• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

‘Agents of Shield’ most popular superhero show on TV

DigificWriter said:
And FOX allowed Dollhouse a full two seasons to tell a complete story.
Click to expand...

Whedon and the showrunners had a 5-year plan for Dollhouse, with the majority of the seasons taking place in the post-apocalyptic future from Epitaphs One & Two. Season 2 gave the series closure, but it was far from the complete story.

Well, I'm not going to ask you if you know already what the smoke monster is, but how much of a long-term plan do you have? The Tahmoh (Penikett) character, for instance, I'm sure there's a way he can work long-term, but I'm not seeing it, because I'm not you.

When I presented the show to the network, I presented a five-year plan. And I'll tell you right now, Tahmoh is not going to be the reporter from the Hulk, showing up one step after they're done for five years. He gets his feet wet pretty early on. Things are going to get very strange and very ugly for everybody as soon as I can make it that way. Because, ultimately, the premise has in it something easy to understand -- she becomes somebody different -- what's going on around her can change as much as we like, so it doesn't get static.
Click to expand...
Source: https://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/02/dollhouse_joss_whedon_qa.html

DigificWriter said:
Also, give me one example of another television series that preceded Buffy and actually inspired academic research and study.
Click to expand...

Twin Peaks, probably. I love the Mutant Enemy series as much as the next geek, but they aren't the alpha and omega of geeky genre television that fans and critics sometimes make them out to be. A lot of the "firsts" attributed to them were actually done by others first.

"Buffy Seasons 1-5 were the first pre-planned genre series narrative with the showrunner seeding storylines years in advance."
J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5. Aired February 22, 1993 to November 25, 1998. Wrapped its five season run 8 episodes into Buffy's third season.

"Once More with Feeling was the first musical episode of genre TV with entirely original music written specifically for it."
R.J. Stewart and Rob Tapert's Xena: Warrior Princess "The Bitter Suite" (For which composer Joseph LoDuca earned two Emmy nominations). Aired February 2, 1998 while Jenny Calendar was still breathing.

"Willow and Tara were the first same-sex couple to be main characters in a genre series."
Xena and Gabrielle officially declared their non-platonic love for one another and passionately kissed (albeit while Xena was re-incarnated in Ted Raimi's body) in the final episode of R.J. Stewart's original run as showrunner, Season 4's clip show/post-series coda/almost series finale "Deja Vu All Over Again". Aired May 17, 1999 while Willow was still in high school.

"Buffy was the first female-led superhero TV series to be popular, successful and run for several seasons."
Also Xena.

"Buffy was the first genre show to mix funny character-based comedy, exciting action sequences, heartbreaking drama and intelligent and thought provoking themes. Farscape, Supernatural, Lost, Fringe, Person of Interest, Orphan Black, NuWho, etc. were all inspired by it."
So did Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and you can't tell me Whedon wasn't inspired by it. Not only was Quark's Armin Shimmerman cast in late Season 1 as Principal Snyder, he was Whedon's original choice to play Principal Flutie in the series premiere with the role was written with him in mind. Shimmerman had to pass due to commitments to DS9, so they were forced to go with former David Greenwalt collaborator Ken Lerner (Secret Admirer) for the first few episodes instead. Aired January 3, 1993 to June 2, 1999. Wrapped its seven season run as Buffy was graduating from high school.
 
Last edited:
OCD Geek said:
"Buffy was the first female-led superhero TV series to be popular, successful and run for several seasons."
Also Xena.
Click to expand...
Wonder Woman ran for three seasons after a pilot movie. The pilot movie was in 1975, season 1 on ABC was in 1976-1977, and seasons 2-3 were on CBS in 1977-1979 under the name The New Adventures of Wonder Woman.
 
Other than the one specific example in this thread, I've never seen any Buffy fan try to claim that Buffy did any of these things first. Once More With Feeling is something that is seen as a sort of 'first', not because it was the first show to ever try it but because it was the first to really succeed (The Bitter Suite is not a great episode or a great musical, nor does it even have particularly good music), and is arguably still the best example of the idea ever done (really, arguably the only one to ever do it well - at least of the ones I've seen). The rest is considered significant, worth noting, etc, but not 'firsts' of any kind.
 
EnderAKH said:
I love Firefly, it is one of my favorite science fiction TV series ever (which reminds me, I'm due for a rewatch). And Dollhouse in season two, from episode 5 until the end, is some of my favorite sci-fi arc writing it just took WAY too long to get there. But that does not change TREK_GOD_1's point... while they may have creatively been successes, from a business perspective they were failures. It does not matter that Firefly was aired out of order, or they forced him to shoot a new pilot. The production teams for both shows wanted to make more episodes, the network opted to not make more episodes because of low ratings. .
Click to expand...

Yes, and that basic fact of the TV business cannot be denied.
 
Let me pose the following scenario to all of you:
You're searching for your "dream job" and finally find it, but once you start work, your boss continually undermines your ability to actually progress and succeed at it, and then fires you for "underperforming".

Now let me ask you a question:
Are you a "failure" for not succeeding in said job even though the environment you were in was rigged against you ever actually being able to succeed?

That's the exact scenario Joss and his cast were facing with Firefly.
 
As far as my resume goes? As far as finding a new job goes? Yes. I was fired. Whether or not the firing was justified or not is immaterial as far as getting me in the door to interview for a new job. And I am going to have to work harder to not only get in the door for the next job but also justify the firing without coming off like a bitter jerk. As far as my internal narrative goes? No. But my internal narrative matters to no one but me.
 
CorporalCaptain said:
Wonder Woman ran for three seasons after a pilot movie. The pilot movie was in 1975, season 1 on ABC was in 1976-1977, and seasons 2-3 were on CBS in 1977-1979 under the name The New Adventures of Wonder Woman.
Click to expand...

See also The Bionic Woman (the original, not the reboot).

And I confess it drives me nuts whenever folks credit BUFFY for launching the whole musical ep thing. Don't get me wrong. "One More with Feeling" is great, but "The Bitter Suite" is great too--and got there first. I still have the soundtrack album.

BUFFY was a fantastic show, no denying it, but too often folks sweep XENA under the rug in their rush to praise BUFFY.
 
Last edited:
Per a new analysis by Parrot Analytics, it ain’t Daredevil, Supergirl, Flash, it’s the constantly maligned AoS. Parrot takes into account MANY more factors than just Nielsen’s in their analysis.

Anyway, it’s nice to see this highly under appreciated show get some much overdue recognition.

'Agents of SHIELD' Is More Popular Than Marvel Netflix Shows According to New Study https://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/11/09/agents-of-shield-more-popular-netflix-daredevil/ via @ComicBook

.
Click to expand...

I mean, even in a world where the few formerly good and great superhero shows are all shit now, modern Agents of SHIELD is still pretty fucking bad. I mean, its not as bad as DC's shit pile they call Titans, but I'd rather watch Inhumans or Iron Fist over post-Mid season 3 AoS. I mean, I love parts of the show, up until it becomes about the Nazi Matrix (because turning our heroes into nazis is exactly what America needed, thanks assholes), but come on. Even the Arrowverse only did Nazi-fied heroes once, and they were explicitly the bad guys of an alternate universe that got their asses kicked (the only way a Nazi/Nazi analog story should end). Then, AoS spent an entire season on a story that got completely erased at the end and the only lasting result is that the best character is no longer on the show. Even shit like Gotham or Arrow wouldn't pull a "fuck you, you just wasted 20 episodes worth of your life on a story that never happened LOL".

Agents of SHIELD doesn't even have its lead anymore. I mean, some shows would be better if their lead left (Arrow would be 1000 times better without Felicity, for example), but it sure as hell doesn't help AoS. This is a show that peaked with the Skye/Mr Hyde story arc, then had one last gasp of brilliance with the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider stuff. Even Flash and Arrow had 2-3 full seasons of being pretty good to great before going to shit. With AoS, if you cut out the first 8 episodes of season 1, every single episode with Admiral Adama's fake SHIELD, and the non-Ghost Rider parts of Season 3 then you probably have only a season and a half of good stuff at most. Now, that season and a half worth of material was good to amazing, but its not a high percentage of the show at this point.

This must be what it feels like to be a old school transformers fan during the Bay movie era. The product put out is shit, but is popular over the actually good old stuff because...the world is just generally shit, I guess.
 
As is the custom on this message board, there are two people arguing here, and somehow both are pretty much wrong about everything they are saying.

I can't even explain how this is possible, yet here we are.
 
Ladies and Gents, Natalia Cordova-Buckley. :bolian:

ntb.png
 
TREK_GOD_1 said:
History is always relevant. Rejection of it in order to isolate and/or rate something new is based on agenda, not truth.
Click to expand...
The Neilsens might still be considered an accurate measure of actual viewership, but more modern methods are likely required to determine a show's actual popularity in these days of diverse methods of pushing content to viewers. What we're doing here matters. People don't bother to discuss things about which they truly are not interested in.
And in the case of TV series, numbers matter; if a show barely lasted a single season, or limped over into an additional, abbreviated season before its cancellation, that's a problem that cannot be separated from the idea of and conversation about quality issues of the show.
Click to expand...
A show's popularity or ratings is not necessarily an accurate measure of the actual quality of a show.
 
Last edited:
So did they actually kill off the Son of Coul then? I never saw the last handful of episodes of the last season, so I had just assumed they saved him at the last minute.
 
I think it's been long enough that we can avoid the spoiler tag. The team left Coulson and May, who finally coupled off, in the real Tahiti where Phil can live his remaining days (literally) in peace. The rest of the team went off in search of...

Oh, wait, there are some pretty nifty spoilers to be had. You just need to watch the rest of the season.
 
. Don't get me wrong. "One More with Feeling" is great, but "The Bitter Suite" is great too--and got there first. I still have the soundtrack album.
Click to expand...

It was great to me, as long as I didn't listen to the music.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top