I admit it. I didn’t watch Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD tonight on ABC. I saw it at SDCC and once was enough. The panel at Comic Con 2013 piqued my interest but it wasn’t on my absolutely have to see list. As it happened, the TV Guide Fan Favorites Panel featuring True Blood’s Kristin Bauer van Straten and SHIELD’s Clark Gregg (Coulson) occurred in Ballroom 20 later that same day so I thought the panel would be a great opportunity to get a feel for the show so to speak. I saw Marvel’s The Avengers the year before and I liked it a lot more than I expected to. Since Joss Whedon, his brother Jed, and many others from the Whedon circle of trust were involved I thought that it had the potentcial to be good and it still does.
The universal truth about television pilots is that they are never 100% good because until the series is ordered, it’s a one shot show and shows take a minimum of a few episodes to find their legs if not longer.
Being in the room with dedicated Whedon/Marvel/Avengers fans raised the expectations for me because everyone went nuts when the panelists came out only to announce that they were screening the entire pilot. I was stoked because being able to have such an experience at Comic Con is one of the reasons I love about going. But then Marvel had to kill the experience. They literally had guys in black suits with night vision scopes on the sides on the Ballroom scanning for devices that were recording.
Ok Marvel we get it, you’re fiercely protective.
But Agents of Shield isn’t saving lives or changing the face of the entire world as we know it. It’s a TV show. And although the plot set up the premise about the agency and Coulson is its leader, I found myself not being able to give it my full attention at times. I had been texting with a friend of mine prior to the panel and was quietly carrying on said conversation as I watched. Then I got asked to shut it down like I was in high school or something. I’ve had similar experiences before at Comic Con. Because it is the biggest entertainment industry event of the year, even having a camera in your hand makes the security people nervous when clips are being shown.
I get it. But let’s get real here. In the three years that I’ve gone, there has never been a major incident regarding the recording of footage. Truth about Comic Con: You’re asked not to record studio footage and you don’t because it’s respectful but also because a majority of networks have it online by the following day anyway. And if Marvel was THAT worried about footage leakage, they should have used anti-record technology like at concerts or something similar.
The experience didn’t turn me off the show completely. For what it was, the pilot and the cast did a good job in setting everything up. And the ending which depicted Coulson taking off in his beloved Lola to the next case via flight makes me want to tune in next week.
From now on, let’s hope that Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is not as serious as Marvel makes it out to be. If Shield can accomplish that, it will be a perfect compliment to the network that hosts Once Upon a Time.
Did you watch Agents of SHIELD? Did you love it or hate it? Sound off below!
Image Credit: ABC
