Agents of SHIELD and Gotham

-So, I take it the issue everyone has with this is something along the lines of the cast, for all their talk of being a ragtag bunch of misfits--is, at the end of the day, still a group of highly-trained government professionals rather than space criminals, high school students, random David Boreanzaz hanger-ons, et al. It's a bit of a different vibe and I hope they lean into that rather than try too hard to make everyone a special snowflake ("Welcome!" Agent Coulson says, gesturing grandly, "to SHIELD's Mysterious Backstory Department!").

-On the one hand, I appreciate how wary people are of the kind of branding that gets us 'Marvel's Agents of SHIELD on ABC Watch Once Upon A Time Brought To You By Durex', and whether it can ever be capable of the kind of weirdness-cum-passion that got us even something as deeply flawed as Dollhouse. Then again, is, say, the prospect of Dr. Horrible 2 or Buffy Season 9 any more pure-spirited? Does the story of Dr. Horrible 2 really demand to be told, whatever it is? What, either Billy ends up getting a happy ending after all (which, c'mon Whedon, we know you're not gonna do) or he just does something to end up even more sad and alone. Is that really necessary beyond fan-things clamoring for it?

-I am a bit amused, after the wholesale destruction visited on the disabled military veteran villains of Iron Man 3, how the story here bends over backward to make J. August Richards' Hard-Working Black Man Who Is Down On His Luck But Still Has His Pride, Damnit! utterly blameless of the stuff that would get you repulsor-ray-shanked by Tony Stark (he thought it was one of those NICE clandestine scientific experiments, you see). He lost his job because of a workplace injury! His wife left him! He has a son to support! He was immorally experimented on by white people! The experiment made him violently irrational! Though it is nice that the series acknowledges it being fucked up to use vast personal power to settle petty grudges with violence. I think Andrew Garfield Spider-Man would get an Emma Stone blowjob for doing that, so long as he also made an unfunny quip to go with it.

-To compare, Emil Blonsky seemed like a slightly morally ambiguous career soldier who got hooked on super-soldier serum. Who cries for the Abomination?

-Joss Whedon: Hello, Eliza Dushku? You want to do this new show with me? You'd be doing the usual sassy outsider thing, but this time you hack computers instead of beating people up. What? Busy? Tru Calling Kickstarter? Well, you don't happen to have any illegitimate siblings I could put in the role instead? What, really? I was just joking!

-I guess in the end, what I like about the show is that it ends with a flying car, which is both a nice nod to the comics and works for people who know how to play baseball as well (there are bats involved? How do they play it during the day?). Meanwhile, over in DC, it's the second season of 'Arrow' and I hear they're still doing the Red-Blue Blur thing of calling the Green Arrow 'the vigilante' or 'the hood'. Does that ever happen in real life? Does the media give someone a nickname, then later on give them an entirely different nickname? "Ladies and gentlemen, we're now going to start calling the Beltway Sniper 'Mr. Kill', for reasons that should be obvious."

-Basically, Marvel: Flying car. If DC were doing this TV show, it would be called 'Agents' and the last scene would be Coulson saying "Let's just say our organization can be very... Strategic." And everyone would be in their twenties.

-Which brings us to this Gotham show that's supposed to be about Commissioner Gordon before Batman came to Gotham--ignoring that this was a key subplot in all the Nolan movies. Honestly, what is Hollywood's obsession with mistaking backstory for STORY? I don't want to read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page for the stuff I love, I just want to get on with it. And I get it, I do, they don't want the show to be a continuous series of Batman ex machina. But don't you lose the entire escalation theme the Nolan movies were based around if you submit that Gotham was ALWAYS full of freakish supervillains and Batman was just late to the party? Couldn't you do a series set during Year One, with Batman being a growing threat in the background while Gordon and Harvey Dent work together trying to bring down the Mob legitimately? Or say that Batman's disappeared for some reason and now it's up to Gordon to keep the city from catching fire? Even take a cue from the Golden Age and have Bruce Wayne as an amateur sleuth who occasionally helps Gordon, while slowly slipping into this Batman madness. How is any of this not just a cop show with a prestigious brand name slapped on it to separate it from Law & Order: CSI: NCSI: Elementary?

-Given that WB owns both the Harry Potter and DC Comics franchises, it amazes me we haven't gotten a show about The Dursleys. Thrill to implicit emotional abuse! Watch that one time Harry Potter and Ron Weasley passed each other on the street without knowing each other! Gasp as Vernon Dursley considers preparing to order tickets to the zoo where Harry will free a snake!