S.H.I.E.L.D. is recruiting viewers, should you assemble?

 

By Chris Mailloux

After three long years Joss Whedon has finally returned to television with his latest work Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

Right away the series shows clips from the 2012 hit film The Avengers, setting up the connection between the film and the series. The opening scene shows a father named Mike, played by J. August Richards, talking with his son, when suddenly a nearby building explodes.

Mike makes sure his son is safe and runs to the building to get everyone out safely. Throughout the episode we learn Mike has fallen on hard times and is trying to provide for his son.

Now Mike is not the main character of the series but he does play an important role in the pilot episode. What makes this television show different from The Avengers is that all the characters here have no powers. They’re all just agents with exceptional skills, similar to Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff from The Avengers.

Whedon has a history with ensemble casts. His past television shows like Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse and Firefly all focused on a large group of people.  The situation here is the same, with the premise of this episode being Agent Phil Coulson, played by Clark Gregg, creating a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives.

The fans of the Marvel cinematic universe will be happy to see Gregg back again as Coulson, especially after his death in The Avengers. The first episode didn’t explain the truth behind what happened to Coulson, but instead leaves it open for the show to explain it in future episodes. It was great seeing Gregg again and he simply steals the show whenever he’s on screen.

Another returning character from The Avengers is Maria Hill, played by Cobie Smulders. One of my favourite casting decisions in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was Smulders as Hill and it was great to see more of her. Once again, Smulders has perfected the look and attitude of the comic book character. Surprisingly, Hill is the only actual comic book character to make it into the pilot episode.

Coulson was brought into the comics, but not until after his introduction in the 2008 film Iron Man.  The newly introduced characters show promise and work well together. Two of the standouts were Brett Dalton as Agent Grant Ward and Chloe Bennet as Skye.

Ward plays a serious agent who dislikes the position he’s been brought into and doesn’t agree with Coulson’s team picks. Ward’s character has some great moments in the show and also shows a lot of promise for development in future episodes. Bennet’s character Skye can feel a little over-acted a times but it works with the character’s charm.

Overall, the choreography for the fighting was done very well and helped give little breaks of action throughout the episode. Although there were some cheesy lines, the writing throughout was excellent and fans of the comics will appreciate some of the easter eggs thrown in.

I really enjoyed Richards as Mike. He was a character you could both love and hate, as he was very compassionate but was also showing signs of corruption.

The pilot combine things like humour, action, emotion and enjoyable characters to create a very promising television series. I definitely recommend giving Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. a watch and I give it four out of five stars.

4/5