So Marvel's Agents of SHIELD seems to be a moderate success, as opposed to an epic success like everything else from Marvel nowadays? Why is that. Let's explore how I would have done things differently, and then you make your own conclusions. With no further ado:
How I Would Have Done Agents of SHIELD
1) The problem - Phil Coulson is Dead.
Remember that big emotional moment in Avengers where a beloved character died and it was used to spur the group into acting as a team? Remember how no one for the duration of the movie acknowledge that Phil Coulson was anything but dead? No? Okay, okay, forget that. Do you remember the Phil Coulson character that was built up as someone who believed in and supported superheroes, from Thor to Iron Man even to Captain America? Who served as Fury's hands and feet in the field? You remember liking that story?
How about this, do you remember the mild mannered Phil Coulson who was always impossibly nice to everyone, even Stark way back in Iron Man 1, even the people that worked for him in Thor, but could still kick ridiculous amounts of butt. The perfect example of the old adage 'speak softly and carry a big stick?' Finally, do you remember the one unequivocally human not larger than life figure running a path through the MCU leading up to Avengers.
However you feel about what I've said, did you notice how I said 'remember?' My point is not that Phil Coulson should be dead, or that he can't be alive, or that the sword sticking through his chest is canon or not, my point is that the Phil Coulson that was beloved is in the past. If Avengers was the last of the MCU, no one would really wonder 'I wonder what happened to Coulson?' We all know what happened, he went down like a true hero, and provided the Avengers the push they needed.
What happens when shows take characters whose story is already completed and gives them a new story? Well, often times, the new story isn't as good as the original, and that's what you're seeing with Avengers. If Marvel had put as much energy into developing this show as they did #CoulsonLives and the awkward and badly chosen 'well, comic books have cheap death, so can we' excuse, this show might be the next LOST instead of the next, say, Firefly.
Which is really where the show hammers home that this is not your Phil Coulson, when Coulson ventures into the Mal Reynolds book of rules on Captaining a ship. A spiritual successor to Firefly sounds awesome, but Phil Coulson as the "I don't care, get it done." guy is awkward, not endearing, and at complete conflict with the excessively good natured supporting character that made "His first name is Agent" Coulson so awesome. So this is not an evolution of the character so much as a reboot.
Maybe you like the rebooted Coulson, that's fine, but the fact is he's a great deal different that the original and lacks the appeal of the original, because Phil Coulson's story ended, and ended well, albeit very sadly. This means the show is trying to capitolize on appeal that it doesn't actually have.
2) The storyline - Spin Off of Avengers
There was a great short that inspired Agents of SHIELD called Item 47. If you haven't seen it, go watch it now. I'll wait...
...So, as you know, in it, Jasper Sitwell is shown to be Coulson's replacement, and he helps round up some Chitauri hardware, and gets some new recruits along the way. While more comedic than an hour long drama, the things that worked here are that it spins out of Avengers in a direct and natural way. Something like Item 47 literally *has* to happen, and even moreso, has to happen a LOT, because there was Chitauri tech falling all over the place, and everyone just left it alone? Not just petty criminals like in Item 47, but what about Crime Families like the Maggia? Government offshoots like Project Pegasus? You get the idea. Recovering tech we've already seen would bring us right back to our love for Avengers, and then showing how that tech evolves, perhaps very quickly, in the hands of others as the cases get weirder and weirder, as the Chitauri and other tech gets developed further and further into madness and terrifying stuff.
Spinning more directly out of Avengers guarantees you're giving the audience more of what they want. The further you get into a new story with nebulous ties to the rest of the MCU, the further you get from awesomeness. It also means when something does happen to be Gamma powered, now it's extremely significant, and almost explicitly Hulk related, not just a Hulk reference. This is also very good because it makes gamma powered powers rare, like, unique to Hulk, as they are portrayed in the movies, and instead uses what the movies show to be numerous technology ad numerous instead of what the movies show to be unique technology.
This serves to grab the audience much better than creating a new story where movie-tech has been floating around for years and SHIELD has been keeping it secret.
3) The Lead - a female superhero
If Marvel hadn't spent so much time dialing up #CoulsonLives, they might have anticipated the actual and loudest cries from the fanbase, about having a female superhero. Black Widow is no slouch, to be sure, but without super powers, she doesn't exactly walk as an equal amongst the big boys. Since Marvel, for various reasons, isn't doing a female solo superhero movie anytime soon, TV is the best and most proven place for female heroes. This even shows in their recent actions of courting Katee Sackhoff for a project, a woman who is only known for being a female heroine, in a role originally destined for a male, something that only happens if you're A) Angelina Jolie or B) On television. So using this opportunity, this goodwill to put the female hero out there in a medium she will almost certainly be successful in is just a great idea all around.
So who to chose? Black Widow could carry a great espionage type show in the vein of Alias or Covert Affairs, or any number of spy girl shows from over the years, but Johansen isn't really a TV actress, neither is close buddy Jeremy Renner. So that's not really an option any more than a RuffaHulk TV series. She Hulk is an interesting character, but as a spinoff of RuffaHulk, she lacks her own independent stories without a lot of crossover with established superheroes, of which there are currently only four, and none are available for TV. Similiarly, She-Hulk can't do much with Starfox or Luke Cage or really superhero law whatsoever because those things don't exist in the MCU yet.
We can go down the line, Spider-Woman actually works well, but she's very much like Black Widow in almost every aspect of her background. You don't want to set her up to be this major character and then realize you're just retreading and leaving your bigger hero, Black Widow, with not as much, if anything, to do. I love Monica Rambeau, and she has a lot going for her, even a small supporting cast of her own. Other characters, like Firestar, Tigra and Hellcat don't have very interesting abilities, nor do they have much story on their own outside of being tied into the Avengers. Certainly not enough to explore over multiple seasons of a TV show.
So while Rambeau might be interesting, one character has the things needed for a TV show in spades, and that is Carol Danvers. One could argue that her powers are too expensive to portray on the small screen. Shows like Smallville have done very well portraying that powerset, but it's also possible to not have her with powers at first, and it's also possible to limit her powers based on how much energy she has absorbed, so you can continue to put her in mortal peril with the average agent. This brings me to my next point.
4) The fans - Give us some Marvel
Now, there's nothing wrong with using new characters, there really isn't, but if you're listening to the fans, you know they want to see more of the Marvel Universe, and so if you're doing something for the fans, and not just for your own love of Clark Gregg's clear and well demonstrated awesomeness, then you find a section of the Marvel Universe to give to a TV show. As far as female heroes go with some connections to some aliens go, you have Carol Danvers, who is, conveniently, a military personality easily transferable into SHIELD, as has been portrayed often in the past. She also, extremely conveniently, is in a very highly charged with an alien superhero/conqueror named Captain Marvel. It is… just shy of ideal to have her lead out the show. This is not to say that there would not be other characters and storylines, but her story of romance and alien intrigue amongst a military super spy agency background makes for great genre television, and fits snugly with what the Agents of SHIELD television show would be aiming to accomplish.
This fits the need of giving fans Marvel characters, without allowing the showrunners to run roughshod over a number of future properties, preventing future filmmakers from doing what they want with their characters because on such and such an episode of SHIELD, they showed that Vibranium had a purple tint when it was hit with gamma energy. But if you give the show purview, say the Chitauri tech, or the Kree and Kree tech, and no more, you have the ability and freedom to do some new interesting things, to build the show's own mythology, but at the same time, keep it squarely in the known beloved Marvel Universe, namedrop, or even explicitly show and explore things like Una, the Supreme Intellegence, Noh-Varr, The Ruul, Psyche Magnetron, Nitro, Sentries, Ronan, Phyla-Vell, Genis… on and on and on. The fans get their Marvel and the rest of the MCU can go on obliviously.
Or not obliviously. Maybe having cameos of the established Marvel Heroes is a good idea that won't keep your show from having its own identity, but would still bring in lots of new eyes for that episode that would stay on if they get attached to your characters. It also wouldn't hurt to include the established 616 Universe SHIELD characters as Agents of SHIELD, by the way. Which brings me to my next point:
5) The Team - Quirk as the Exception, not the Rule
Now, there's really not enough Whedon-speak in the universe. I would love to revisit the world of Firefly for 10-12 seasons, and Topher Brink in an argument with Buffy Summers would pretty much be the epitome of my television viewing life. That said, there are reasons for quirkiness that work in the story. If you have a group of high schoolers, quirk is unavoidable. If you have a Dollhouse full of brainwashed babes, perhaps the programmer might be quirky, but really everyone else should be very serious, seeing as how they are big time professionals. You can still get some quirk from the brainwashing, in a way, but it's storyline quirk. If you have a highly capable paramilitary organization… quirkiness should be the exception, not the rule. Of the 6 team members, you have two uber scientists, who are excessively quirky to the core, down to that being their only characterization. Then you have the new recruit girl who, as a cute hacker chick, is suitably awkward and quirky, and then even their leader, when he's not being Mal Reynolds, is a really affable self-depreciating guy, prone to having his jokes interrupted and giving up.
There's not a fundamentally problem with having a group of quirky misfits handpicked by a quirky misfit, no. The problem is if you rely on that, if that's their main characterization, then they become annoying, and socially redundant very quickly. A much better idea would be to diversify the cast dramatically in terms of seriousness and quirkiness and aloofness. You get more contrast and conflict, and the quirky character can be a highlight, a diffusive personality rather than another me too of weirdness. As is, there are two mature personalities on board, and one of them knows better than to argue with this goofballs. So you have Ward alone in conflict with everyone else, both people he 'outranks' as well as his boss. So his voice is… drowned out and inherently wrong and irrelevant, because the team is effective, despite being nothing like him, or any other trained professional, at all.
A much better move would have been to keep the quirk to one or two characters. Skye could be the tortured dark character (a little to River Tam for some, but a good movie in the realm of Fitz-Simmons) and Coulson could have been someone else… perhaps truly given over to the dark Mal Reynolds boss type character, with only the faintest hints of who he used to be shining through. That could have been interesting, and given us something to root for in the hopes of getting our old Phil back.
For me, I'd have my devil may care risk taking but deeply conflicted female lead and back her with a few good standbys like:
- An overbearing superior officer, namely, Jasper Sitwell. If Nick Fury is available for regular cameos, that could work as an alternate. Same with special guest and hopefully eventual full time cast member Maria Hill.
- An innocent "asset" to be protected, in female heroine terms, her Newt, her John Connor, her Rue. Could be a Jessica Drew or some other entity containing important genetic information. This child actress/actor would not feature in the 'action' per se, but would be important anyway.
- A clean cut by the book normal agent, a Clay Quartermain, or basically, what Agent Ward is in the show now. This would act as both a foil and potential love interest for the lead, though it wouldn't work, because that would just be too doggone convenient. Their conflict would be much like that of Skye and Agent Ward, but on even footing.
- A regular superhero 'problem' who is not on the team, but is involved. This would be Mar-Vell. He could additionally be 'on the team' as mild mannered SHIELD scientist Phillip Lawson, or perhaps that would just be the twist in the pilot. He could play the quirky scientist role by the way, be a bit of a Dr. Who type exhuberant crazy like a fox type, a bit like he is in the Ultimate Universe.
- A strong comic relief character. This is your Wash, your Topher, your Xander, your Wesley. They are there to rise to the occasion, despite their wonkiness and prove how awesome being your weird self is. Someone needs to be that. Everyone can't be that.
- The outsider, someone civillian and new to everything that we can explore the world with. They can be the same person as the comic relief character, or even the same person as the innocent "asset."
- A Big Bad. May double as any of the above.
And that's a full cast, believe it or not. There's room for innumerable supporting characters, and there should be tons, of all types, that move in and out of these characters' lives, but these people and their conflicts can form the backbone of a great show. Watching Coulson put his quirkiness against that of his quirky reports and his "I'm calling it" against the professional-ness of his professional reports doesn't leave much room for conflict… but delving into the complicated relationship between two people like Quartermain and Danvers, that could be something. Complicate it by adding in an "Angel" like Captain Marvel who's not on their team, but he's trying to, but he can't… now you have some really fun stuff you can do with lots of conflict layers. Going deep into two or three very different relationships can do much more good than exploring seven or eight sets of largely similar relationships. That's part of what makes superhero stories so easily accessible and popular. Speaking of which:
6) Give us some Super
I mentioned this, and this flies in the face of the theme as it is. The goal of the show is: show what all the normal people go through. This was what the black evil "hero's" speech was about, and why Coulson could empathize, he'd been 'stepped on' so to speak. The problem is… superheroes are usually about identifying with a power fantasy. Fans want to be the heroes, but they're not. So identifying with characters who never get that payoff is interesting for supporting characters (again, that's what Coulson existed for), but does nothing for the bulk of the audience. This could have been helped if the characters were more like us… but they're not really like us… they're like superhero type personalities with no superhero powers, but Marvel's most popular characters are exactly the opposite. This is another reason why someone like Carol Danvers would have been ideal. She is a character who historically wishes she was like other superheroes, and is trying to prove herself.
Of course, the real life problem is that you can't show a lot of powers on a TV budget, even a good one like SHIELD's. If you look at shows that show superpowers regularly over long periods of time (Heroes and Smallville, basically), when they use powers too often they end up looking cheap, and there's a lot of powers that are just harder/more expensive to do well anyway, and when it comes to costumes, forgetaboutit! So if you want super on a TV budget you have to limit it. Ms. Marvel has a built in handicap in that she absorbs energy and then uses it, if she doesn't have a major source of energy to draw from, she could, potentially, be portrayed as just a normal agent who can absorb lasers and Kree weapon blasts… which makes her perfect for tracking down Kree and Chitauri weapons! Too bad that doesn't do her any good against normal bullets! This would allow for short bursts of superheroics, which would help sate the audience. Plus it adds to the conflict when Carol becomes one of the very people SHIELD is supposed to be monitoring. Throwing in a jet dogfight here and there wouldn't hurt either.
So you get laser guns, unknown X-Files/Fringe-like genetic modifications, one super suit (not Carols), and secret agents doing their thing. Sounds like fun, and it fits within a budget. Taking things from Mar-Vell's recent incarnations, like turning invisible, and being imprisoned by Earth authorities lends a lot of credibility to having a really powerful character around without breaking your budget. Taking his most famous storyline and having him slowly dying of a terminal disease does even more.
7) THEN Twist it
Now you've given the people what they want. Now that you've done that, now you're free to twist into what they weren't expecting, but they'll still have what they want, see? What if Mar-Vell isn't a good guy? What if SHIELD aren't good guys all the time? What if there's a mysterious guy walking around and he looks just like Agent Coulson!? But he's supposed to be dead!
There's lots of ways to do fun things with the show. There are ways to do exactly what is being done with the show in time, but the way it's been done, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It's not the costumes, or sets or acting, or production values or special effects, it's not even the dialogue, really. It's the core aim of the show having little to nothing to do with the story and appeal of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's the problem, that's why if I had made Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, it would have been much different.
But maybe it's just me...