Geek TV

The Story

The old world is gone. Ever since The Avengers were called upon to deal with an alien invasion in New York, this is now a new world. If Tony Stark is busy hosting a gala or if Thor is washing his hair with Asgardian herbs or if the Hulk is off somewhere smashing stuff, whose gonna deal with the every day threats? Enter Agent Coulson, who faked his death in the Avengers movie, he’ll gather up a new team of Division 7 for S.H.I.E.L.D. This group consists of Agent Melinda May, an ex-field agent more interested in desk work, Agent Grant Ward, a slick, smooth talking and tough as nails mission agent who’s looking for a promotion and finally science geeks Agent Leo Fitz & Agent Jemma Simmons.
 
When a common man saves a woman from a burning building under “super” circumstances, S.H.I.E.L.D isn’t the only organization chasing him. With new super heroes, terrorists groups and alien technology popping up every day, it’s up to the government to step in and show the world that not all heroes wear masks or capes.  
 
 

The Show

When they first announced this show I was somewhat sceptical, as supporting characters in the past Marvel movies, S.H.I.E.L.D managed to connect all the “phase 1” movies into the block buster that was The Avengers movie and did a phenomenal job with that. But carrying a weekly program on their own? I wasn’t convinced. But after this pilot episode, I was surprisingly delighted with what I saw. Although they are occasionally mentioned, don’t expect to see Thor or Iron Man landing in the streets anytime soon and whether Sam Jackson will show up sometimes as Nick Fury remains to be seen.
 
Under the wing of Joss Whedon, who, let’s face it knows all about S.H.I.E.L.D and has had a great career in creating and directing TV shows (Buffy, Firefly) directed a cleverly written pilot with funny moments (love the truth serum scene) and some cool action scenes. It’s too soon to mention if I like the characters or not, but I do think they have potential. The character of Skye is way too attractive to be a computer nerd and be part of an organisation called Rising Tide, but I’m just nitpicking. Agent Hill was surprisingly underused in this pilot, hopefully we’ll see more of her in future episodes. I know this is supposed to be a show about a group of individuals, but like his vintage red car, this is Agent Coulson’s vehicle (Lola?) and that puts a smile on my comic book loving face.
 
At the beginning of the show, I was convinced that the hooded hero was Luke Cage. African-American, super strong, impervious skin (ok that was never shown), sort of bald, has a kid and is looking for work. A hero looking to get hired, get it? I guess the end results of what Mike actually was, ties neatly with Iron Man 3 and that makes sense I suppose.
 
 

The Verdict

With some decent special effects and CG, for TV anyway, this was a pretty good pilot and here’s hoping that the show throws us a curve ball every once in a while. I’m also curious to see if future plot threads will directly tie into Marvel’s Phase 2 & Phase 3 films.