“What does SHIELD stand for, Agent Ward?”
“Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division.”
“And what does that mean to you?”
“Someone really wanted our initials to spell SHIELD!”
This is our first TV review and we’re unlikely to do more than series openers and finales but there’s no better way to start our new category with Joss Whedon’s great new series. It’s already huge with this opening episode being the most watched American network show debut for four years. You may not want to read on in case you haven’t yet seen the excellent pilot episode.
SHIELD is a organisation dedicated to hiding the truth of superheroes, gods and aliens from the humans. One year on from a catastrophe called The Battle of New York, everyone knows of the powers that some possess. When single father Mike Peterson (J. August Richards) suddenly finds himself with incredible powers, SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) assigns a team, former violent field agent now reclusive pilot Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), Scottish engineering expert Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), English bio-chemistry nerd Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), tough-guy-and-definitely-not-a-people-person type Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) and Coulson himself, to go in search of the man to ensure that he stays good as well as to investigate hacker group The Rising Tide, led by the cocky, obsessive yet mysterious Skye (Chloe Bennet).
Everything about the show oozes awesomeness. Whedon’s signature slick humorous writing style shines throughout and, like all great Whedon projects, there’s a lovable team at the centre, be them Buffy’s band of high-school misfits (and that’s not just the students), Serenity’s quirky crew, the super-powered Avengers or the Agents of SHIELD.
We get more of the playful trickster in Coulson as he sets up a brilliantly funny sequence with Agent Ward and the truth drug. Dalton’s portrayal of Ward is one that makes the character more than the generic muscle of the team. The British scientific duo are certainly entertaining watch (“I’m not Hermione; I can’t just conger up a paralysis spell!) while Agent May could be an interesting character. Skye initially came off as a bit annoying but her potential mysteries are certainly a redeeming feature.
One of the main reasons I loved this episode was because of the sense that it really is set in the Marvel world. It’s not just the occasional reference to Romanoff (Black Widow) or the Director (Nick Fury) but the Super Soldier Serum from Captain America, the Gamma radiation from The Incredible Hulk and the Extremis from Iron Man 3 all come together as major plot points that are unveiled at the same rapid pace of the mystery. We’ve been told that this is Agent Maria Hill’s (Cobie Smulders) only appearance in the series but I hope that characters like Fury (Samuel L Jackson) or the Galaga man also have cameo appearances.
My only queries are that there’s no distinguishable theme tune and that there’s not really a strong link (other than the title) from this to the Marvel SHIELD comics. The latter can be fixed in future episodes that we hope can be more character focused with more terrifying villainous monsters. It would be nice to have the episode continuity established in Buffy series 2 rather than the Doctor Who/X-Files monster of the week kind of theme.
It’s not perfect but there’s a great cast, dozens of quotable lines and is something that’s going to have us glued to our screens for the next 13 weeks. Sharp, witty, great effects, an excellent plot and could be the next big thing for sci-fi TV for the next few years. It’s fun, riduculous, big budget popcorn television if such as thing exists
8/10
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