The Dark World Of Television...

There seems to be a lot of collusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe...

While DC Entertainment seems to be still struggling to make their plans solidify, Mighty Marvel marches on.  The newly started DC Cinematic Universe will extend only to films, while their television shows both animated and live-action are two other separate worlds. Marvel Studios on the other hand, seems to be including most of their live-action as one whole universe. While letting the animation department be its own world, it too though has influences with the MCU.

Many of you saw the announcement that an upcoming episode of "Agents of Shield" will tie in directly to the latest Marvel Studios film, "Thor: The Dark World".  This also stands to reason that the upcoming Marvel Studios film, "Captain America: Winter Soldier" will also play an important role in the series should AOS get a green light for a season two.  Even more so when "Avengers: Age of Ultron" rages across the screen.  It turns out it was a good thing making Marvel's first series a part of the MCU. Or maybe it was just unbelievable luck? Either way, there appears to be a lot more of it coming down the line.

With the monstrous deal signed with Netflix, Disney has placed on Marvel into an even broader playing field with even more platforms to distribute their brand.  And the shows appear to be connected to the main universe as well. Which means, we might see crossovers with other shows and possibly even additional movies.  It appears they've adapted a strategy for television similar to their successful film plan.  While Marvel Studios started out with Ironman and built up various characters until they had a group that could form the Avengers, these television heroes are each building until they become a group of their own, "The Defenders".  Television-sized of course.

Starting off first with Daredevil, then Luke Cage, Iron Fist and ultimately Jessica Jones, these grittier heroes will embark upon an area of the Marvel Universe not seen so far.  It will also be the introduction of Marvel's first superhero characters with secret identities. Something that the films avoided so far.  Unlike DC with their "Arrow" series, their "Flash" spin-off series, or their upcoming Hour Man show, these characters will be in the same universe as The Mighty Thor and The First Avenger.  There might even be a tie-in/crossover with Agents of Shield.  Although that could prove difficult since the AOS series is designed as a family show, and these four series (+miniseries) will be of at least a slightly more mature content than offerings on networks.  It's an exciting time right now for Marvel fans, comic book fans, and geeks in general.

It's hard for a DC Guy like myself to say, but Marvel really is doing a pounding on the former National Periodicals right now...

"NO"ing Your Enemy...

After five episodes of "Agents of Shield" it's time to start figuring out who the threat is…

The ultra, super-secret, global espionage organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. has many missions and many threats, but who is the nemesis of the new television series?  When the series began it was thought that the hactivist organization known as "The Rising Tide" would develop into the primary threat, but that has not happened.  Tide has turned out to be, so far, the Marvel Cinematic Universe equivalent of Greenpeace/Anonymous.  Essentially a group with an agenda, but not a worldwide threat to freedom.

So who is that threat?

Who is the group that is researching the Extremis Serum? Who is the one distrubuting the Centipede device; with shadowed individuals searching for a way to create more super soldiers.  Could this be a newly active A.I.M. under mysterious leadership after the death of Aldrich Killian?  Might possibly the Mandarin actually have been the real leader of A.I.M.?  Was he a brilliant deception, not only playing the "out of work actor "Trevor Slattery", but actually playing the actor playing the actor?  In which case the Ten Rings would/could possibly be the organization behind Advance Idea Mechanics.

We all know that the show AOS operates in the Marvel Cinematic Uuniverse. And we also know that Sir Ben Kingsley has filmed a secret project for Marvel, possibly one of their One Shot films.  Were he to be revealed to actually have been the Mandarin then that would open up opportunities for the organization in the television show. Either A.I.M. or the 10 rings could wind up being an organization if the upcoming short/project that Kingsley filmed reveals this aspect.  Just a unlikely possibility, but an interesting one.

Then there is the other possibility.

Could the organization behind all this be Shields ultimate threat: HYDRA?  Let's face it, in the world of pop-culture G.I. Joe has Cobra to contend with, and in the Marvel universe Shield has Hydra as it's foil.  Could the organization behind all this, and much of the activity in Ironman 3 actually be Hydra?  It may have been working behind the scenes all these years without the world knowing it.   Having failed at taking World War II from the Allies and the Axis, perhaps it sought a more stealth route to power?

If it's tentacles have been working silently to strangle the world could we see one of its many leaders surface in the series?  Will we see, say Baron Zemo, Commander Kraken or Madame Hydra show up on the show, or are they reserved for the films, presuming Hydra shows up within the present day MCU.  Will then they be based on Hydra Island ?  All manner of comic geekiness would then explode.

If not these groups what about a variation of Zodiac?  They've already played a role in Shield's past in the Marvel One Shot: "Agent Carter".  Perhaps a strain of the organization survived into the modern world?  Another group to not rule out would be the Masters of Evil as they are an Avenger villain group.  If they're an enemy of Earth's Mightiest Heroes then they could be an enemy of the Agents of Shield.

There are several great organizations that can't be used unfortunately.

Disney may own Marvel, but the comic company licensed out their rights to several properties that prevent the Marvel Studios films/television shows from using them.  Anything related to Spider-Man, X-Men or the Fantastic Four are off base.  No mutants.  So the chance of seeing the Hellfire Club are nil.  With the Web Head out to Sony there would be no sightings of the Sinister Six.  Without Reed Richards and his associates no Galactus and no Victor Von Doom.

Or does Agent Coulson and his crew have another, unknown force to reckon with?  One not seen in the comics?  I would doubt this simply because there are so many villains and threats in Marvel's catalog to be used without having to create entirely new ones.  The opportunities are there waiting to be opened.  Of course, this is all speculation and could turn out to be fanboy ravings.

At least that's what Hydra told me to say...

Secret Agent Plans...

Marvel's first foray into the small screen continues to unfold...

Three weeks and three adventures out and "Marvel's Agents of Shield" is slowly evolving into another Whedonesque narrative.  Almost all Joss Whedon's shows start off slow and cautiously adding layers of character and plot; building a story-like snowball that rolls down a mountain gathering momentum until it crashes into what becomes the season finale.

It took me till season two of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to finally become addicted.  By the fourth episode of "Firefly" to need my fix of that series (my favorite Whedon show, "Objects in Space" was a great, sadly last story for the Browncoats of Serenity).  Something like "Dollhouse" took till the second season to grab me, although I feel it never found its true footing.

MAOS' Pilot started off setting the table in an intriguing world filled with pretty, bland characters that I wanted to like, but who seemed too distant to care that I cared.  The second episode "0-8-4", moved us out of the confines of New York and pushed the characters out into a broader world.  And it teases that there might be something to care about after all.  In its third episode "The Asset" appears to finally make me care about both the agents and the story.

And the story not only had double the villains, but also an origin issue of a super villain: Graviton.  I hope this means we'll have another episode featuring the repercussions of this one.  The character of Skye finally finds a purpose and chemistry with Ward starts to take affect (but he needs to unwind a bit to let us in).  The locales and globe trotting have continued to expand the perception of the reach of this super secret organization.  So the show is starting to grow on me after falling short of its huge expectations.

But is it good?

Or perhaps a better question would be: "Is it what I expected?"  The show is not perfect, but as long as it grows and gets better I 'll keep watching.  There are problems witht the show.  For one, the fights are badly choreographed (Buffy's were much better realized).  Bring in some choreographers to spring the fights to life and edit it a little tighter for the action, please.

Also, I know it's a television show so the budget is limited, but couldn't they have a couple of matte paintings/digital shots set up to show us what they're talking about?  The villain's Malta resort is shown on medium shots and we kept hearing the Shield Agents talking about how big it was.  Didn't buy that.  How about an establishing shot showing a ginormous structure to add to the believability?  It would help to show the expanse of this world.

The characters were stiff in the first episode, but have begun up loosen up each outing.  This is good and if it continues that'll help myself and the audience go from liking to loving the crew aboard the bus.  I do find it interesting that each episode teases what happened to Agent Coulson.  I hope they don't reveal it too quickly and expect they won't.  My own thoughts are that Coulson is the product of a Petrie dish.  He's a clone or some variant thereof implanted with the memories of the dead agent of The Battle of New York.  And then I wonder/dream that the eco-terrorist group The Rising Tide will be revealed as a cover group for HYDRA.  Don't worry, I won't be hurt if I'm wrong.

But I do like wandering around in a world of super heroes.  It's fun watching how the governments of the world react to their existence.  I also get a kick out of seeing an idealized organization made up of good intentioned government workers working for a benevolent bureaucracy.  Only in Hollywood (and comics, I guess) could this exist.  It does come from a company that is known for telling great fairytales.  And I happen to like enchanted dreams.

I look forward to each episode of this show praying it doesn't turn into a pumpkin after midnight...

Echoes From Echo Base...

               

The success of ABC's "Marvel's Agents of S.H.IE.L.D." seems to be rubbing off on the Mouse…

While the show had an impressive debut, resulting in the largest audience for a drama in four years, the network and studio seem to be wanting to generate more internal content from all these acquisitions.  Remember that there was talk of a "Star Wars" television show for many years, and it was supposed to be a more mature take, a sort of "Sopranos" version of a galaxy far, far away reportedly titled: "Star Wars: Underworld".  But George Lucas and Rick McCallum squashed those fantasies with the reality of how much it would cost to make each episode (up to five million per episode).  Now with Disney's money behind it, many have hoped that those adventures might happen again.

From what I hear behind-the-scenes, Bothans are telling me that this is a good possibility. Although, it might not be the dark brooding adventure that was described. There is talk going on, but nothing definite yet as to what a new series could entail.  In fact, it may not even happen in the time it was originally set.  Again, preliminary talks are still going on so many things could change but right now there's a debate as to whether or not a television show would take place in between the Prequel Trilogy and the Original Trilogy, or should they go forward with a series that's between the Original Trilogy and the Sequel Trilogy.  This way they could play on the new mythos this new trilogy is creating.

Really right now it's just batting ideas around and seeing which ones work and which ones they want to pitch to the network.

They might still go with the "Deadwood in space" themed setting, but being as it would be on ABC it is unlikely that Disney would want it to be that dark. Not that they would want it to be for the little ones only, they just have a brand to protect and don't want to go too far outside it (it's a four billion dollar investment after all).  Kind of like a television version of in the movies Disney really doesn't want to go beyond PG-13 (R's are out of the question as it's kind of a family company).  But the narratives being discussed right now go back between making a series out of the stories they originally got written which will be set at the dawn of the Empire, or creating a whole new set of adventures after the destruction of the Galactic Empire set at the dawn of the New Republic.

Alan Horn and Bob Iger will likely weigh on on this but it will all be up to the decision of Kathleen Kennedy as to what direction they decide to go.  ABC wants to work with Lucasfilm and has had preliminary discussions on creating a series for the Alphabet Network.  Nothing is likely to be done before next year since the "Star Wars Rebels" and the ramp up for "Episode VII".  But if the brainstorming leads to a story they want to present, things could move faster .  I believe that Kennedy already has a lot on her plate and wouldn't expect to hear anything about a live-action till 2014 at the earliest.  In fact, I believe they want to get the Sequel Trilogy going before setting too big a foundation in television.  But this is Hollywood.  This is the entertainment business and rules don't always apply.

Sometimes magic happens when you least expect it...

Agents Of Zeppo...

The most highly anticipated show this season has to be the "Agents of Shield" series...

Debuting on the Alphabet Network next month, the show based on the human exploits in a world filled with superheroes is the most high profile live-action series announced by any network this year.  At least any broadcast network.  Not to mention that it's from Whedon and takes place in the MCU.

Whedon did an extensive interview with Entertainment Weekly and discussed a laundry list of opinions, not all based on Marvel.  When describing the show, the director tonally said AOS is the series version of a famous "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer" episode:

The Zeppo.

If you're a fan of the cult series then you get a visage of what to expect.  In a world where these heroes take all the oxygen, others have to breath.  The world goes on,  people's lives continue.  Humanity is left to pick up the pieces and the show is about how normal people (that look remarkably pretty) deal with the repercussions a society after we come to terms with the existence of super powered underweared people.  Both good and bad versions of these beings.

Plus, being discribed as an "X-Files like model" by Jeb Whedon is a good thing also.  No shame in that kind of comparison.  Normal people investigating the abnormal parts of the life around us.  Watching this season develope will be interesting.  Joss Whedon's shows tend to get better as the seasons go on, like aged wine or cheese.  Here's hoping the show has a long, long run.

No more "Firefly" fates please...

Whedonspeak...

Fall will be here before you know it...

And a new Joss Whedon television show is lying in wait, ready to pounce on your expectations.  And thankfully with his newly earned clout he won't have to worry about network suits breathing down his neck.  Success seems to have a way about it, right?

If you're a big Marvel fan, or just a Joss fan then you might want to check out the latest podcast of Entertainment Weekly.  It's got a really great interview with the Whederkund talking about various projects he's working on/promoting, including that little television show coming in the fall.  It's a fairly long interview as well, probably twice the length of his Jimmy Fallon interview.  Check it out, or if you have iTunes, you can download it here.

The only negative is he didn't mention that Warren Ellis internet collaboration thing...