Marvel Cinematic Universe

Agent Ward is a tool.

Fitz/Simmons is a little creepy (though Simmons is definitely my kind of cute/pretty when I can forget that she and the other guy appear to be sharing a brain).

I liked the tie-in to "Iron Man 3" without being super obvious about it.

And I really really want Lola.

Didn't love it, I actually found it dragged and was boring. I will probably watch an episode or two more just to see how it settles.

I had a lot of fun. Of course, any series that has a climactic scene at L.A.'s Union Station works for me, since I can say things like "Hey, I remember getting Red Line information from that booth that he just landed on and destroyed!"

I'm insanely forgiving of pilots - this one would have had to massively fuck up to disappoint me and it didn't. I'm on board.

But, yes, Agent Ward is a tool, and the least interesting character by far. And the actress who plays Skye - Chloe Bennet, right? - looks so much like Eliza Dushku that it was distracting.

Other than that, I'm cool. I think my favorite non-Coulson character is May.

Oh, brudder. I'm only ten minutes in and every single character except Gunn is beyond insufferable. Maybe Ming Na will be able to do something non-annoying with her character, but when her establishing scene is her saying 'no,' Colson saying 'yes,' and her saying 'okay' it doesn't bode well.

Looks nice, and as stated above, pilot, but seriously, Joss, hon. Give me one character to latch onto.

Not crazy about main guy, not crazy about Skye (not liking that name either). I like the others well enough so I hope they fix the dullness of the leads. Still, not as strong a first episode as I was expecting.

I had fun with it. I really enjoyed it. Ward was a little stiff and I really liked FitzSimmons. The only one I didn't like was Skye. It was a character that could have been played by Eliza, Summer, or Amy but this actress was just extremely annoying. I'm hoping she gets dropped before the end of the season.

I would have been perfectly satisfied with Coulson's original story - "I stopped breathing for forty seconds, woke up in ICU, spent a few weeks in Tahiti sipping mai tais."

(Plus, loved Maria calling Coulson out on his exaggerating the length of time he was technically dead).

So I really hope that whatever's inside the Coulson's Resurrection Mystery Box ends up being worthwhile, because I'll be really annoyed if we get some convoluted, inexplicable mess when they have something perfectly reasonable already in place.

And I'm already a little worried that this Phil Coulson is a Life Model Decoy or some other kind of duplicate and that Coulson actually did die in Avengers, because way to rip out my heart all over again, Joss.

Lots of stories being dropped into place. I hope they can work them out.

Strangely, I liked FitzSimmons. There's something kind of adorkable about them.

I liked Ward when he had been poked with the truth serum. "Actually, no, that did hurt. I was just trying to maintain my masculinity."

I'm interested to see what happened with Coulson - I'm wondering if he was also given some magic Extremis Serum and we'll see how that plays out...

The only one I didn't like was Skye. It was a character that could have been played by Eliza, Summer, or Amy but this actress was just extremely annoying. I'm hoping she gets dropped before the end of the season.

I agree. I feel like the character may have worked better if it was played by someone less...valley?

I loved it. The dialogue had just the right amount of Whedon snark. Coulson injecting Ward with the truth serum was unexpected and delightful.

any series that has a climactic scene at L.A.'s Union Station

Was that where they filmed the waltz sequence in The Fisher King? It looked really familiar to me.

I think The Fisher King was actually filmed in Grand Central Station. Union Station probably gets a lot of use, though, in other things.

Alright, I'm still guarded, but Ming-Na did, in fact, help by being tolerable. Fitz-Simmons didn't, they're too much a quirkfest, and the annoying valley terrorist is supposed to be our audience surrogate? Yikes.

May I complain about two things? Nitpicky? Just so I don't grow donkey's ears?

1: The Magic Non-Lethal Gun That The Audience Was Supposed To Have Forgotten About But Really, Joss, It Was Kludgy. The longer that scene went (the longer some other cop (real or fake) didn't shoot him) the more implausible it became to me. Everyone knew it was a tranq gun, so just shoot him.

2: The Magic Stolen Driver's License. You snatch a electronics-expert terrorist, take her to your supersecret flying base, and don't search her?

Thank you. I'll clam up and enjoy the Whedonness from here on out.

Watched this and pretty much hated every character, period. Won't be back for episode 2.

All I know is, I'm very forgiving when it comes to shows like this.

Last season, I didn't expect to find myself loving Arrow based on the first few episodes, where I spent most of my energy grousing about how kill-happy Ollie was. But by the end of the season, I thought it was excellent, and while Ollie is still a little too kill-happy for me, the show has acknowledged it and made it a part of the narrative instead of simply expecting us to let it slide because he's the nominal good guy.

Why do I bring this up? Because the Whedons and their team have a better track record, in my opinion, than Greg Berlanti. And this show is already ahead of where Arrow was after its pilot (also IMO). I expect it to only get better as they get their legs under them and start establishing the show as something other than the expected (but never promised) Avengers 1.5 that I've seen a lot of fans bailing on the show for not being.

2: The Magic Stolen Driver's License. You snatch a electronics-expert terrorist, take her to your supersecret flying base, and don't search her?

I think that was part of Coulson's attempt to recruit her. She wasn't being detained as a criminal - he wanted her on his team and he wanted her to willingly join and willingly give up Michael's name. He could have just rifled through her stuff and gotten the info faster, but it would have run counter to his trying to woo her. If he'd known about Extremis, he might have done just that, but at the time he didn't have a ticking clock - he wanted to find Michael, but it wasn't a situation where he needed to find him immediately.

Corvus wrote:Alright, I'm still guarded, but Ming-Na did, in fact, help by being tolerable. Fitz-Simmons didn't, they're too much a quirkfest, and the annoying valley terrorist is supposed to be our audience surrogate? Yikes.

I wish J. August Richard's character was the audience surrogate.

big chicken wrote:

Corvus wrote:Alright, I'm still guarded, but Ming-Na did, in fact, help by being tolerable. Fitz-Simmons didn't, they're too much a quirkfest, and the annoying valley terrorist is supposed to be our audience surrogate? Yikes.

I wish J. August Richard's character was the audience surrogate.

So much word to this. I love J. August Richards and part of the show's appeal to me was that he was going to be in it. I thought this having only seen the promos and not reading any casting information or anything because I didn't want to be spoiled. (This did make the appearance of Cobie Smulders and Ron Glass extra fun. And it looks like they could both be back in the future.) If he's just the superhero of the week for the pilot, I'm so disappointed.

I enjoyed it. I was not all rah-rah for the thing, but I love Coulson, and Melinda May is intriguing. I actually liked Fitz and Simmons, but I'm pretty meh on Ward and Skye. Maybe I'll come around on them, but right now - meh.

I'll stick around for a few more episodes. If nothing else because I love Clark Gregg.

Agreed, laddical, though:

but it would have run counter to his trying to woo her.

The bag-over-the-head as a date opener might be sending mixed signals. Depending on one's predilections, one supposes.

Hmm. Yes.

laddical wrote:

So I really hope that whatever's inside the Coulson's Resurrection Mystery Box ends up being worthwhile, because I'll be really annoyed if we get some convoluted, inexplicable mess when they have something perfectly reasonable already in place.

And I'm already a little worried that this Phil Coulson is a Life Model Decoy or some other kind of duplicate and that Coulson actually did die in Avengers, because way to rip out my heart all over again, Joss.

You and me, both. I'm pulling for Extremis tech, but I don't think SHIELD had access to it at that point. I do not want to find out my boo Phil is a robot.

I liked it, but will readily admit it's not perfect. The FitzSimmons twins talked TOO FAST OMG! I didn't understand half of what they said. And my favorite non-Phil character is Melinda May, but that could be because I have a bit of a girl crush on Ming Na.

Well, I am super excited about this show! It was fun and I can't wait to see how it goes. No, it wasn't the most amazing thing I've ever seen, but it was a pilot. I'm pretty forgiving of the first several episodes of any show. It takes time for shows to find their feet. Like laddical said about Arrow; I wasn't thrilled with the first several episodes of that either, but I ended up loving it. I already like this quite a bit and I think it'll only get better!

I liked the little bits of references to other Marvel stuff they sprinkled in ("Journey Into Mystery" hee!), but I dearly wish Marvel would regain the rights to X-Men from Fox. This show would be even better with mutants! I'm so torn because I really liked the First Class movie, but I think Marvel would do so many more amazing things with the property.

Also, I'm so, so happy that I get to see Ming-Na every week on a show I actually like! I couldn't stomach SGU even for her.

Yeah, I liked it, but it was very, very genre-pilot. I think it'll find its feet just fine, though.

I liked it. It's really comic-booky, I love Melinda May (WHAT UP MY GIRL MING NA! *cough* excuse me fangirl explosion) and Clark Gregg is awesome. It's a little clunky, but I feel like most pilots are -- you're mashing the cast together, forcing the premise, etc. And really, I thought Agent Ward was the audience's surrogate, not Skye. Ward is like my mom -- no clue about the Marvel movies, no clue about Whedon, so she'd latch onto that guy to help show her around.

And I liked Michael's speech at the end. It summed up the rage I've been feeling regarding everything in our world for a long time now.

I was pretty luke-warm about it, but I agree that it's a pilot so I don't put much stock in the first impression. I liked Skye more than most people seem to, but I really disliked the Fitz/Simmons thing. It felt SO gimmicky, and try-hard. Like, if you expect your show to last for seven seasons, it seems short-sighted and silly to set these characters up as two halves of a whole, especially for the sake of a dumb joke. Obviously, they can differentiate themselves as things go on, but it tested my patience last night.

The other thing that bothered me, and I know this is stupid, but everyone is movie-star beautiful in kind of the same way, like they all rolled off the same assembly line. I had this problem on Dollhouse too, but there it made sense contextually. Here, there is no reason that all of these scientists, activists, and government agents should look like they were made by Mattel. It just doesn't feel like a world I could enter, and I know it's a comic-book world, but that's the challenge. Of course most actors are very good-looking, and I like pretty people, but there is interesting-pretty and then there is everyone-is-a-knockout pretty. Compare the looks of this cast to the main cast members of other genre shows, like Star Trek, Buffy, Alias, etc. Anyway, it bugged.

I agree that the lack of an obvious audience surrogate is a problem. I just don't think there was enough time to spend with Ward or Skye, but hopefully they'll work on that as the series goes on, now that they've spent time establishing SHIELD and the other characters. Also, their personalities seemed intentionally off-putting, which is an odd choice for the audience surrogate role...

I.... did not care for the show, besides Son of Coul, Agent Hill and Melinda May. I did not like Ward or Skye (who was waaaay too fresh-looking to be living in a van). But I want SO BADLY to like it, so I'll keep watching.