An editorial on the overall status of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. by our own Ronnie McNutt.

Just a warning…beware of spoilers.

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Since being bought out by Disney, the Marvel brand has gone from simply being one of the two biggest names in comics to being a multimedia juggernaut that is bleeding into nearly every aspect of entertainment. Everything Marvel has touched since has turned to gold. Disney really revitalized a brand that had become antiqued and stale, while still maintaining the rich history and tradition of its universe in a way that would be acceptable to fans of the brand already. Despite this and the success of almost every Marvel film since Ironman, can it be said that Disney is doing too much? With the expansion into TV with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the Mouse finally getting too greedy?

First let me say, I am a picky television watcher. My earliest memories of TV are of watching episodes of the amazing Babylon 5, and my first adult foray into TV as an adult was the first season of LOST. My standards are high, because my first experiences were with extremely good quality TV shows. Mediocre and average are not acceptable in my book. Though my opinions are harsh, they often hold truth. I simply refuse to ignore the mistakes that others will gloss over. That being said, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is not the shining bastion of television that most people would have you believe.

I was not too thrilled with the pilot episode, even though most people treated it like the second coming of Walter White. The story was bland, unoriginal and all around boring. One of the biggest pulls for me to watch the show was Agent Coulson, but he just does not carry the same charm that he has had in the movies. This is probably due to the fact that Disney has hired some of the worst TV writers to script this could-have-been-amazing show. Not only that, but the first episode focusing on Extremis, when Marvel had just released their worst movie (Iron Man 3) focusing around it, was a huge mistake. I literally groaned when I heard the word Extremis.

Verily, I do not like to judge a show by its pilot, and I have not with this one. I have a four episode rule. I will give any show four episodes to catch my attention, and if it has not yet, then I will not watch it. Sadly, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. failed this test. I cannot stand the storylines this show is developing. “Let’s be Alias, because people loved that show.” How about you be original because people love Marvel? I thought it would just be the pilot, but after four episodes I realized that this entire show was going to be a horrible amalgam of X-Files, Alias and Heroes.

Just let me lament the death of Agent Coulson real quick. No, I mean really. Agent Coulson is still dead. Sorry, Obama, he is not back, and believe me when I say this, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reminds you have few minutes of this fact. Look, Marvel, either resolve the storyline or stop slapping me in the face with the reminder that one of Marvel’s most beloved characters is dead. It is annoying, and you need to stop treating your audience like they are stupid. Take a lesson from the first half of season one of Heroes and learn that if you do not advance your plot quick enough, people will stop watching.

Hey guys, Skye is a spy! I know it is crazy. It isn’t like every show dealing with special agents of some sort has done this in their first season. Oh wait, yes they have. So Skye is going to end up betraying them, but she is going to have fallen in love with Ward by this point. She will feel bad for her actions, and when she tries to reconcile with the group, her betrayal will cause Ward to resent her. This will make the relationship take longer to develop, thus giving the show more drama to build on. How many times have we done this? I am tired of seeing this.

Not everything about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is bad. There are definitely some good qualities to the show, I just cannot see them, because the problems are so large. With the quality that I have come to expect from ABC I am surprised this show was allowed to air, and I am sure it would not have if parent company Disney had not forced them to allow it, due to Marvel being a cash cow. Sadly, this will not be the end either, considering that Marvel is planning four more shows and a miniseries. All we can hope is that Marvel will learn from their mistakes in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and actually make one of them a decent show.

Agree or disagree with Ronnie? Let us know over on Twitter! Find us here: @JustUsGeeks!