IMPORTANT QUESTION

[hafital]

Is Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D worth it? Do I need to watch it in order to greater appreciate the Marvel Cinematic Universe? I get a sort of indifferent vibe about it on my friend's list - most of you seem kind of just okay with it, not over the moon. But that's just a cursory impression. Should I bother? Do I need to? Are important things revealed? I do love Agent Coulson, but not so much that I need more of him or anything, so I have been mostly uninterested in Agents of SHIELD. But, then I get curious.


Also, and this is probably just my own thing, but I kind of find it irksome that he's dead in The Avengers but then he's apparently doesn't really die. I don't know, I think it cheapens the emotional payout of The Avengers, but I realize that makes me a bit of a hypocrite since I've been fully on board in other instances when formally dead characters are retconned into aliveness. Whatevs.

~~~~

In other words, things are NUTS over here, but in a generally good way. Most of it isn't even book stuff, just regular life/work stuff. OY.

Still rewatching The X-Files. Mulder is a goober. Scully is lovely. And watching MCU! Fun! Not reading much, though. No time to read! argh!

Also, rewatching Highlander, which is like coming home. love love love. I am sort of working on my hl_shortcuts story? Sort of? If thinking really hard is working? Isn't it? I say it is.

I had minor dental surgery for receding gums (not graft, but pinhole/collagen fibers whatever) last week and it was HORRID. Successful, but lord it was uncomfortable and like 2 hours of torture. And 6 weeks of recovery. WHUT? We still have to do the upper gums, but I am going to put that off for a while considering I can't do a 6 week recovery thing for the early part of the year at least. ugh.

Comments

[nestra]

You might pick up Agents of SHIELD a couple episodes before Captain America came out. The show's big problem is that they basically had to spend more than half a season treading water, waiting for the world-altering events of CA2. I think it got better after that, and S2 has been quite a bit better than S1.

[hafital]

It seems somewhat burdensome for the show to be dependent on the movies. Interesting.

[nestra]

I think it's doing okay now that the big SHIELD-HYDRA thing has happened. And as settai said, they've either figured out how to work it into the same universe as the movies, or they just have room to do it now.

[settiai]

I haven't been talking about it much, but I've really been enjoying Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since the beginning. Admittedly, the first half of S1 wasn't exactly the strongest, but it's been steadily picking up as it progresses.

Like nestra said, it really started getting better toward the end of S1 once the events of Winter Soldier happened. And, based on what we know about some of the upcoming films, I personally suspect some of the things that have happening on the show may be coming up in some way or another.

[hafital]

You're one of the only ones I see that does mention it on my f-list! :)

[settiai]

I think that I'm more likely to talk about adorable trick-or-treaters dressing like characters from the show than the show itself, though. :-P

[klia]

I don't post much, full stop, but I've been enjoying SHIELD since the beginning. It started out kind of rocky for me, but has improved steadily since. I think it's worth watching for May alone -- knowing 50-year-old Ming-Na Wen does most of her own fight sequences is pretty damn awesome.

Your dental surgery sounds horrible and I'm really sorry you have to do it all over again. Bleargh.

[devohoneybee]

I'm enjoying a lovely visit from Gryphonrhi this week, and as she pointed out to me about SHIELD yesterday, while the movies are focused primarily on super-heroes, SHIELD is about the regular humans who have to LIVE in a world that has super-heroes in it. Which turns out to be a very different kind of story, and interesting in its own right.

Also, Agent May. *nods with klia*.

note: in absence of May icon, using one that most closely resembles my feelings. *g*

[slb44.livejournal.com]

I'll preface my opinions about Agents of Shield by saying that I'm a huge Marvel comics fan and have been from a very early age. I'm also extraordinarily fond of the MCU. I adore Coulson in the movies. All that being said, watching Agents of Shield, and I've watched every episode to date, has been torture. It is literally painful for me to watch. It's not quite as bad this season as it was in the first, if only because they've picked up the pace and they've packed every episode with lots of tidbits that cause me to reflect on my knowledge of the comic and movie verses. As for Coulson, I don't know who the man in the series is, even his body language has changed and yes they've explained all that ad nauseam, but it doesn't work for me. Still I watched because I'm a completionist at heart and I love the tiny little bits of info that allow me to speculate where they're going and how it ties in to other things etc. In conclusion let me say this, I've watched all the Highlander movies and none of them have been as painful to watch as AoS is and we both know how bad some of the HL movies are. As always you're mileage might vary. (Please note that I've said nothing about the relationships on AoS because, yeah, they work even less for me then the series as a whole.)

OMG minor dental surgery sounds like hell on wheels. *reminds self to massage gums more regularly*

[hafital.livejournal.com]

No, I thank you so much! See, I'm also a completionist at heart, and I don't know if I can honestly set aside that need to complete even knowing that I will probably be annoyed with the show. I can already tell I will be annoyed with the show, although to be honest it doesn't take much for me to be annoyed! So there's that. But I do not read comics, so maybe without the background it won't twang as wrong to me.

As for Coulson, I don't know who the man in the series is, even his body language has changed and yes they've explained all that ad nauseam, but it doesn't work for me.

hmmm. I thank you again! If I do watch this, then at least I am forewarned.. :)

In conclusion let me say this, I've watched all the Highlander movies and none of them have been as painful to watch as AoS is and we both know how bad some of the HL movies are.

Hah. Well, maybe I need to take back my completionist title because I have NOT watched all the HL movies. lol. Er, well I think I did watch all the theatrical releases way back when, but have managed to avoid the last tv movie. I don't even know anything about it at all! And I like it that way. IMO, the canon in HL ends with Endgame. At least so far.

[slb44.livejournal.com]

Yeah I kind of suspected that we shared that completionist gene. To be honest if you're merely annoyed it'll be a win. To clarify it's the bits that refer back to the comics that make the series bearable for me. It's those tidbits that keep me hanging on.

No worries re the last HL movie. It's much better not to have seen it. Trust me. *g*

If memory serves I think someone posted a list of the episodes of AoS you need to watch if you can't bear to watch the entire series to date. I'm tempted to say it was on io9 but I can't swear to it. Yup, here's a link,

http://io9.com/which-episodes-you-must-watch-to-catch-up-on-agents-of-1572676925

And there's also this list as an alternative,

http://www.themarysue.com/must-see-agents-of-shield-s1-eps/

I hope this helps.

[luminosity]

I'm marathonning X-Files again, as well! I just finished War of the Coprophages, which, as you know, was a delight. Mulder is still asinine, and Scully was a lousy shot. :)

[hafital.livejournal.com]

Hah! Ugh, that episode will haunt me always.

Just finished the Small Potatoes, which is that weird 4 season ep with the guy who has a vestigial tail and shape shift into any other man, and he's impregnating women, including a woman who believes the father of her baby is Luke Skywalker. He captures then impersonates Mulder and makes a move on Scully and almost succeeds! This show was pretty wacky.