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Showing posts with the label Clark Gregg

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE Featurette

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Face My Enemy”

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Face My Enemy” By: Brandon Wolfe If “ Face My Enemy ” is about anything - beyond ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’s usual “Find Object X before Bad Guy Y does” gobbledygook - it’s about Agent May. May has been a frustrating character on a show that doesn’t really have another kind. The show has painted her from the start as the stoic warrior-woman, an agent so focused on her duties that she doesn’t have much left over for anything like a personal level. This is a workable character type provided you build upon it over time, finding cracks and hidden layers in the character’s façade. With May, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ has never really done that because the show doesn’t appear to know how to build upon anything in any sort of skillful manner. It can insert its characters into the requisite dramatic moments that shows like this require, but enhancing and nurturing basic character-building? There’s no evidence as of yet that such a skill is in thi

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Making Friends & Influencing People”

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Making Friends & Influencing People” By: Brandon Wolfe With “ Making Friends and Influencing People ,” ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’ has struck out a new path, and that path is to rip off J.J. Abrams lock, stock and tomahawk. The series opens with the recently absent (except as a Fitz delusion) Agent Simmons waking up, setting about her normal morning routine of exercise and breakfast before strolling to work, all set to the chipper sounds of “God Help the Girl.” This is sequence so ‘ Lost ’ that it burns. It’s not just the sort of thing ‘ Lost ’ did all the time, but it’s almost a cut-and-paste of the opening sequence of that show’s Season 2 premiere, “Man of Science, Man of Faith,” right down to the record-scratch shocker revelation that ends the sequence, in this case, the reveal that Simmons is reporting for work at HYDRA. But the show is very quick – far too quick; they could have at least tried to let us think Simmons had defect

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Heavy Is The Head”

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Heavy Is The Head” By: Brandon Wolfe The terminal blandness of ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’ continues in full force with no sign of stopping. And if the show’s stable of dull, lifeless characters weren’t already packed to capacity, we are gifted an additional stiff in the form of Lance Hunter, one of the mercenaries operating under Lucy Lawless’ dead-but-probably-not-because-c’mon Agent Hartley. Hunter is picked up by General Talbot and offered a deal to name his own price if he rolls over on Coulson. Hunter’s loyalties are kept murky, but ultimately he attempts to sell out our boring heroes. His reward for this is for Coulson to offer him a spot on the team, because the TV version of Coulson is a boob. Hunter is the primary focus of “Heavy is the Head,” which is asinine because we were barely introduced to him last week and the show already has upwards of ten useless regular characters as it is. Devoting all this attention to this unin

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Shadows”

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Shadows” By: Brandon Wolfe ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’ was one of the biggest disappointments of the previous year. Heading into the fall TV season last year, it seemed like the show to beat. Bringing Marvel’s cinematic hot streak to the small screen, under the (partial) guidance of brilliant TV impresario Joss Whedon and employing fan-favorite Clark Gregg to anchor the series as the beloved, revived Agent Coulson, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ appeared to have everything going for it. Then it aired and the balloon of hope immediately burst. In place of the intelligence and personality we had grown accustomed to with Marvel’s cinematic universe, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ was a dull slog, less an expansion of the Marvel experience into broadcast television than some cheap junk-TV adventure show that seemed more at home airing on a Saturday afternoon in 1994. The chintzy production values, the blandly attractive leads, the plodding dialogu

Agent Peggy Carter To Appear On Season Premiere For Agents of SHIELD

ABC is giving Agent Carter a formal introduction. The network announced Monday that Hayley Atwell — aka Agent Peggy Carter — and George Stephanopoulos will guest star in the season premiere of Agents of SHIELD. The episode, titled "Shadows" will see Coulson ( Clark Gregg ) and his team now serving as fugitives with limited resources, but still doing their part to keep the world safe. Stephanopoulos will play himself. Season two will see the SHIELD team introduce new members they don't know. Guest stars set for Agents of SHIELD duty include B.J. Britt as Agent Antoine Triplett, Nick Blood as Agent Lance Hunter, Adrian Pasdar as Brigadier General Glenn Talbot, Henry Simmons as Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie, Patton Oswalt as Agent Billy Koenig, Lucy Lawless as Isabelle "Izzy" Hartley, Wilmer Calderon as Idaho, Reed Diamond as Daniel Whitehall, Brian Patrick Wade as Carl Creel, Matthew Glave as Roger Browning, Simon Kassianides as Sunil Bak

#AgentsOfSHIELD Season 2 Clips

Here are the first MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2 promo clips. MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2 premieres Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 9/8c on ABC. Please Leave A Comment-

Adrianne Palicki Joins Agents Of SHIELD

ABC's Agents of SHIELD is bringing in another character from the comics. Friday Night Lights favorite and comic book fan Adrianne Palicki has been tapped to guest-star as Marvel superspy Bobbi Morse, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Best known to comics fans as Mockingbird, Palicki's character will appear in the fifth episode of the Marvel procedural with the potential to return; the episode will find her popping in perhaps not as an ally to Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team. Please Leave A Comment-

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season One Gag Reel

In celebration of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D . - The Complete First Season coming to DVD and Blu-ray on September 9th we have an entertaining video of the gag reel from the bonus features to share with you! The Mind-Blowing Saga That Began in Marvel’s The Avengers Continues in ABC’s Action-Packed Series MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. Relive All 22 Thrilling Episodes, Plus Get Level 7 Access with Newly De-Classified Bonus Features Available On Blu-ray and DVD. In Stores September 9, 2014 The mind-blowing saga that began in Marvel’s The Avengers continues in ABC’s action-packed series, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — The Complete First Season. In the wake of The Battle of New York, the world has changed forever. An extraordinary landscape of wonders has been revealed! In response, mysteriously resurrected Agent Phil Coulson assembles an elite team of skilled agents and operatives: Melinda May, Grant Ward, Leo Fitz, Jemma Simmons and new recruit/computer hacker Skye. Togeth

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 Coming To Blu-ray & DVD September 9th

The Mind-Blowing Saga That Began in Marvel’s The Avengers Continues in ABC’s Action-Packed Series MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D . Relive All 22 Thrilling Episodes, Plus Get Level 7 Access with Newly De-Classified Bonus Features Available On Blu-ray and DVD. In Stores September 9, 2014 The mind-blowing saga that began in Marvel’s The Avengers continues in ABC’s action-packed series, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — The Complete First Season. In the wake of The Battle of New York, the world has changed forever. An extraordinary landscape of wonders has been revealed! In response, mysteriously resurrected Agent Phil Coulson assembles an elite team of skilled agents and operatives: Melinda May, Grant Ward, Leo Fitz, Jemma Simmons and new recruit/computer hacker Skye. Together, they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary. But every answer unearths even more tantalizing questions that reverberate across th

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “The Beginning of the End” By: Brandon Wolfe

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “The Beginning of the End” By: Brandon Wolfe ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’s’ first season stands as one of the more curious failures in recent memory. Here was a series that seemed to have every advantage laid out before it and felt poised to become the next great television phenomenon. Given the track records of both Marvel Studios and producer Joss Whedon, this should have been an easy win, yet a stifling blandness and frustrating ineptitude took hold immediately and never let up. So going into the season finale, the question taking shape was no longer what could be done to save this inaugural year at the buzzer. That ship had sailed, the damage too thorough to come back from. Thus the question became of what shape will Season 2 take. Is there any reason to hope for a brighter future from this enterprise? Basically, what assurances do we get that none of this will happen again? It’s a question that the show seemed to shift its focus to as

Does Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Deserve Season 2?

The series gets a second season, but does it deserve one? Story by: Matt Cummings Despite sporting a continually declining ratings base and failure to capitalize on many aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ABC has renewed Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a second season.  The renewal was announced on May 5th, in preparation for ABC's Upfront Event on Tuesday May 13th. While we've never been entirely sold on the series's flat characters and overall cheesy tone, we were most disappointed in its inability to maximize the gains behind Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World .  In fact, many were ready to call the show dead in the water after enduring the mostly unwatchable 12 episodes leading up to the Captain America: The Winter Solider tie-ins.  Since that time, AoS has delivered solid episodes one week and filler ones the next, as Coulson and team attempt to pick up their shattered lives post-HYDRA.  The revelations of Ward as a HYDRA agent

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Ragtag”

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Ragtag” By: Brandon Wolfe Agent Ward is boring. This is one of the immutable truths of the universe. The character is such a black hole that he manages to stand out as bland on a series populated entirely with flavorless ciphers. He is a perfect storm of dull, the yawn-generating point of intersection between generic actor, stock character and bad writing. Even going as far as to make him a surprise villain hasn’t managed to successfully nudge him into the realm of interesting. At best, it merely thrust an interesting development into his orbit. If ever a television character could be chalked up as a lost cause, too hopelessly humdrum to continue to bother with, it has to be him. Unfortunately, boring is where ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D .’ hangs its hat, and so it sets up “Ragtag” as a means of finding out just what makes Agent Ward tick. His HYDRA turnabout seemed pretty clear-cut. We had previously been told that he was recruited

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Nothing Personal”

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Nothing Personal” By: Brandon Wolfe ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’ needs all the help it can get at this point, so it wastes no time this week bringing in a secret weapon in the form of Maria Hill, the agent played by Cobie Smulders in the films. Because we associate Hill with two good films instead of with this show, she is a sight for bored eyes. Now working for Stark Industries in the wake of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s implosion -- and the purpose of her new employment was left vague in ‘ The Winter Soldier ’, but is explained here as a means of personal protection behind Stark’s crack team of lawyers, making this the show’s first-ever instance of being useful – Hill is cornered on the street by May, who asks for help with Coulson, whom she worries might have been compromised by HYDRA during his resurrection. Hill, however, is resistant, so May strikes out on her own. Back at Providence, Coulson and the team are trying to piece together what happe

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “The Only Light in the Darkness”

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “The Only Light in the Darkness” By: Brandon Wolfe I want to like ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D .’ Honest, I really do. For as much fun as mocking its ineptitude has consistently been, I still find myself rooting for it to turn it all around. I don’t know how it could possibly do that at this point without a top-to-bottom shakeup, but I see that Marvel logo at the beginning and that Mutant Enemy logo at the end and I want to believe that the stuff sandwiched in between could surprise us all at a moment’s notice and become the show we wanted and expected it to be. But “The Only Light in the Darkness” is not the episode where that happens. Ward is back with the group at Providence and informs Coulson of the inmates set free from the Fridge by Garrett, whom Ward lies and claims to have killed. One of the more notorious of those criminals is Marcus Daniels (known as Blackout in the comics, though no one calls him that here, because this show is no

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Providence” By: Brandon Wolfe

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Providence” By: Brandon Wolfe It was generally agreed upon that ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D .’ improved a bit with last week’s episode, if just by its usual dire standards. The show’s problems, primarily its soul-deadening mediocrity on the plotting, character and dialogue fronts, remained in play, but with the events of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ acting as a catalyst, and with a final twist that seemed surprisingly gutsy for a show that has been anything but, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ managed to rise to a rare level of basic watchability. You take your victories wherever you can. ‘Providence’ does not present us with a series now crystallized into focus, but ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ is still getting along as far as it can by swimming in ‘The Winter Soldier’s’ wake. S.H.I.E.L.D. has officially fallen as an organization and the fallout has left it exposed and with only three bases confirmed as secure. Coulson’s team are now m