TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

There's been a whole lot of hype around this show, but in case you've been living under a rock, here's the breakdown.  Marvel has been releasing movies that all tied together and culminated in 2012's THE AVENGERS.  Marvel is continueing to release movies, and has now released a TV show on ABC tha exists in the same shared universe as the films.  This TV show is being helmed by Joss Whedon who is also overseeing the Marvel movie projects.  This is not a knock off show with a couple of characters that you may recognize the names of from a successful movie.  This is a continuation of what we saw in theaters.  This is what happened after the credits rolled.

This delivered on all the hype.

Gregg Clark returns as Agent Coulson who we all saw die in THE AVENGERS.  The details of how he's still breathing are gone over and its fairly satisfying for five seconds until we get a major hint dropped that all isn't what it seems.  Coulson assembles a team that is going to be specializing in containing the emerging superhumans that are appearing.  If you're going into the first episode expecting huge action and stuff blowing up left and right, you're going to be disappointed.  What you will be getting is a very thoughtful, very careful pilot episode that does exactly what its supposed to do.

If you never saw any of the Marvel movies you can get through this with no problem.  Sure, you may miss a reference or two but the story does not hinge around the viewer's knowledge of the Marvel flicks.  Brilliant move.  This is about expending the audience, not just catering to the established fanbase.  Yes, THE AVENGERS happened, and is referenced.  IRONMAN 3 is referenced as well, and pretty heavily, but again, you don't have to have seen that movie (and if you didn't, you can Redbox that thing soon, but no rush) you're still good to go to keep up.

The cast was great.  The writing was sharp.  The action scenes were very nicely done.  There was a lot of heart to this.  Some of the scenes really grabbed me, and yes, I did gasp out loud at one point.  I had a lot of expectations going into this, and I can honestly say they were exceeded.

ABC gets it right

Heads up! Its Wednesday, October 26, 2011, I spend every day hoping this will be the one in which they show The Great Pumpkin, and this is The Side. They really don't show a lot of Halloween specials on TV anymore so i treasure the ones they do show. I still miss the GARFIELD HALLOWEEN special with a passion.

Speaking of TV...

TELEVISION!!

I originally wanted to review the new ABC show ONCE UPON A TIME. I've seen a bunch of ads for it. It looked like a lot of fun. I'm a fan of FABLES and this show was going to have the same type of thing going on with fairy tale folks living in the real world, but without all the song and dance numbers that we'd expect from anything associated with Disney. There's just one problem in that I missed most of the show. This was the combo platter of mom's birthday and getting the kids to bed, so I can't go shaking my fists at the sky or anything like that. It was a good day.

I did catch about half of the show and I really liked what I saw. It looked great. It was fun. One thing really jumped out and grabbed my attention, and that was the theme to this episode: adoption.

For those of you out there that are new to following me, I'm adopted. I was adopted when I was 15 days old. I grew up with the knowledge and accepted it years and years ago. I wasn't treated differently, and its not some source of trauma for me. A couple of years ago though you would think that placing your kid up for adoption is the worst thing you could possibly do. There were shows like FIND MY FAMILY or the horrible LIFE UNEXPECTED. For watching those shows, one would think that every person who was adopted felt this void in their life which only their biological family could fill. How could anyone place their child up for adoption.

ONCE UPON A TIME answered that. The entire episode centered around adoption as two characters that are adopted deal with it. Why would a person give their child up? "To give them a chance at a better life." Now, in one of the instances it was for very dramatic reasons with a curse taking over the lady and an eeeeeeevil queen doing eeeeeeevily queeny things. Still, it does ring true. Placing a child up for adoption isn't always some act of abandonment showing that the people doing it are some horrible monsters. It is an act of love. If the people didn't care they would have just gone in and had an abortion, now wouldn't they?

So ONCE UPON A TIME has a fan here, because, for once, TV got it right.

MUSIC!!

And how do them there young folks sometimes end up with a young'in they didn't plan on? Rollin' in the hay!



Thanks to the lovely and talented Kat Hogan for turning me on to that tune. Time for me to fly. See ya'll Friday.

Cupid needs love

I wanted to post this yesterday but considering I spent less time at home than i did at work of the hospital (and that's including sleep time) it just didn't happen.

I watched the show Tuesday night, and I'm going to say right now that I'm fully supporting it and urging folks to watch it. As I said before, I was a fan of the old show and thought it stunk that it got the axe so quickly.

I did some homework. The show's creator Rob Thomas (who also did Veronica Mars, well didn't actually 'do' her, but he created the show) really wanted the previous show to make a go of it, but seems there was a writer's strike or somesuch. he was approached by ABC to do another show here recently and was given the greenlight to give Cupid another shot.

This time it starts Bobby Cannavale, and as tempting as it is to do a compare and contrast between him and the previous star, Jeremy Piven, I'm not because it wouldn't be fair. I'm a big Piven fan, so I'm obviously biased. So, looking strictly at Cannavale's performance, he was great. He was given top notch material to work with and he delivered. He's very likable, and that's so important to character.

For those you don't know what the show is about. Cannavale plays a man claiming to be Cupid, the Roman God of love, who was kicked out of Mount Olympus and isn't allowed back until he puts together one hundred couples, but he can't use his powers. He takes the identity of Trevor Pierce which is false, but he's not offering anything else. So, the question is: is this really the God of Love, or is this crazy guy that's really good at matchmaking? The interesting chink in this comes when he's told about the story of Cupid and Psyche from a book and he's floored stating "That didn't happen."

Now, the twist on that little bit is that the other lead in the series is a pretty psychiatrist who's studying Trevor and thinks he's nuts. So, perhaps we're seeing the myth played out before us.

Look, I'm a cynical bastard. But there's still a small little piece of me deep down that's a romantic. This show appeals to that. One guy standing in the sea of cynicism that is New York City proclaiming to the world that true love exists and it's waiting for you. There's still a part of me that thinks that's pretty damn cool.

I also know that the show is already in trouble. The ratings weren't great for the first episode and ABC's patience isn't very long. So, check it out. You watching may help keep a good show on the air.

They're doing it again?

Tonight is the premier of the new ABC show CUPID... or is it?

It's not and this stuns me. They've done this show before. It was about ten years ago. It was also called CUPID and it starred Jeremy Piven. The main character claimed to be Cupid and was thrown out of Mount Olympus and couldn't get back in until he got one hundred couples together. The people around him mostly thought he was just a nut, but he was so good at match making that the viewers were left with the burning question in their head 'What if he's telling the truth?" If this sounds familiar, either you've got a good memory for television or you've seen the promos for the new show.

It was an absolutely brilliant show. It followed Michael Madson on another brilliant show VENGENCE UNLIMITED. It was easily the best two hours of television going at the time.

So of course both shows were canceled mid-season. In fact from conversations I've had with people I may be only one in a handful of people that even remember them. I'm very curious about this. Does ABC think no one will notice? Have they forgotten about it themselves and the creator got one past them?

I'm morbidly curious about the show. As for the predecessor, I showed up for Jeremy Piven and stayed because the show was brilliant. The new show stars someone I've never heard of and is on at ten o'clock at night. Two things that don't bode well for me watching it. This is made tougher by the fact I stayed up late to watch the eleven o'clock news last night to try to figure out what exploded over Virginia Sunday evening.

We'll see what the evening brings.