THEN
Over the summer, Marvel debuted their latest One-Shot (i.e., short-film used as an extra feature on Blu-Rays) at Comic-Con. Entitled Agent Carter, it’s set one year after the events of Captain America, focusing on how Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is doing without potential boyfriend Captain America. In short: she’s sad that he’s gone (since she has no idea he’s actually still alive but frozen in a block of ice), but more annoyed with the systemic sexism which would see her – a trained field agent – live out the rest of her days as a desk clerk. So, she’s get to it, and kicks some literal ass while still finding time to check her make-up. Comic-Con audiences loved it.
Around the time in September Agent Carter was making its public debut on the Iron Man 3 Blu-Ray, Deadline reported Marvel was secretly working on adapting it into a full TV series just as Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD began its life as a One-Shot. Earlier this month, UK Tabloid The Daily Mirror reported that Hayley Atwell was officially attached to the project, and would be moving to Los Angeles from her home in Britain to accommodate a 6-month shooting schedule for the show. However, nothing was ever made official. Marvel wouldn’t say if they were working on any such show or not, and Atwell wouldn’t say either, other than re-affirming her interest in such a project were it to *wink wink* exist. We didn’t even know if a network was attached. We assumed it was ABC, but after Marvel’s unrelated deal with Netflix all bets were off.
NOW
The show is real. It’s in development at ABC. Hayley Atwell is attached to star. The pilot script was written by Captain America pair Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. All of this straight from ABC Entertainment Group president Paul Lee’s mouth. Furthermore, Reaper creators and showrunners of upcoming NBC drama Resurrection Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas will oversee Agent Carter. McFeely described the pilot script as “good,” and said the show “has a good chance to be on the network.”
So, clear a spot on the schedule for it, right? Not yet. It is in development, and they have a script along with potential showrunners. Guess what? So do a ton of other shows right now. Nearly 70% of them never make it past the pilot stage, which Agent Carter isn’t even at yet. McFeely simply confirmed they were developing the show. ABC has not officially ordered a pilot yet, assuming they don’t do something unexpected and bypass the pilot stage and order it straight to series.
The presence of Butters and Fazekas is definitely a good sign. Reaper was an amazing show with hilarious dialogue impeccably delivered by its perfectly cast characters. It’s one of a great many shows to be cancelled far too soon. Butters and Fazekas say they could work on both this and Resurrection should both be on the air next season, but it’s difficult to imagine them actually being a showrunner for both shows considering the time commitment required to simply do it for one show is insane.
Agent Carter becoming a TV show is also a potentially good thing for the representation of women on television, centering a show around a tough, kick-ass female character following in the grand tradition of Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Sydney Bristow (Alias).
But…Marvel’s Agents of freakin’ SHIELD should have at this point zapped any enthusiasm we might have for a live-action Marvel TV show airing on ABC. SHIELD is finally showing some signs of life, creatively, but it has had a rather rough go of it up until now. Some lay the blame at the feet of the actors (and, by extension, the casting department). However, there is an emerging school of thought that SHIELD‘s failures are more the fault of clear extensive studio nitpicking.
From FilmSchoolRejects:
“The paths these episode’s plots take can be mapped out by the viewer a mile ahead, and they absolutely reek of network notes asking for things to be dumbed down for Middle America. The dialogue is the kink of clunky, mindless crap that often includes phrases like ‘He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?’ or ‘In English, please!’ This garbage isn’t just not up to the standards of [Joss] Whedon, it’s not up to the standards of today’s television, period. “
It could also, of course, just be bad writing the studio had nothing to do with. However, from the very beginning there has been an overwhelming sense of blandness to everything related to Agents of SHIELD, as even the signature Joss Whedon plays on convention are tame (or totally nonexistent) compared to the more ballsy examples littered throughout Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. Part of that is because this is NOT a Joss Whedon show. He got the ball rolling by writing and directing the pilot; his brother (Jed) and sister-in-law (Maurissa Tancharoen) are the actual show-runners who do this show while Joss prepares Avengers: Age of Ultron. Those two have shown via Doctor Horrible’s Sing-A-Long-Blog that when working without interference (and more help from Joss) they can amazing. There is no hint of in SHIELD. With so many corporate interests invested in SHIELD, it might almost be too big to succeed.
And fail it has, with ratings free falling after the pilot before mercifully stabilizing over the past two episodes. They are in clear desperation mode, using the first two episodes of 2014 to put a temporary end to their two big drawn-out story lines (Coulson’s death, Skye’s parentage). They’ve cast Bill Paxton for a 4-episode arc as a well-known SHIELD agent character from the comics, and now today ABC confirmed that Jaimie Alexander will appear as Lady Sif, her Asgardian warrior character from the Thor films, in the February 15th episode. However, even the casting of Alexander reeks of corporate interference. It is no coincidence that her appearance on the show will air a week prior to the Blu-Ray release of Thor: The Dark World. Then again, as a huge fan of Jaimie Alexander as Sif I will totally watch that episode.
Beyond potential network interference, SHIELD’s issues may be linked back to its very conception whereby Marvel and ABC hoped we would be fine with watching a comic book show that doesn’t feature any actual comic book heroes or villains. Sif will in fact be the first honest-to-goodness super hero from the Marvel films to appear on the show, and is arguably their first honest-to-goodness super hero, period. We see the Marvel movies for the heroes and villains (or anti-villains, ala Loki); they gave us a show about a bunch of supporting characters, centered around a two-dimensional bit player (Coulson) from the movies whose humor was derived from his reactions to the heroes around him. Would Agent Carter be doomed to the same fate? Would it be a comic book show critically bereft of the type of characters we normally associate with comic books? And could whatever they do really look as good as the Agent Carter one-shot on a TV budget across 22-episodes?
I was very high on Agent Carter in the past, and the presence of the people from Reaper should times that by ten. However, now that we know for sure this thing is officially set up at ABC my expectations are far more pessimistic, but we are taking about something that doesn’t even an order for a pilot yet. Maybe by the time this reaches the pilot stage (if it does) SHIELD will have become awesome. It could happen…right? ABC sure hopes so.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments section.
