Agents of SHIELD - Season 2 Discussion Threads. (Spoilers Likely)

[Christopher]

And then there's MASH. A comedy (I think?) that got deadly serious in almost every episode. Not sure what you'd call it. Other than the greatest show of all time of course.

Oh, right, of course. By 1977 it would've been well on the way to a more serious tone. And I was a loyal viewer of M*A*S*H, so the blurring between sitcom and drama would've seemed natural to me.

While we're on the subject, Lou Grant was followed two years later by a second hourlong drama spinning off a character from a half-hour sitcom, Trapper John, M.D., about the present-day version of the erstwhile M*A*S*H character (played by Pernell Roberts). Although for legal reasons, the makers of that show insisted their Trapper John was spun off from the Robert Altman movie rather than the TV series. Not that I ever knew that while I was watching the show in first run.

Around the late '80s, comedy-dramas became so common that they actually started calling them "dramedies." I think I first heard the term in connection with a half-hour John Ritter show called Hooperman, from 1987. Unsurprisingly, it was co-created by Steven Bochco, who was responsible for a lot of the shows that blurred the comedy-drama line.

And of course the legacy has remained, because we still have a lot of dramas that are heavy on comedy, including the works of Aaron Sorkin and Joss Whedon. Which brings us back to Agents of SHIELD, and yes, we are just barely still on topic! Ta-da!!

 

[theenglish]

Somehow I have survived to senior Trekker. I saw the MTM and Lou Grant in real time and the shift to newspaper editor after everybody but Ted Baxter got fired wasn't jarring at all

I was a bit young to see the early seasons of MTM, except in reruns, but I was there from the start for Lou Grant. I would've been nine at the time. I think it took me a while even to realize the oddity of a drama spinning off from a sitcom. After all, a lot of sitcoms at the time tackled dramatic storylines and had "very special episodes" from time to time. There was the MTM episode with the clown dying, and there was All in the Family and its frequent controversy-tackling, and Barney Miller often straddled the line between sitcom and police drama. And Lou Grant was a drama that had plenty of character humor. So I didn't really see a sharp dividing line between the genres, and thus the transition wasn't jarring. Lou still felt like the same person to me; he was just in a context where more dramatic things happened.

I think that was the context of the show. It was the same character, just in another style of setting. In so many ways television in the 70s and early 80s had very sophisticated programming that defied genres the way we think of them today. Today shows like All in the Family, M*A*S*H*, Maude, MTM, and dramas like Hill Street Blues would be on basic cable networks rather than the mainstream ones. Of course there was also a LOT of trash like Charlie's Angels.

 

[Photoman15]

When Ms. Palicki first showed up I almost ignored the rest of the episode trying to figure out were I knew her from, and I am sad to say it took a Google search to reconnect her to Friday Night Lights. What a change of characters for her lol.

She was also Kara (Supergirl), or so she let Clark believe, in Smallville. This was before FNL.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Somehow I have survived to senior Trekker. I saw the MTM and Lou Grant in real time and the shift to newspaper editor after everybody but Ted Baxter got fired wasn't jarring at all

I'm in the same boat. I saw it all first run. Born at the right time, as Paul Simon would say.

 

[Karzak]

Haven't caught up with the thread since Wednesday or Thursday so forgive me if I'm behind/repeating someone else...

I had a thought today while reading the trades --its possible that the "not a spinoff" thing has nothing to do with the content of the show or what we'll see on air and everything to do with contracts and legalities like what we're seeing play out between AMC and Frank Darabont over The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead.

Perhaps Bobbie and Lance will go off on to Most Wanted but it (the series) won't reference or have appearances from or by anyone we've met so far on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so that the writers and producers from that parent show won't have to be paid for usage, and thereby avoiding the entire kerfuffle AMC is involved with right now.

Just a theory. I'm sure more informed or better-versed persons can comment further.

 

[Mr Light]

I hadn't heard about this, is Frank Darabont suing AMC again because of the spin-off?

 

[Star Wolf]

Haven't caught up with the thread since Wednesday or Thursday so forgive me if I'm behind/repeating someone else...

I had a thought today while reading the trades --its possible that the "not a spinoff" thing has nothing to do with the content of the show or what we'll see on air and everything to do with contracts and legalities like what we're seeing play out between AMC and Frank Darabont over The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead.

Perhaps Bobbie and Lance will go off on to Most Wanted but it (the series) won't reference or have appearances from or by anyone we've met so far on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so that the writers and producers from that parent show won't have to be paid for usage, and thereby avoiding the entire kerfuffle AMC is involved with right now.

Just a theory. I'm sure more informed or better-versed persons can comment further.

It doesn't seem likely that anyone in the TV or movie production would have such rights. It is in direct conflict with the it is all connected and anyone can show up on TV, Netflix, or the screen because its all Marvel Studios and they get it all ethic.

 

[Christopher]

It doesn't seem likely that anyone in the TV or movie production would have such rights. It is in direct conflict with the it is all connected and anyone can show up on TV, Netflix, or the screen because its all Marvel Studios and they get it all ethic.

It's not about rights, though, it's about royalties/residuals. If you're a TV writer who creates a character for someone's franchise, they own that character and have the right to use it whenever they want, but as the creator you're still entitled to be paid for their use of that character, as compensation for the work you did on their behalf. So production companies often limit the use of characters that they own in order to minimize the money they have to pay to the creators. For instance, Star Trek: Voyager created Tom Paris to replace Cadet LoCarno and Enterprise created T'Pol to replace T'Pau, in both cases because they didn't want to pay those characters' creators residuals on a weekly basis. An occasional guest appearance was one thing -- we did eventually see T'Pau on ENT -- but every week was another matter. For another example, when Stargate SG-1 characters guest starred on Stargate Atlantis, you would never see Jack O'Neill or Daniel Jackson (created by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin for the movie) appear in the same SGA episode as Sam Carter or Teal'c (created by Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright for the series), since that would require paying residuals to a larger number of people.

The same thing presumably applies here. Since Joss and Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen created characters like May, Fitz, Simmons, and Ward, they'd probably get residuals for those characters' use in a spinoff that they didn't produce themselves. I assume the writers of Iron Man get residuals every time Coulson is used -- unless there's something unusual about the contracts. As for comics-derived characters, it probably depends on their creators' contracts and whether they managed to wangle a creator credit. If the creators' names just show up in the "Special Thanks" list at the end of an episode, that would mean they don't get a proper creator credit.

Hmm, maybe this is why so many comics-based shows today rely so heavily on character names from the comics, even for characters who are radically unlike their namesakes -- like Hunter, Mack, and Koenig here, or Felicity on Arrow. That way, Marvel or DC won't have to share creator credit with anyone, except in those regrettably few cases (though more for recent characters than older characters) where the creators got contracts guaranteeing them credit and compensation.

 

[Karzak]

Haven't caught up with the thread since Wednesday or Thursday so forgive me if I'm behind/repeating someone else...

I had a thought today while reading the trades --its possible that the "not a spinoff" thing has nothing to do with the content of the show or what we'll see on air and everything to do with contracts and legalities like what we're seeing play out between AMC and Frank Darabont over The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead.

Perhaps Bobbie and Lance will go off on to Most Wanted but it (the series) won't reference or have appearances from or by anyone we've met so far on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so that the writers and producers from that parent show won't have to be paid for usage, and thereby avoiding the entire kerfuffle AMC is involved with right now.

Just a theory. I'm sure more informed or better-versed persons can comment further.

It doesn't seem likely that anyone in the TV or movie production would have such rights. It is in direct conflict with the it is all connected and anyone can show up on TV, Netflix, or the screen because its all Marvel Studios and they get it all ethic.

Not necessarily. Joss Whedon didn't seem to leave Marvel on the best of terms after Age of Ultron. It's entirely possible as one of the creators (as in "Created by") of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (the series) he is due renumeration for any related shows.

If Most Wanted spins off directly from the show (despite being about characters who were previously established in Marvel lore (unlike the cast of S.H.I.E.L.D. (omitting Daisy/Skye), it's reasonable to conjecture that Whedon would be due a cut of a profits from whatever income that series would generate.

Hmm, maybe this is why so many comics-based shows today rely so heavily on character names from the comics, even for characters who are radically unlike their namesakes -- like Hunter, Mack, and Koenig here, or Felicity on Arrow. That way, Marvel or DC won't have to share creator credit with anyone, except in those regrettably few cases (though more for recent characters than older characters) where the creators got contracts guaranteeing them credit and compensation.

That's exactly why it happens. There's a thing called "character payments" in Hollywood. Every time Q appeared on TNG, DS9 or Voyager, Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana were paid a "character payment." Whoever wrote the TOS episode "Metamorphosis" likely got a character payment for Zefram Cochrane when he appeared in Star Trek: First Contact and ENT's "Broken Bow." Etc. etc. etc.

These get doled out to writers who "create" or introduce a character in an episode they write. Whether a writing staff develops that character as a group, or if it's just a character who takes off ane becomes wildly popular (like, say, Garak) that episode writer would be due a payment for use of the character ever time he or she appears.

On some shows, (usually soaps and dramas) these character payments are amortized to the entire staff rather than one sole writer since nearly all TV series are written by committee.

Going back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Most Wanted though, I only compare it to The Walking Dead and Darabont because it seems as though by making Fear The Walking Dead a "companion" series that won't feautre characters from the original show, AMC has secured itself from having to owe or pay Darabont any money, despite his own right per contract to be due payment on any related series. It's possible Whedon has a similar arrangement but because of his departure from the franchise ABC/Disney and Marvel don't want to pay him.

I don't know the particulars; I'm just saying it's possible.

 

[JD]

Doesn't Terry Nation's estate still get money each time the Daleks are used on Doctor Who?

 

[kitik]

These get doled out to writers who "create" or introduce a character in an episode they write. Whether a writing staff develops that character as a group, or if it's just a character who takes off ane becomes wildly popular (like, say, Garak) that episode writer would be due a payment for use of the character ever time he or she appears.

On some shows, (usually soaps and dramas) these character payments are amortized to the entire staff rather than one sole writer since nearly all TV series are written by committee.

It's very interesting with comics. Because a character isn't just magically introduceded in one issue and then it's all smooth sailing from there. Every single issue a character is in will add to that character's origin or storyline or whatever.

Wolverine is a primo example of that. There's a character that was introduced in Hulk, and then built up by tons of different writers and artists over the decades.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Nah.

Claremont.

Almost everyone else was pissing in the wind.

 

[Christopher]

If Most Wanted spins off directly from the show (despite being about characters who were previously established in Marvel lore (unlike the cast of S.H.I.E.L.D. (omitting Daisy/Skye), it's reasonable to conjecture that Whedon would be due a cut of a profits from whatever income that series would generate.

I doubt it. As I suggested, and as you agreed, the probable reason for using non-original, comics-based characters in these shows is to avoid giving out the payments that would be due to the creators of original characters. Whedon would be entitled to payment for the use of Fitz or Simmons or May or Ward, but not Bobbi or Hunter. AoS's Hunter is an enormously different character from the comics' Lance Hunter (basically a John Steed pastiche who was in charge of the UK equivalent of SHIELD), but I think these contracts and rights are primarily based on the character names.

Hmm, maybe this is why so many comics-based shows today rely so heavily on character names from the comics, even for characters who are radically unlike their namesakes -- like Hunter, Mack, and Koenig here, or Felicity on Arrow. That way, Marvel or DC won't have to share creator credit with anyone, except in those regrettably few cases (though more for recent characters than older characters) where the creators got contracts guaranteeing them credit and compensation.

That's exactly why it happens. There's a thing called "character payments" in Hollywood. Every time Q appeared on TNG, DS9 or Voyager, Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana were paid a "character payment." Whoever wrote the TOS episode "Metamorphosis" likely got a character payment for Zefram Cochrane when he appeared in Star Trek: First Contact and ENT's "Broken Bow." Etc. etc. etc.

You're explaining back to me the very same thing that I explained in my post. I just used a different term for it.

Doesn't Terry Nation's estate still get money each time the Daleks are used on Doctor Who?

That's different, because under UK law, TV writing isn't work-for-hire. If a freelance writer creates a character for an American show, say, Star Trek, then they cede ownership of the character to the studio and just get character payments as compensation for that. But if a freelance writer creates a character for Doctor Who, then they retain ownership and control of the character, and basically just license it to the show. This is why the classic Doctor Who had gaps of several years during which no Dalek stories appeared; those were times when Nation withdrew permission for their use, because he wanted more money or had other plans for them. He even attempted at one point to develop a Dalek TV series in America without any BBC involvement. This is also how we got the 2009 Australian series K-9, spinning off a version of the Doctor's robot dog but changing his design and avoiding any explicit references to anything from Doctor Who -- because K-9's co-creator Bob Baker owned the character of K-9 and could use him elsewhere, as long as he didn't use ideas belonging to other people.

By contrast, Maurice Hurley created the Borg, and he presumably gets paid for their every use, but he wouldn't have been able to keep Star Trek from using the Borg, and he wouldn't have been able to produce his own independent show about the Borg, because he created them as work-for-hire and thus Paramount (now CBS) owns and controls them.

 

[Karzak]

That's exactly why it happens. There's a thing called "character payments" in Hollywood. Every time Q appeared on TNG, DS9 or Voyager, Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana were paid a "character payment." Whoever wrote the TOS episode "Metamorphosis" likely got a character payment for Zefram Cochrane when he appeared in Star Trek: First Contact and ENT's "Broken Bow." Etc. etc. etc.

You're explaining back to me the very same thing that I explained in my post. I just used a different term for it.

I'm aware of that. I was agreeing with you, Christopher, not correcting you.

It's sometimes really hard to discuss these things with you when you write comments replies that can potentially (or at least initially) be read as arrogance from you. I don't necessarily believe that was your intent here, but my initial reading of it did not really motivate or encourage any goodwill on my part to engage you further on this discussion. I had to step away from the thread for a while to think over how i wanted to reply before I started typing, honestly.

If you just want people to agree with you and further buy into your supposed superior insight and knowledge, great. This wouldn't be the first time I've seen this particular issue crop up with your posts here and I doubt it will be the last. But placating that ego is not what I'm here for.

 

[Christopher]

^But conversely, if I see someone seeming to explain something to me that I already know, it feels like they're being condescending to me and that they're the ones being arrogant. I think we all have a tendency to project "arrogance" onto other people's posts when it's not intended, because text communication lacks the nonverbal cues that let us read others' intent, and the lack of friendly or reassuring nonverbal cues can feel like coldness or arrogance to us, even if the person writing those words actually has no such sentiments at all. I'm just trying to be informative, to help people gain knowledge. I was raised to see knowledge as a gift, so it bewilders the hell out of me when people see my attempts to share knowledge as an attack. But I suppose that when I bristle at someone telling me something I already know and just pointed out myself, there is a degree of ego in that, and so maybe I should be able to understand why other people react to my impulse to explain things in great detail as condescension, rather than the borderline-obsessive thoroughness that it really is. So perhaps we should both -- along with everyone else -- be less quick to bristle at other people's posts and assume they're being arrogant. Other people's intentions are probably not so different from our own, but communicating through text alone filters out so much that it becomes hard to recognize that.

For my part, I recognized that we were both saying the same thing, and I should've focused on that agreement and tried to build on it. That's what I try to do most of the time. There was a voice in my head telling me I shouldn't have pointed out that I'd already said what you were explaining, that it was ego to get annoyed at that, and that I should've just let it slide. I didn't listen to that better judgment this time, and that was a mistake.

Although it would've helped if you'd prefaced your comments with "I agree" or "That's right" so that it would've been clearer that you were trying to reinforce my comments. That's what I generally try to do when I give an infodump in response to someone else's post, because I've also found myself in the situation where my efforts to back up someone's point have been mistaken by them as a lecture directed toward them. In the absence of nonverbal cues, we have to take more care with our verbal ones.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Season 3 - Synopsis

Spoiler: open me

http://www.spoilertv.com/2015/08/agents-of-shield-season-3-synopsis.html


“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” returns for an action-packed third season, with Director Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Agent Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennet) leading the charge as S.H.I.E.L.D. searches the world for more powered people in the aftermath of their epic battle with Jiaying and her army of Inhumans. However, Coulson and the team soon find out that they are not the only group looking for these new Inhumans.

Many months after their war with a rogue group of Inhumans, the team is still reeling. Coulson is again trying to put the pieces of his once revered organization back together while also dealing with the loss of his hand. His confidante and second in command, Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), has yet to return from an impromptu vacation with ex-husband Andrew (Blair Underwood); deadly superspy Agent Bobbi Morse (Adrianne Palicki) is recovering from her traumatic torture at the hands of Grant Ward (Brett Dalton); Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) is obsessed with discovering the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge); and all are on high-alert for the next move from Ward and Hydra.

Ever since the existence of Super Heroes and aliens became public knowledge after the Battle of New York, the world has been trying to come to grips with this new reality. Coulson assembled a small, highly select group of Agents from the worldwide law-enforcement organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division). S.H.I.E.L.D.’s mission: to protect those who cannot protect themselves from threats they cannot conceive.

But bigger threats loom ahead, setting the stakes even higher for the Agents, including the spread of Terrigen, an alien substance that unlocks superhuman abilities in select individuals; the emergence of new Inhumans who cannot yet control nor understand their powers; the rise of a new government organization that will go toe-to-toe with S.H.I.E.L.D.; the unknown properties of the massive alien Kree monolith, which has taken one of their own; and the constant threat of a rebuilt Hydra terrorist organization under S.H.I.E.L.D. traitor Grant Ward, who is making it his personal mission to take down Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D.

New faces, both friend and foe, will join the series, including the no-nonsense, highly-skilled and somewhat mysterious leader (Constance Zimmer) of the ATCU (Advanced Threat Containment Unit), her intimidating partner, Banks (Andrew Howard), Lash (Matthew Willig), a monstrous Inhuman whose loyalties remain ambiguous, and new Inhuman Joey (Juan Pablo Raba), who is struggling to harness his newfound abilities, among other surprising characters.

Coulson, with the help of Daisy and Mack (Henry Simmons), will work to slowly assemble a team that is stronger than ever before, combining the highly skilled Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with powered individuals in the hopes of protecting the innocent in a world where the balance of power is ever-shifting, and new dangers are constantly emerging.

 

[Christopher]

It's gonna be weird getting used to Skye being Daisy now. Has that ever happened before? A regular character changing their name mid-series? I mean, there are lots of cases where characters' names are hidden for a while and then revealed (e.g. Root/Samantha Groves on Person of Interest), but they still usually go by the name we're used to. I'm talking about instances where the original name is abandoned altogether. I'm sure it must have happened somewhere.

Maybe Lorne from Angel. He was just The Host for his first season or two, but then once we learned his name was Lorne, he tended to be called that all the time. And Sierra and Victor from Dollhouse preferred to go by Priya and Tony once they got their memories back. (It seems to be common in Whedon shows.) And I suppose there's Megatron becoming Galvatron in Transformers.

 

[Star Wolf]

The Greatest American Hero had a quick name change because of the assassination attempt on President Reagan.

 

[Christopher]

The Greatest American Hero had a quick name change because of the assassination attempt on President Reagan.

Only for the latter part of the first season, a couple of months tops. And it was only his last name that was changed slightly, from Hinkley to Hanley. The primary name he was known by remained Ralph. That's what I'm thinking of -- not just a name change, but a change in the primary name that viewers are supposed to know the character by.

There's also "The Seven Million Dollar Man" from The Six Million Dollar Man, who went from Barney Miller in his first appearance to Barney Hiller in the second, because the sitcom Barney Miller had premiered in the interim. But that was just a two-time guest character.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Matt Willig has been cast as "Lash".

I know Lash is from the comics, but he is such a new creation that I've never read anything with him in it.