In Which Adem, the One True Heir of House Gorden, Goes Against the Grain and is All, Like, "Meh"
I went into this keeping my expectations deliberately low, and I definitely did not dislike it. But, I'm not hyped up about it, either. After discounting for this being the pilot, with all that entails, I am cautiously optimistic. The premise has strong potential, and there were lots of good ideas and interesting themes flying around, but the execution turned me off in two ways.
First, none of the characters except Coulson really clicked for me. The Science Twins are kind of cute (they need to slow down, though...accents plus Whedonesque patter pacing equal lots of hitting the back button to figure out what the hell they just said), but Ming Na has all the charisma of a two by four in this role, and What if Scarlett Johanson Was a Dude is just generic white male badass so far. I really want to like Skye, but then I also really want to hate just how badly the show wants me to like her. Her dialog is a textbook case of trying too hard to establish smarts and quirkyness, and does sodium pentothal really work better in the presense of cleavage?
Then, second, fucking Extremis. Extremis is dumb. Extremis thrown in a blender with gamma radiation, alien metal, (not unreplicable after all?) super-soldier serum, and probably a single hair plucked from the head of an Asgardian to top it off is ridiculous. Extremis was one of the worst things about Iron Man 3, and it didn't work any better here, IMO. Sure, you'll probably blow up, but think how strong you'll be in the mean time! Maybe if you just focus really hard on not blowing up, like a drunk college kid who thinks he can maintain? The parts of the resolution that weren't just Coulson being a badass negotiator were horrible as well. "We can't develop a cure for this thing we just found out existed in two hours!" "Nothing is impossible! It's going to be all your fault if that dude dies! Maybe use Chekov's Literal Gun that you were playing with earlier!" Frowny science face, frowny science face, frowny science face, DAY SAVED! Good shot, Y-Chro Scar Jo!
There was a lot that I liked, too, though. Lots of good one-liners, in particular the poop-upine was a nice laugh, and the bit about Thor got a smile. Coulson's trick with the truth serum was clever. I liked the foundation building for the series that went on. I dug that they at least tried to address the notion that a top-secret agency that hides the truth from the public based on its own estimation of the greater good isn't necessarily a great idea. I like it any time a show addresses the big lie that all you need to do is work hard and you'll get ahead in life. I like that they're in the Marevel Universe but not IN the Marvel Universe, all up their own asses with established continuity. I am intrigued by Tahiti, especially since Scar Bro has apparently also been there.
So, I guess overall, I thought it was just OK, but it appears to have laid the foundation for something better, and I'm interested to see where it goes.
Edit: I think my biggest fear for this show is that it's going to end up in my sour spot, where it's not good enough for me to nerd out about (like, say,
Battlestar Galactica, or
Heroes or
Lost in their better seasons), but also not bad enough for me to enjoy snarking about (like, say,
Smallville, or
Heroes or
Lost in their worst seasons). I'm afraid it's going to be like that last season of
Heroes, where it wasn't actively horrible to the point where I had a good time ripping into it, but it also wasn't good enough to watch for non-snark-related reasons.