Kaoteek

This was exactly what I expected when I watched the extended trailer : some sort of Smallville 2.0 (same set-up, same "all the freaks-of-the-week are connected to the incident that made the hero what he is", same bland lead, same relationships, same DC-related anvils, same tropes, same heavy-handed writing, same bullet-time), with a slightly bigger budget (that said, it remains to be seen how the show will fare once really launched, cos sfx & visuals weren't always the greatest either, here), a rushed script (no pun intended) lacking motivations & w/ too many shortcuts, and with Geoff Johns' handprints everywhere (that's not really a good thing in my book). Nothing felt earned, emotionally speaking, so it all fell flat, as far as i'm concerned. So in short : not impressed, at all. So far, every single (tv or movie) DC project has engineered these past few years has left me less and less impressed with the brand, which really bums me out, since I'm a DC guy at heart. And thus I won't trade my John Wesley Shipp Flash for this one... yet.

Then again, knowing that he has only a few months left, Craig probably felt he might as well do at least one, for the heck of it. (and to be honest, the fact that the australian dude clearly shared Craig's sense of innuendo & below-the-belt jokes might have helped setting this segment up)

Yeah, I don't know if it's the editing, the constant overpraising from the jury, Roseanne's constant howls of laughter, the pointlessness of JB Smoove, or the simple fact that most of those jokes/routines are... well... predictable &/or tired, but I'm really underwhelmed by this season, so far.

Yeah, imo, they're either going to kill Ward in a heroïc/redeeming type of sacrifice that will leave Skye heartbroken, or they're gonna have him go "tortured rogue w/ a tragic background", who'll go on his personal crusade vs the bad guys who made him what he is, who'll be a part-time antagonist-but-not-really whom Team Coulson will keep bumping into, who'll try to convince Skye that he's not totally evil, and who'll end up helping the team every now and then, up until Skye forgives him. In both cases... meh.

Variety's piece on this exit :

Eh, I wouldn't have given it to the tree stump, to be honest. I loved the troll much more, and the minotaur had its size going for him. Good show, this week, though.

Well, Craig is tight with Julie Chen & Les Moonves, so if Craig leaves, it will clearly be his own decision, and not a network-imposed exit. Though I don't really see him leaving the show for now... and to be honest, I don't really see CBS changing the entire line-up in 2014-2015 : if both Colbert & Craig's supposed replacements fail, what are they going to do ? They'll most likely want to see how Colbert will perform before thinking about changing the rest of the lineup, so Craig will probably reup for a couple of years, and depending on the landscape then, there might be some change. Maybe.

I wouldn't put too much stock in those two interviews, especially the very vague Brett Dalton one : he never says he isn't a plant or a double/triple agent, and anyway he didn't even know he'd turn bad guy until two episodes ago, so... he's not the most informed one re: his character. (also, my Smallville & Heroes years have taught me never to trust anything Jeph Loeb says about a show he's working on)

It wasn't bad, but I can't help but feel the writing is still so heavy-handed that it partially undermined half of those twists & turns. And I seriously hope they're not going to do a "Victoria Hand faked her death w/Ward's help", storyline, cos we already have Fury pretending to be dead, Aos doesn't need to invite more unfavorable comparisons with Winter Soldier.

@kenniab, I totally follow you on all your points, BUT... i still struggle to see how AoS' "Clairvoyant that can only have access to some files and can't follow either the paper trail or hack the GH325 file" & Cap2's "omnipresent Hydra, infiltrated at every level of Shield for decades, with men & eyes everywhere + Zola controlling the entire computer infrastructure + Pierce capable of accessing/altering Fury's top secret files" really sync up.There's a discrepancy of scale and influence that bothers me, there. You'd think even if Zola/Hydra couldn't access Coulson's file (because hard copy), there's someone, somewhere, who could have been bought, and would know something. Between the moment Coulson died during Avengers, and the moment he came out of the Tahiti thingie, there has been way more than simply four people involved. There has been pilots, there's been guards, nurses, doctors, specialists, agents, there's been office supplies, medical supplies, energy bills, salaries, and so on... if Hydra is really everywhere in Shield (as evidenced by Winter Soldier), there's no way Fury was able to erase all traces of the Coulson operation without anyone noticing, and no way Hydra couldn't trace it back to Tahiti on their own, one way or another. (that said, let's not forget that on this show, everybody's dumbed down to make Team Coulson look competent, so I guess I could see the writers not going past the "not on a computer = Centipydra can't get it" idea, and thinking it's a sufficient explanation)

My problem with all that is still the same : I could see Tahiti being a "Fury's Eyes only' type of deal, with no administrative trail, whether digital or paper, and thus the project could conceivably escape Zola/Pierce/Hydra or whatever... if the Tahiti base wasn't a well-know, well established, clearly well-staffed place more or less affiliated to Shield. The Guest House stuff, for instance, is clearly a digital/electronic database, thus hackable/accessible by Zola/Pierce ; the Guest House guards are clearly paid by someone, somehow ; and so on : there are too many variables for the whole Tahiti operation not to have some kind of traceable paper trail. And if Shield is that corrupted from the inside, up to the top rung of the ladder, I don't see how Hydra isn't already aware of Tahiti, and of how Coulson & Skye came back. (either that, or Centipede really is just another terrorist cell, distinct from Hydra, and AoS is gonna keep on not interacting too much with the main MCU thread, instead fighting its own, weaker, less-informed, infiltrated ennemies)

I posted that in the CapAm/Shield thread by mistake, it's better here : I'm calling it now, based on the promo pics : Ward switches to Garrett's side (either he's a traitor, or, more likely, he'll somehow get convinced by Garrett to switch sides because "it's the right thing to do for the world/Shield"), but he'll be a reluctant traitor, and will end up back on Coulson's side, not because it's the right thing to do, but because of his feelings for Skye.

Hmm, IIRC (but I haven't read those for years, so I might be wrong) she first was "a bad guy" when she was head of HAMMER, working for Norman Osborn, but she always believed, back then, that the work that she was doing was for the good of America/the world, which is why Captain America ended up trusting her & using her as a triple agent for the rest of her career. It would fit with this incarnation of the character & I can see the show going that way : she does bad things for the Shield (hunt Coulson & co, and so on), she's cold, abrasive, but in the end, she has been duped by her higher-ups, and believed she was doing the right thing, so when Cap announces that Shield is corrupt, she'll switch sides and help Coulson. Or something like that.

If Hand is anything like what I remember of her comic-book counterpart, she's just really a right wing, all means necessary, take no prisoners & protect America type who values order & authority above else, but fights the good fight nonetheless. She clashes with Cap & other Shield agents re:her methods, but in the end, she's not a baddie. And I'm guessing that's what the Whedons are doing right now : pretend she's a traitor, write her like an antagonist, and "surprise" everyone whe in fact she ends up fighting alongside Coulson, whereas the guy (Garrett) who has been helping Coulson betrays him. (also, I'm not sure the Whedons would turn one of the few openly gay characters in the MCU evil)

The more I'm thinking about it, the less I'm sure AoS really coordinated with CA:WS. According to Captain America 2, Shield is Hydra. Hydra is everywhere, has access to everything inside Shield, except maybe a couple of files locked by Fury. Before AoS began, Hydra should have already known everything about Coulson's resurrection, and Tahiti. But Centipede didn't seem to, despite the Clairvoyant. Which either means that Centipede =/= Hydra, or that Coulson's secret was in a special file that almighty Hydra couldn't access (which seems kind of doubtful, since Pierce didn't seem to have any problem getting into Fury's special files in the movie). And even then, with Black Widow uploading Shield's files onto the web, Centipede now know everything they wanted to know. So I guess the Clairvoyant has won, and Shield sucks. As usual. But where does the show go from here ?

Yeah, with a little bit of luck, that will allow for some progression on Skye's case, on Coulson's case, and maybe some more background on May & co. Let's hope so. Yeah, that seems pretty obvious, indeed. Fury wasn't gonna let Coulson alone on that ithout anyone to keep an eye on him. As for "The Clairvoyant", I'd be enclined to think that indeed, it's Zola & Hydra... but then, where does that leave Centipede (I guess a research dvision of Hydra, or something, but it would have worked better had it been just namechecked in the movie at some point) ? And that would make another recurring mystery from the show with a lack of a satisfying resolution... just saying "there's no Clairvoyant, it's just a bunch of infiltrated moles" means instead of a Big Bad, we'll have plenty of middle management baddies (and BIll Paxton). Not as satisfying, imo.

Except she didn't. Not really. She said she wanted them "taken out", which can easily be retconned/translated as "tazed & placed into custody". And I fully expect that's the cheap way they're gonna do it.

AoS has taught me one thing, so far : to lower my expectations. And just as the tie-in with Thor ended up laughably disappointing, I'm guessing the tie-ins with Cap Am will be, for the next couple of episodes, very minimal. If only because the cast learned about those events at the premiere, and not weeks ago when they were shooting the eps. Maybe we'll have a post-credits scene with Coulson learning about Fury's "death", or something like that, but the fallout of SHIELD being taken down won't have any real impact of AoS until the end of the season, imo. As for who's with Hydra on the show, well... the only one whose scenes haven't been littered with "I am a bad guy" anvils is Bill Paxton... Hand is too obvious to be really evil, she's just pissed off at Coulson's disregard for protocol.

Okay, Letterman just announced he's retiring in 2015. So, in your opinion, would Craig go for his job, or would he rather stay in his current timeslot, and keep on doing his schtick as usual ?

"And that, kids, is why people decided not to give us a second (or third ? Fourth ? Umpteenth ?) chance, and why How I Met Your Dad never got past the pilot stage." Seriously, what were they thinking with that finale...? *shake my head slowly*

I think it's more than time that CraigyFerg had his own thread around here. So let's discuss our favorite Scotsman, his weird shrugging horse, his racist producer, and his infamous robot skeleton sidekick. ... and I'll start by saying that, despite the current (and really annoying) three new shows/two reruns weekly schedule (thanks, basketball) how much I enjoyed the Scarlett Johannson interview. It's always great when bigger names drop by and are totally game for whatever Craig throws their way.