This is the world we live in now, and I couldn’t be a happier geek. There is a weekly live action TV drama set in the Marvel Universe, starring (some) characters from the comics, with the potential to show off even more down the line. You just know Disney is going to move Heaven and Earth to get Robert Downey Jr. or Samuel L. Jackson to visit Agents of SHIELD for Sweeps Week. But for the first episode, they’ve got to rely on Joss Whedon, Agent Phil Coulson and a cast of never-before-seen super spies to keep their audience entertained – and I say they succeed.

Agents of SHIELD doesn’t achieve greatness in its pilot, but then which shows ever do? At least this Marvel Universe show is off to a good start, with the right mix of action, humor, cool characters and references to the larger world. What more could a geek like me ask for?

TV Rating: 7/10 – Good!

I was not disappointed with the premiere of Agents of SHIELD, but I also wasn’t overly thrilled. If this was just any other spy procedural, I doubt I’d come back for even the second episode. But this isn’t just any other spy show. This is Agents of SHIELD, starring actual characters from the Marvel Movieverse and flinging comic book references at us left and right. And it’s produced by Joss Whedon, the patron saint of amazing, geeky television. Whedon even wrote and directed the pilot, and his wit and cleverness are on full display. The Whedon shows I’ve seen – Firefly, Dollhouse and a few seasons of Angel – are some of the best TV I have ever watched, and I have nothing but faith in Agents of SHIELD find its feet and produce some amazing television in the long run.

Few shows get their pilot absolutely perfect, and we can probably expect at least a few seasons of Agents of SHIELD.

I liked the pilot episode. The characters all seem pretty cool so far, though it may take some time for them to grow on me. I think I’m a little curmudgeony these days when it comes to new TV shows. Clark Gregg’s return as Agent Phil Coulson is great, though I’m not sold on the idea of him playing anything beyond dryly sardonic. He has one scene where he has to raise his voice to scold/motivate an underling, and I just don’t think he pulled it off. The rest of the cast is good, and I especially liked the science duo of Fitz and Simmons. But everyone else – for now – falls into the category of being too TV beautiful to take seriously quite yet. Everyone other than Gregg is a stunningly handsome or beautiful person filling standard TV roles. So hopefully their personalities and character arcs will expand as the series moves forward.

Join me after the jump for the full review.

Following the events of The Avengers (and a little bit of Iron Man 3), the world now knows that super-powers exist, and it’s up to SHIELD to try and keep track of what’s going on. Agent Phil Coulson has been mysteriously resurrected after he was killed by Loki, and he’s been put in charge of putting together SHIELD’s frontline team for dealing with super-powered problems. Coulson recruits young, handsome Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) to lead the team, even though Ward thinks the duty is beneath him. Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) are Ward’s science team, and veteran badass Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) is his driver. They also recruit the young, beautiful Skye (Chloe Bennet), a hacker who is tracking down super-powers for the diabolical Rising Tide organization. Again, I feel the need to point out that everybody is pretty much young and beautiful. But such is TV.

A friend of mine complained that Bennet was a little too beautiful to be a hacker, but I pointed out that beautiful female hackers are the norm, as per the 1995 documentary on the subject, Hackers.

In the first episode, Coulson puts his team together while Skye discovers Michael Peterson (Whedon-alum J. August Richards), a single-dad who uses his super strength to save a woman from an exploding building. SHIELD is quick to follow-up because there are sinister forces out there who are also looking for Peterson – and who also gave Peterson his powers. Sure enough, the exploding building and his origins are not what they seem, and the team has to get to the bottom of this mystery before Peterson’s powers go out of control.

Not Luke Cage, Rage, Black Panther or Falcon

Richards is good as the episode’s focus, though I felt his big climactic speech was a little much. I like him, but have never really been behind him as an actor, so my own personal feelings towards Richards kept his character from being as powerful as he could have been. Fortunately, I liked everything else about the climax, from Agent Coulson’s stern but hopeful demeanor in the face of danger to Ward’s clever weapon switch. The epilogue was especially fun.

And if you couldn’t guess that Lola would fly by the end, you aren’t reading enough comics.

Why isn’t Corvette making flying cars for real yet?

So the plot was solid and almost all of the characters are solid. They’ve got some growing to do, but again, this is just the first episode. We can’t expect gold from Day 1. Dollhouse wasn’t very good until episode six. The bulk of the episode was mostly procedural stuff. The show had an hour to fill, and they found various plot threads and character moments to fill that hour. I will admit to some of those scenes losing my attention, but that’s not so bad. I’ve got a short attention span sometimes.

The dialogue was mostly good. There were a few definitely funny lines throughout the episode, so that’s a plus. Dialogue and jokes are another one of those things that will become better and easier overtime. And again, I can’t stress this enough: the show will go on. I don’t know how many episodes are in the first season, but I would have to imagine it’s a lot. And considering the ratings of the first episode, and the positive response in general, I think a second season is already guaranteed. A second season at least.

Which is the first one Whedon will kill? My money is on Melinda May

So Agents of SHIELD is here to stay for the foreseeable future. And if you’re like me, you’re already imagining all the great and wonderful things that could happen. They have almost the entire Marvel Universe to play around in, especially if the show is a hit and the producers get more room to strut their stuff. The characters and writing could come together to create some truly wonderful Whedon creations. Someday we may be praising Agent Ward and Fitz/Simmons the way we do Mal Reynolds or Xander Harris. Agents of SHIELD is a new Joss Whedon show in an age where Joss Whedon is one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Let me say that again: Joss Whedon, our geek god, is one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Definitely the most creative. The rest of the world now knows and understands the power and strength of Joss Whedon’s creativity, and now they have a chance to watch it every week and finally turn a Joss Whedon show into a mainstream hit.

No matter the shortcomings of the first episode, or even the things they got right, the simple fact remains that we have Joss Whedon producing a live action TV show about the Marvel Universe. And he’s going to be giving us the Avengers sequel in a few years. What more could we possibly want from the universe?

Well, besides Maria Hill’s hair looking like it did in the movie. Really? They couldn’t have styled her hair just a bit so that she looked like she did in the movie? We don’t all know Cobie Smulders on sight.

Long-haired hippie freak

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