious that I'm wondering if they'll pull some kind of fast one somehow..

[Broomstick]

Are you referring to his apparent lack of muscle memory as proof of what you've spoilered?

[Themightytom]

Are you referring to his apparent lack of muscle memory as proof of what you've spoilered?

Spoiler

Well that and the long drawn out looks full of infinite sadness the Cavalry keeps giving him, references to his death, people's response to his description of his time "In Tahiti" "He can never know"

The fact that he... clearly died....

[Ted C]

Are you referring to his apparent lack of muscle memory as proof of what you've spoilered?

Spoiler

Well that and the long drawn out looks full of infinite sadness the Cavalry keeps giving him, references to his death, people's response to his description of his time "In Tahiti" "He can never know"

The fact that he... clearly died....

The references to him being "rusty" give a little bit of support to the notion that he was... Spoiler

rebuilt as some kind of advanced android.

[bilateralrope]

Could you please save the spoiler tags for actual spoilers, not speculation.

[Themightytom]

Could you please save the spoiler tags for actual spoilers, not speculation.

Don't worry
Spoiler

We won't run out of spoiler tags, they aren't actual tags.

[Alkaloid]

So I have a question. Assuming they did bring Coulson back from the dead in some way so terrible no one knows about it, why? Would they do the same for Barton, Fury Hill or Romanov? What about random shield agent Gallagher? Or Tony Stark. Is there some sort of value to shield rating system and everyone over a set number of points gets the treatment or is it more like Wolfram and hart, you sign on and hand over your soul for all eternity? Was he brought back by accident?

[Batman]

Um-if no one knew about it there wouldn't be the 'he must never find out' angle which sort of requires someone does know but doesn't want him to find out.
And I'd really like to know more about the scenario you envision in which Coulson was accidentally brought back. Mind you, stranger things have happened in superhero comics, but so far the available information doesn't conclusively support him having been brought back from the dead/replaced with a clone/robot/cyborg/whatever, all we actually know is Fury claimed that Coulson died in Avengers, there's something iffy about Coulson's alleged stay in Tahiti, and there's apparently something the higher ups at SHIELD don't want Coulson to know. Given we're all of three episodes into the series I think it's a little early to decide that Coulson is anything but what he's presented as, which is-Agent Coulson.

[andrewgpaul]

So, building your research complex in Malta to avoid EU regulation? oops.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Just saw eps 2 and 3, have to wonder why Coulson decided to go out of his way to save the hot chick who was the ringleader rather than let her fall to her death like several of her mooks (who were still the enemy). That, and when they got to the jet in the first place, the guys chasing maybe had a handful of men in a single SUV and were actually outnumbered by the people running away, then seemingly giving up and going home without attacking the plane itself or something. I did like them having Fury appear in a cameo, even if it was just to tell Coulson off for blowing a hole in the plane using the Tesseract-based device.

Was it me, or was the claim about the plane being largely automated just their way of handwaving why there wasn't an actual crew aboard so the hijackers could take it over so easily?

According to the display regarding the maguffin "gravitonium", its atomic number was 123, which puts it between Unbibium and Unbiquadium according to the extended periodic table and one of the superactinides.

They mentioned having to use a catalyst to shut the thing down, which seemed to be a human body. And let's not forget that at the very end we see a human hand reaching out from the inside of the black ball of goo

[Grumman]

Just saw eps 2 and 3, have to wonder why Coulson decided to go out of his way to save the hot chick who was the ringleader rather than let her fall to her death like several of her mooks (who were still the enemy).

They used to be friends. She betrayed his trust in service of her country, but that apparently didn't shove her straight into "I hope you die slowly!" territory. Even without that, you still might want to kill the minimum number of Peruvian soldiers for the sake of good relations, even if they were unquestionably in the wrong.

They mentioned having to use a catalyst to shut the thing down, which seemed to be a human body.

He needed to throw a spanner in the works. It didn't necessarily need to be a human body, just something big enough and sufficiently unlike gravitonium to screw up whatever it was doing.

And let's not forget that at the very end we see a human hand reaching out from the inside of the black ball of goo

It wasn't entirely out of left field given the setting, but that's precisely why it doesn't make sense to use a person as the spanner in the works.

[RogueIce]

And I'd really like to know more about the scenario you envision in which Coulson was accidentally brought back. Mind you, stranger things have happened in superhero comics

The Hulk got pissed and punched the timeline in the face.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

They used to be friends. She betrayed his trust in service of her country, but that apparently didn't shove her straight into "I hope you die slowly!" territory.

It was strongly hinted at that they used to be more than friends, though he would neither confirm nor deny this. On the other hand, there's nothing slow about the end result of a 30,000ft fall Unless you happen to start on board SAM 29000 that is...

Even without that, you still might want to kill the minimum number of Peruvian soldiers for the sake of good relations, even if they were unquestionably in the wrong.

They did say that they'd probably end up releasing her to her government within a few days, no doubt after thoroughly interrogating her about everything she knows about the device.

[Broomstick]

Was it me, or was the claim about the plane being largely automated just their way of handwaving why there wasn't an actual crew aboard so the hijackers could take it over so easily?

Many, if not most, large airplanes these days actually ARE largely automated. In fact, there are quite a few airliners these days that you can program then sit back and watch them take off, fly the route, and land without a human touching the controls. (We still have human pilots to handle situations the computers aren't so good at dealing with, for talking to ATC, and of course taking over if the machine has a malfunction the computers can't handle). The reason airliners still carry two pilots instead of just one is in case one pilot becomes sick or otherwise incapacitated.

So I don't see it as "handwaving" so much as the notion that such an airplane probably would be heavily automated these days.

[Batman]

Civilian passenger liners are. Is the same true for cargo birds? This is an honest question, I have no idea, but I'd suspect they'd have a few more crew for cargo handling/securing (in fact we saw one in the series opener), and that's on a civilian one. I'd expect a military (or pseudomilitary) craft of that kind to have a crew bigger than what we saw in the episode. Especially given the point about having a backup pilot even on civilian liners, when from what I recall the entire population of The Boat's flight deck was Ninjawoman? The bird's entire crew was apparently her?

[Broomstick]

Civilian passenger liners are. Is the same true for cargo birds?

Yes.

This is an honest question, I have no idea, but I'd suspect they'd have a few more crew for cargo handling/securing (in fact we saw one in the series opener), and that's on a civilian one.

Usually all the cargo needs is to be loaded/unloaded and that's normally done by ground crew. You'd only have handlers going along for either live cargo or cargo that needs special handling on the other end.

I'd expect a military (or pseudomilitary) craft of that kind to have a crew bigger than what we saw in the episode. Especially given the point about having a backup pilot even on civilian liners, when from what I recall the entire population of The Boat's flight deck was Ninjawoman? The bird's entire crew was apparently her?

Apparently, and that's theoretically workable but not usual in the real world.

Perhaps someone else on board has some piloting skills as an emergency backup.

[Forgothrax]

The possibility exists that the Bus is somewhat more advanced than even a modern airliner. We've seen examples of schizo-tech before; the Helicarrier, of course, and most recently the laser fence (that can block BULLETS). Thanks to Jarvis, we know that AI is a thing here in the MCU; the Bus being quite capable of coordinating with ATC all on its own and handling mechanical problems is not something that would surprise me.