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Oct. 25th, 2013 09:36 amI have continued to be frustrated by the way Agents of SHIELD is almost the show I want it to be.
This much is clear: whatever nonsense they were pitching in the pilot about how SHIELD is a show about how ordinary people are coping with the changes to status quo the Avengers films have brought, that is not the show they are making. Agents of SHIELD is not about the public change to status quo, it is about the things in the shadows that our government is trying to keep from us. When the show is working well, which is not often, it is working in the same way Fringe works.
One difference between Fringe and SHIELD that I like is that because of Skye, the team is forced to ask deep questions about the morality of secrecy. Is it really right to hide these things from the public 'for their own safety'? Who makes that decision about what is right? In our world, do we value privacy and secrecy too much, or not enough?
Unfortunately, the team is forced to ask those questions, but they're not being forced to answer them. In the latest episode, we meet a former ally of Skye's who is originally positioned as an idealist trying to wreck the world in the name of information freedom... and then we learn that he has been bought by the mysterious Project Centipede. The end of the episode shows a broken Skye pleading to SHIELD for forgiveness, shaken of her conviction that SHIELD is an amoral government cesspool... even though in the episode we saw the deep harm that SHIELD negligence can do, even though Scorch's narrative shows the way SHIELD's many-over-few ideology throws individuals to the wayside for nebulous safety concerns, as basically every episode's guest star has this season except for the terrible Peru episode.
An episode of Agents of SHIELD ends in one of two ways: the special threat is dead, or the special threat is locked up in SHIELD custody. And I have to say, unless we see stories about SHIELD custody soon, the show is going to be an irretrievable moral blackhole. Prison 42 and the Raft and Ryker's Island are central to comic book SHIELD stories for a reason.
I need Skye to be continuing to question SHIELD's moral authority, and I need her questions to be answered in some way other than a dismissive "This is what we have to do." And I need other characters on the team to have their own doubts. I would imagine FitzSimmons and Ward are the best positioned for that, but possibly also Melinda if we ever get some backstory on her. Also, I need Melinda backstory. And I need FitzSimmons to get some narrative capital invested in them. And stop pussyfooting around whatever nonsense you're doing with Coulson, it's getting annoying. Okay, it's been annoying for a while. Also, give me more Maria Hill. And some ice cream.
This much is clear: whatever nonsense they were pitching in the pilot about how SHIELD is a show about how ordinary people are coping with the changes to status quo the Avengers films have brought, that is not the show they are making. Agents of SHIELD is not about the public change to status quo, it is about the things in the shadows that our government is trying to keep from us. When the show is working well, which is not often, it is working in the same way Fringe works.
One difference between Fringe and SHIELD that I like is that because of Skye, the team is forced to ask deep questions about the morality of secrecy. Is it really right to hide these things from the public 'for their own safety'? Who makes that decision about what is right? In our world, do we value privacy and secrecy too much, or not enough?
Unfortunately, the team is forced to ask those questions, but they're not being forced to answer them. In the latest episode, we meet a former ally of Skye's who is originally positioned as an idealist trying to wreck the world in the name of information freedom... and then we learn that he has been bought by the mysterious Project Centipede. The end of the episode shows a broken Skye pleading to SHIELD for forgiveness, shaken of her conviction that SHIELD is an amoral government cesspool... even though in the episode we saw the deep harm that SHIELD negligence can do, even though Scorch's narrative shows the way SHIELD's many-over-few ideology throws individuals to the wayside for nebulous safety concerns, as basically every episode's guest star has this season except for the terrible Peru episode.
An episode of Agents of SHIELD ends in one of two ways: the special threat is dead, or the special threat is locked up in SHIELD custody. And I have to say, unless we see stories about SHIELD custody soon, the show is going to be an irretrievable moral blackhole. Prison 42 and the Raft and Ryker's Island are central to comic book SHIELD stories for a reason.
I need Skye to be continuing to question SHIELD's moral authority, and I need her questions to be answered in some way other than a dismissive "This is what we have to do." And I need other characters on the team to have their own doubts. I would imagine FitzSimmons and Ward are the best positioned for that, but possibly also Melinda if we ever get some backstory on her. Also, I need Melinda backstory. And I need FitzSimmons to get some narrative capital invested in them. And stop pussyfooting around whatever nonsense you're doing with Coulson, it's getting annoying. Okay, it's been annoying for a while. Also, give me more Maria Hill. And some ice cream.