Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 Episode 1 "Pilot" Discussion Thread

[Mr. Dent]

Hah, most shows nowadays are mostly dark and edgy? Not Really, most good shows simply have more stakes and consequences that affect the characters in negative ways. Look at most other similar shows that follow the same episodic format: Bones, CSI, NCIS, Elementary, or every single sitcom.

Once you look at it there are not that many dark and edgy shows, most of them just get so talked about for being very good. There's this weird notion now that almost everything is Dark and Edgy and that every cheesy thing now is a fresh and different when that is simply not the truth.

I didn't say most, I said so many.

 

[Surfer]

The promo after this episode advises viewers... not to miss the "end" of every episode......could we be getting something akin to the after credit scenes from Marvel's films....each and every week?!

Was there one for this week, because I view all of my stuff on the Internet the following day and I didn't see anything after the credits.

Surfer

 

[Surfer]

It's 'VonChat' or 'VanChat'

Now, when I listen to it, I clearly hear Von Chat, but before all I could hear was Long Shot. So, either my hearing is really bad or my brain is subconsciously making me think there are connections that aren't there.

Surfer

 

[Surfer]

I also like the small connection to "Civil War" from Maria Hill. Coulson says "A Super Hero, Agent Ward" & Maria Hill says "An Unregistered Gifted". It just shows her personality and that she believes they should all be registered.

Surfer

 

[Xeno]

I think she can only get better. Now that she stops with the Rising Tide nonsense, and will hopefully be less of a fangirl. At least she was nowhere near as annoying as some of the females in Arrow.

I don't know about Skye getting better with time. She's Whedon's favorite type so she'll likely stay as she is now, a perpetually grating presence. Showrunners can be very tone-deaf when it comes to their pet characters.

 

[Nathan]

Have you watched Arrow? Once you experience all their annoying characters, Skye is barely a blip on the radar.

 

[Mister J]

I also like the small connection to "Civil War" from Maria Hill. Coulson says "A Super Hero, Agent Ward" & Maria Hill says "An Unregistered Gifted". It just shows her personality and that she believes they should all be registered.

Surfer

True. What popped into my mind as well was the titling of Whedon's initial run on Astonishing. I might have been reaching on that one though.

 

[Xeno]

I also like the small connection to "Civil War" from Maria Hill. Coulson says "A Super Hero, Agent Ward" & Maria Hill says "An Unregistered Gifted". It just shows her personality and that she believes they should all be registered.

Surfer

"Registered Gifted" and "Unregistered Gifted" are Marvel's terms for people with super powers. The studio is contractually prohibited from using "mutant" so they came up with "gifted" as a catchall category for everyone with powers, regardless of the source. "Unregistered Gifteds" are the people whom the agents are actively seeking to find, assess and neutralize, if necessary.

What Is Marvel’s “Registered Gifted”?

On July 19th, Marvel Comics registered trademarks for Age Of Ultron, just before announcing the name of the second Avengers film.

On the 16th, Marvel registered the phrase “Registered Gifted” for use in, breathe in…

Comic books; graphic novels; printed periodicals in the field of comic book stories and artwork; printed visuals in the nature of comic book stories and artwork; photographs; posters; stationery; Clothing, footwear and headwear; Entertainment and online services; Toys, games and playthings; etc.

Now a registered trademark to this degree usually means a film, game or TV show rather than a comic. Recent examples as well as Age Of Ultron include Avengers Assemble, Agents Of SHIELD, Coulson Lives, Guardians Of The Galaxy and Frost Giants.

Could this be something to do with the SHIELD TV series? Another TV series? The name of an Inhumans film? It does feel rather X-Men-y though…

 

[Sawyer]

Have you watched Arrow? Once you experience all their annoying characters, Skye is barely a blip on the radar.

Perhaps, but I thought Arrow had the much better pilot.

 

[marcvader]

I don't know about Skye getting better with time. She's Whedon's favorite type so she'll likely stay as she is now, a perpetually grating presence. Showrunners can be very tone-deaf when it comes to their pet characters.

He's not the showrunner on this though.

 

[TheVileOne]

Arrow does have very annoying characters and tons of groan-worthy soap opera-style dialogue.

 

[GoldGoblin]

This show kinda felt like the show Mutant X,kind of generic from the original.

 

[Sawyer]

Yeah, well, they can't all be The Big Bang Theory.

 

[The Question]

Perhaps, but I thought Arrow had the much better pilot.

The narration killed it for me. We should have seen Ollie's secret double life unfold and be intrigued by the mystery, not have him explain it to us beat by beat.

 

[SoNicRaDiATioN]

I was really looking forward to this show but then I watched the pilot (rimshot). This was pretty mediocre. There were some good moments, some funny moments that I appreciated, but the writers crossed the fine line from funny into insincerity far too often. That whole interrogation scene was WAAAAY to glib for my taste, just cringeworthy. I was expecting the great balance between seriousness and humor that we got in the Avengers, but it was nowhere near that quality of writing (or acting, which isn't a surprise with it being network television). I realize they need to make up for the constrictions of the medium with more colorful character interactions, but they really jumped the shark here. The characters weren't even that interesting to begin with. They all felt interchangable and superfluous. Too many cooks in the kitchen for the first episode.

Going forward I am expecting better things but I am definitely not as high on the potential of this thing that I was 24 hrs ago. This show feels like a BIG miss. And Whedon won't have the time to fix a lot of these problems as he nears AoU. I'll be surprised if this thing ends up being a hit without doing a 180 going forward. Bummer.

 

[Surfer]

"Registered Gifted" and "Unregistered Gifted" are Marvel's terms for people with super powers. The studio is contractually prohibited from using "mutant" so they came up with "gifted" as a catchall category for everyone with powers, regardless of the source. "Unregistered Gifteds" are the people whom the agents are actively seeking to find, assess and neutralize, if necessary.

To me the word connecting the comment to Civil War is the word "Registered" and not necessarily the word "Gifted", and if it was said by another SHIELD member, it wouldn't perhaps have had the same meaning. However, the fact remains they had Maria Hill say it (who played an important role in the Civil War series in pushing the registration act), and it seems unlikely to me that it is just coincidence that she was the one to say it.

Surfer

 

[dreammaster]

I really enjoy it looking forward to next week

 

[gildedmuse]

I had a lot of emotions and no where to share them. I totally apologize.

I'm just kind of... almost disappointed. That sounds way too harsh, but I'm not sure how else to word it. Not because the show was bad, necessarily, but because I feel like I was cheated. There was just enough there that it's like I got to taste a hundred different flavors and, given more time, would have wound up with a very interest meal but it never really got past the teasing part.

Like, okay... For instance, a lot of the scenes had the trademark Whedon-wit, but too often it just zoomed right through without stopping long enough for that wit to really do what it is suppose to, which is to make you care about the characters. Some people figure Whedon is just witty so that he can be witty, but the truth is that humor makes you like people and connects you to them. Joss uses humor like a cheat code to give the audience characters they want to identify with. While there are quite a few good one liners in this episode it doesn't have the heart that it does in, say, Buffy or Firefly or Avengers because it doesn't have the time to develop that. Heart taking longer to pull off than comedy and this episode wasn't given the time.

Then there are things like I can tell Joss probably wanted to set Ward up as the Cliche Action Hero, partly so he could contrast Coulson who acts very much as our hero and yet does so in a down to Earth, everyman way (and in this Joss was completely successfull - Coulson really contrasts to Ward's "serious agent" act while also proving he deserves his higher ranking) but also, I'm sure, so that he can be messed with because that is very much in line with Joss style: give us someone who represents the cliches of the genre so that you can explore why those cliches exist. Again, I can even point to the scenes where I can see the show poking at this, but it never really strikes. Because the problem with this whole method is that you need time in order to really pull it off. You have to introduce a character, establish them as your Sterotypical Role while at the same time giving us the audience some sense of why this is (we have to see some reason why the character would so perfectly fit this cliche beyond just 'because that's the genre' or else it runs the risk of being a straight out parody), give them a reason to play into our expectations, and then slowly start to slip in the subversive content. Obviously, in the pilot we have things like Agent Ward with he truth serum scene which is one of the most Joss scenes in there but it - along with every other scene - felt rushed and so it doesn't really achieve what I know damn well Joss can achieve.

The reason people love Joss - and, okay, I'm sure there are a number of reasons why but one of the reasons that he is well known for - is his ability to build up an ensemble and make us care about them. Which he does by giving us lots of character interaction. Most of any given Joss episode is spent learning about characters, watching them play off one another, all that good stuff that isn't plot driven but is just as important in the works of Whedon. Again, I can pretty clearly see hints at this in the show. Here is our group. Got it. And they tease their group dynamic, sure. But the episode is mostly driven by plot related information and so we don't get to sit in with these characters and really watch them in that way.

Every scene is like a bullet point, it just tells you what you need so you can get to the next item in the list. Sure, it's broken up with some clever Whedonesque lines, but it's so rushed. Joss usually takes his time. He makes you sit there with the characters and just hang out, which you'll notice is exactly how we make friends in the real world and why it works for him on his shows. But I never really got the feeling I was just hanging out with anyone here. It was too orderly and driven. And, yeah, it wasn't even bad! It was enjoyable and good, but it's just so frustrating to me that almost all of it's weaknesses can be attributed to "it was rushed/there wasn't enough time".

It isn't as if it failed because the content was bad. It failed because the content that they had needed way more space. That has to be the most annoying way to fail ever. It's like loosing a race not because you weren't fast enough, but the track wasn't long enough.

On the other hand, so you don't think I'm a crazy person, there is a lot of stuff I loved! Coulson was great and the way they contrasted him and Ward was wonderful. There were a ton of minor moments in world building that I adored (that line about waking up thinking the strangest thing in the world was a billionaire with a robot suit? I love how it sets you up for something mundane and then reminds you with a little pinch that this is not your normal universe, even for the normal people inhabiting it).

Coulson's remark that they didn't cut off the head of the centipede? Surely that was a Hydra reference, right?

Also, it's easy to pick out a bunch of cute quip moments but I have to say I also like the more serious:
Mike: I could, you know. I could be a hero.
Coulson: I'm counting on it.
I thought that was a very sweet line. Richards did a brilliant job in the role, making me like him enough in his short time that when he attacks the foreman I got upset and blamed the centipede tech, sure that it couldn't be him acting out like that. Then to bring back the Captain America type of serum that brings out whatever is already there... He's just a normal person, and most people aren't Steve Rogers. Even if we want to be heroes, the truth is that deep down we are not always that good, and I thought that idea was well played in the pilot.

So I guess my main complaint is that I wish they'd given them twice as much time to develop the characters and ideas, but I suppose I need to accept that this was just a teaser for the rest of the season.

 

[TheVileOne]

Also is anyone not noticing that Maria Hill verbally said LONGSHOT as the person they recovered the Chitauri neural link from?

So the hot blonde in France...her alias is LONGSHOT. You know the mutant sometimes X-Men member who has good luck powers?
So weird.

 

[Silvermoon]

Also is anyone not noticing that Maria Hill verbally said LONGSHOT as the person they recovered the Chitauri neural link from?

So the hot blonde in France...her alias is LONGSHOT. You know the mutant sometimes X-Men member who has good luck powers?
So weird.

Was it Longshot? I heard it as "Vontrapp"

 

[cherokeesam]

Also is anyone not noticing that Maria Hill verbally said LONGSHOT as the person they recovered the Chitauri neural link from?

So the hot blonde in France...her alias is LONGSHOT. You know the mutant sometimes X-Men member who has good luck powers?
So weird.

Are you sure she said Longshot? I caught that bit, but didn't quite catch the name -- it sounded vaguely French to me, like Longchamps or something. I'd like to find out, because yeah, I'm pretty sure it was an easter egg of some sort, and she was supposed to be somebody we fanboys would recognize.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Was it Longshot? I heard it as "Vontrapp"

That's what I originally thought she said as well. The closed captions on ABC's site say 'Vanchat' however.

 

[cherokeesam]

Was it Longshot? I heard it as "Vontrapp"

Are you sure she said Longshot? I caught that bit, but didn't quite catch the name -- it sounded vaguely French to me, like Longchamps or something.

....Could it have been Fontaine? As in The Contessa? That would certainly fit a SHIELD show, and the character definitely seemed like Allegra's personality.

 

[TheVileOne]

Wow my hearing is bad. It sounded like Longshot to me.

 

[cherokeesam]

Anybody got the end credits available anywhere, can check on the actress and character she played? I get the feeling we might see her again. And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they say she worked for "Rising Tide?" If so, they're a lot bigger than just Skye broadcasting conspiracy theories out of the back of her van.