The Promise of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Saw Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. last night and I came away with feelings so mixed I had to write about them. Spoilers for the pilot follow.

The dialog had a few fun moments with characteristic Whedon-wit ("I'm sorry, that corner was really dark and I couldn't help myself." "Somebody really wanted our initials to spell out 'shield.'") but we are still leagues away from the empyrean heights of Firefly. The resolution was a literal Chekov's Stun Gun and it was telegraphed so blatantly that I thought it up and discounted it because it seemed too pat and obvious.

Another thing that bugs me is that I can feel the influence of Disney's general ethos. This is a lighter show than anything team Joss has done for TV before. The characters are less volatile than Firefly. We have none of the macabre satirical humor that defined Buffy and Angel. The sci-fi is much lower concept than Dollhouse.

Then again, Whedon pilots are usually pretty bad. Remember Angel's pilot? Hell, remember most of Buffy season 1? Neither do most people. Dollhouse is perhaps the worst offender. It had the best sci-fi premise on network in ages, but they spent the first six episodes unsuccessfully attempting to dumb things down to second grade level, offending Whedon fans and average audiences alike.

It would be disingenuous for me to suggest that I would stop watching this show for any reason.  It is penned by a group of writers I greatly admire and aspire to learn from, to a point that probably flirts with sycophancy. But I can still give you two fairly good reasons to stick it out through the first couple episodes.

Save for a few isolated characters Whedon has always portrayed the government (and authority writ large) as the ultimate bad guy. Behavioral modification programs. Bureaucratic nightmares. Extra-judicial detainment and unregulated experimentation. He and his team have given us some of the most terrifying law bodies this side of Orwell.

But this time Joss, Jed, and Maurissa are couching a government team as the good guys and they seem to be doing it earnestly. I'm not a half-wit. I know that there will be twists and betrayals within the organization (they are already foreshadowing falsehood about Coulsin's resurrection story). But most of the people working for the status quo are actually trying to be honest, old-fashioned good guys. Sky's little journey from Anonymous-esque Counter Culture Hacker girl to S.H.I.E.L.D. collaborator perfectly symbolizes this transition. It's a huge tonal shift, and it is going to take a couple episodes to nail down.

My second defense is that this show is set in the Marvel cinematic universe. By themselves, the Marvel superhero films are fairly mediocre. Together though, they represent a trans-media vision of unprecedented scope. Seeing all the little ligatures and references is nerd cocaine. Inside jokery is part of it, but it's more than that. Being familiar with everything creates a semi-exclusive layer of knowledge that extends a sense of community to all who consume it. That is the very core of fandom. And the show isn't dragging its heels capitalizing on that promise. It is already calling back stuff from Captain America, Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3.

There are less intellectually compelling reasons to keep watching too. Stuff seems to blow up on a regular basis. Kung-fu fights abound. Also most of the cast is stupidly, ludicrously attractive. Whedon favorites Ron Glass and J August Richards return to TV. And Coulson, who is a refreshingly average middle-aged dude with a penchant for nerdy collectibles, has proven himself to be extremely endearing. I suspect that he is actually a LMD, or a bio-augmented clone, or some ish, but taken at face value, he is the closest most of us will become to being a hero.

I will probably talk about this show again in the future, especially if it is a spectacular failure or if it blossoms into something rich and compelling.

Vacation Reading

Hello friends. Haven't posted anything on here since I've finished writing The Harrowing. Part of the reason is I have been on my honeymoon, which was amazing but probably not something you want to hear me go on about. The bigger picture is that I am shifting my focus away from critiquing entertainment to actually producing it. I am sacrificing all of my freetime on the altar of fiction writing. I will still periodically write about stuff that has moved me, but my posts will be in this scatter-gun style and they will likely grow more and more irregular. In the interim between book and honeymoon, I wrote a couple short stories, but now I am starting on my next long-term project (and working to get The Harrowing in front of an agent who knows what's what).


The Cuckoo's Calling

I actually like this better than the British cover, 

which has the bog-standard dude in a longcoat.

I am a huge devotee of Rowling, but I gave The Casual Vacancy a pass after I heard from multiple people that it was mostly bleak and filled with all sorts of unpleasantness. So I was extremely relieved when I had a great time with "Robert Galbraith's" "debut" (this is the detective novel Rowling mentioned in passing ages ago, but recently published under a pseudonym). The book really doesn't reinvent the detective novel; the protagonist is world-weary and lovably gruff, the mystery is an apparent suicide conundrum; a lot of it feels terribly familiar. But I can't help but care about her characters. In the space of a conversation, she can create a portrait of a personality that is either deliciously contemptible, genuinely endearing, sharp and sassy. The main characters have real problems presented with excellent pacing. I am looking forward to more of these.


The Last of Us

Fascinating how much the font says in this cover. Screams:
"Take me seriously, also think of The Road by McCarthy."

Naughty Dog is one of very few game companies whose titles go on my must-buy list. Uncharted 2 put them there, but with Last of Us, they've proven they can tame a far more serious breed of story and make you cry when they want to. The solemn tone hits you from the cover, and it's almost overbearing. I played the single-player game in small doses, in the company of friends over the course of several weeks, and I think I experienced in the optimal fashion. Any more than that, and I think the bleakness would be overbearing, or the game's own gravitas would come across as pretentious. But that's a very rare problem in triple A titles, and frankly, it's a refreshing one to encounter when paired with Naughty Dog's game design craftsmanship. It's a complex title, but there are no under-utilized systems. Everything from crafting to stealth to gunplay to upgrading skills and weapons feels tight and still very organic. It is lean. The story is engaging and brutal from beginning to end and while I am open to DLC, I honestly hope this doesn't become a franchise.


The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Short of Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman is probably my strongest literary influence, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane is very much a Neil Gaiman novel. There are some touching moments, a handful of awful ones, and a fantasy wrapper to capture it all, but I was ultimately kind of underwhelmed by the brief little book, which felt similar to other stuff Gaiman has written before. When weighed against The Graveyard Book, or even Coraline, the Hempstock women didn't do much for me. He's drawing on the familiar Mother, Maid and Crone trinity of magic women, but the story also doesn't really contribute anything new to their lore. The villainess was fascinating, but she is ultimately undercut by an abrupt switch to another more amorphous threat at the end. And ultimately, each character felt like abstracted versions of real people, especially when immediately contrasted against Rowling's characters.


Dredd

I've never touched a Judge Dredd book, and I probably wouldn't even know the character existed if it were not for that awful Stallone-vehicle from the 90s. That said, I heard positive things about this little film. It's acted extremely well, with an inspired bit of casting placing Karl Urban in the titular role, and the sparing use of visual effects in the crime-ridden dystopia of Megacity 1 works very well. If you are looking for high concept sci-fi, you will walk away disappointed; this is essentially RoboCop minus the sense of humor and social commentary; lots of brutal violence and explosive gun fights. That said, the dialog is reasonably sharp and the film captures the core of a lesser known comic hero. I'm not sure it will find the sequel that the internet is pulling for but it's on Netflix and worth a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Saga

I blew through both the available trades in the space of an afternoon and now I want more. There is so much imagination at work in Brian Vaughn's writing, and Fiona Staple's art brings it to life in a vivid, gorgeous way. If the devil offered me the opportunity to have her illustrate my work, he'd be a soul richer and I one poorer. This is the "next big thing" I didn't know I was waiting for. To my fellow comic nerds, the hype you've heard is well-earned. To use the laziest form of explanation in the critic's arsenal, Saga feels like the middle ground between Star Wars and Firefly but with more inventive magic and a lot more sex thrown in. Vaughn and Staple have said they are not interested in adapting the franchise to TV or film because they want to use it as a vehicle to explore what they can do in comics. Part of me wishes they would consider adapting, just so I can have more Saga to love, but I also tremendously respect their decision to keep the creative ball firmly in their own courts. People love to cite Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad as the heralds of this golden age of television, but I don't know man...From my perspective comics are where it is happening hard right now.

As I descend back into novel writing mode, I'm not sure when I will do another one of these. I am starting on Breaking Bad finally, so you can expect to have my 2 cents on that at some point. I'll probably get around to GTAV too after the hype train has left the station and everybody is officially over it. Until then readers!