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On the box

On the box

The ‘spin-off’ has been around for years. 

Be it an extension of an earlier program or a major tie-in from a book or film, television often has the misfortune of being an ungraceful melting pot of terrible ideas.

In 1977, after the huge success of Star Wars, 20 Century Fox pulled each of the main cast into a gaudy two-hour Christmas themed television program.  The Star Wars Holiday Special has spent the last 30-odd years being buried by everyone associated with its creation.

Of late, the highly-anticipated arrival of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been a good drawcard for the Seven Network. After debuting strongly for Seven, ratings for subsequent episodes started to steadily decline.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been created off the back of the very popular Avengers film of 2012 which, in turn, has borrowed from the classic comic book tales from the Marvel comic book brand. You can almost see why the brains trust at Disney (the parent company to Marvel) green lit the idea.

The Avengers film was written and directed by Joss Whedon, the mind behind cult TV classics like Buffy and Firefly. Spearheading the show would be Clark Gregg’s popular Phil Coulson character. The hope would be that cameos from the popular heroes would follow suit.  On paper it seems like a great concept, a sure-fire hit.  

The idea behind this latest spin-off revolves around the super-secret organisation that binds the individual heroes together (aptly named S.H.I.E.L.D.). However, despite its good intentions, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. really fails to deliver on the experience given by the film.

Its biggest problem is that it suffers from a bloated cast of largely boring and unfamiliar characters. As none of your favourite heroes will feature in the show, Whedon has tried to create characters that really fail to connect, which is at odds with those of the film.

Ironically, there is a sterile atmosphere to the program and, for a show about a secret government agency, there’s a serious lack of intrigue or espionage. The dialogue is clumsy and references to the films and comic books are so rife, it end up as a painful reminder of how much better those other movies and books really are.

While there are always a few lines that are genuinely funny or hit the mark, they are few and far between. Clark Gregg’s portrayal as Phil Coulson is the only redeeming factor in the show, but his screen time is limited due to the bevy of cookie-cutter characters that litter the cast.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tries too hard to please everyone and as a result fails to deliver anything worthy of really existing in the same world as Robert Downey Junior’s Iron Man.

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