S01.E01: Behold...The Inhumans! / S01.E02: Those Who Would Destroy Us

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

After a military coup leaves the Royal Family stranded in Hawaii, they must find a way to reunite with each other and return home before their way of life is destroyed forever.

 

[formerlyfreedom]

Please note:

The pilot for Marvel's Inhumans will begin airing in iMax theaters on September 1, 2017. It will air on ABC on Friday, September 29. Entering this topic prior to viewing the episode WILL spoil you. Proceed with caution.

[MadyGirl1987]

Thought this was much more promising then the reviews would have one believe. I thought it set up the characters and their dynamics well. I think Anson Mount especially did a great job with what has to be a difficult role. Even without talking, I think he did a great job at showing where Blackbolt was emotionally. His reactions and physical presence was good.

 So Attilan is on the moon huh? I guess that explains why Agents of Shield 

Spoiler

ended last season in space.

Edited September 1, 2017 by MadyGirl1987

[kdm07]

Didn't have anything better to do so I tuned in. It was flat from start to finish. When the CGI dog is the best thing about a show, it tells me that I shouldn't bother tuning in for more.

I know a lot of people love the comics so hopefully this doesn't disappoint you but personally, I'm siding with the critics on this. It's not a very good show.

[Morrigan2575]

As with The Orville I have no idea what the Critics were talking about. I really enjoyed the premiere, it was much better (IMO) Agents of Shield, which sucked and I quit mid-season 1.

I wasn't really feeling Medusa in the first hour but ended up loving her by the end of the 2nd hour. Blackbolt was always going to be the most difficult character since he can't talk. However, I think they cast the right actor for the role.  I liked the use of sign language but, I really loved when he was on his own. The actor's facial expressions and body language were fantastic.

Maximus was great but, given the actor that was no surprise. I also loved the Special FX for Lockjaw.

I grew to like Gorgon once he got to Earth but, I'm still not feeling Crystal (although I never was a fan) and Karnak leaves me cold even though I really like the actor.

I do have a few minor complaints. I think Medusa and Crystal's power levels were too low. I liked the CGI for Medusa's hair but, that wig was awful.

A really minor issue is that they all had American Accents. I don't know why but, I always 'read' them In the Comics with a British accent. LOL

[Terrafamilia]

Am I a bad person because, all the murder and treachery and general asshattery aside, I'm kinda with Maximus at this point?

Edited September 30, 2017 by Terrafamilia
punctuation

[Guest]

1 minute ago, kdm07 said:

It's not a very good show.

This is a bit of an understatement.  It was shockingly bad on every level.

[Lantern7]

I can see the negative reviews. I liked it, but it feels jarring for newbies to be presented with a sovereign nation on the moon. We've gotten -- what? -- three seasons of Inhumans on AoS, but those were the basic model. Now we got royalty and palace intrigue. Meanwhile, the hardcore fans are wondering where the Watcher is in all of this. Do Black Bolt and Medusa have to pay rent to Uatu every month?

Off the bat: love Lockjaw. I like seeing English Bulldogs and their (crappily-bred) antics. Now we have a giant friggin' Bulldog that lives on the moon and can teleport with little effort from there to Earth. How do you not love the guy?!? I want to know if any of the lower caste are brought it to feed him. Or rub the tummy. Or take him for "walkies." That would be the biggest drawback with Lockjaw . . . but fuck it, he can teleport somewhere else, do his thing, and come back.

I'm okay with the main cast. No real quibbles with casting, though I'm amused that Medusa got shaved down before the first episode ended. "We have money . . . but if we can save a few bucks on CGI hair, that would be nice." Liking how Karnak (K's, not C's, and I think the canon predates Johnny Carson and the turban) sees the world like Amadeus Cho did in The Incredible Hercules, with all sorts of statistics running in his brain. His deal is that he can see and exploit flaws, so of course he wouldn't be invited to the fun parties. Which would be held by Gorgon. You know, the one with the hooves.

Anybody upset about Triton (seemingly) biting it? Casuals barely bare about any Aquman, so a dude in green paint isn't going to excite people.

I'm off to start a comics-based thread. Recommendation: read the twelve-issue miniseries Marvel put out under the "Marvel Knights" banner, from Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee. I think that influenced the writing, and Maximus has Medusa shaved near the end.

[Fireball]

So I watched:

• If I continue to watch I'll probably be rooting for Maximus to kill everyone.
• The we're better then you because you're just human attitude doesn't make me want to root for the "good guys".
• The whole cutting of the hair scene went on too long.
• Love Lockjaw.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Fireball

[janeta]

So was that Ramsay Bolton or just his evil twin?

[kdm07]

I was trying to be nice @ParadoxLost lol.

Honestly, I'd rank this near the bottom of all Marvel TV shows. Even AOS, which I barely watch, is more interesting than this. I felt no connection to the characters and I know Maximus is the bad guy but I wasn't shown anything substantial to make me side with the Royal family. The acting was all stiff/wooden, the dialogue felt stilted and the fight sequences may have well been lifted straight from the 90s Power Rangers TV show. My overall feelings when it ended were just how boring I found it and if I had seen the little Syfy icon at the bottom of it, it wouldn't have felt out of place because this felt like a badly put together Syfy show.

Edited September 30, 2017 by kdm07

[Whodunnit]

Lockjaw was cute. The king was mute. My rhyme is as bad as the script.

 

...So I turned to my friend and said "I'll watch for the hair", cue hair being shorn off. Oh well.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, janeta said:

So was that Ramsay Bolton or just his evil twin?

Ramsay Bolton.  And I feel really bad for the actor that he burned his Ramsey Bolton cred on this role.

Even if he feeds someone to Lockjaw he won't be able to get it back.

I recognized a few actors on this show and was fairly surprised at how badly they came off.  Medusa in particular was wretched in a way that felt like it was the acting, not just the dialogue, and I know she's been great in other things.

[Whodunnit]

Maximillius is apparently a very dumb villain. He killed exactly one of his enemies  (with the rest in the wind) yet still went ahead and announced himself as the new leader.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Whodunnit said:

Maximillius is apparently a very dumb villain. He killed exactly one of his enemies  (with the rest in the wind) yet still went ahead and announced himself as the new leader.

One of the problems with this show is I can't tell if Maximus is supposed to be a straight up villain or not.  Maximus not having powers and the King/Queen ruling over a caste system that tosses people without powers to toil in mines could leave the struggle for power complex.  But I don't know if they did that on purpose.

It would be funny if the kid was faking seeing the future and manipulating Maximus into over throwing the government because of some anti Inhuman agenda growing in the lower classes.  I saw snakes around you.  nudge. nudge. Shave Medusa.  Oh, the Genetics council is plotting against you....

[SimoneS]

I watched the first episode before turning to the Exorcist. My first thought was; is this the best that Iwan Rheon could do? I loved him as Simon on Misfits and then as Ramsey Bolton on GoT. He is a talented actor. Is something wrong with him? 

Overall, the acting was dreadful. Even Ken Leung who I usually like was cringeworthy and he and the black guy were probably the best of the lot. I cracked up at Medusa's hair weapon which has to be the most ridiculous superpower ever adapted for tv. Maximus shearing her head with the menacing expression and her crying topped off the unintended comedy.

If they want me to view Maximus as the bad guy, the "good guys" cannot sneer at him because he is "just a human" and doom other "humans" to life working in the mines. A caste system and/or Apartheid isn't admirable or rootable. What I don't get is; if Maximus is " just a human" how did he secretly recruit all these people with powers to conspire with him to carry out the coup? It would be more believable if it was the humans who decided that they had enough and were taking over, but then who would root for the inhumans? I am not even rooting for them under these circumstances.

Edited September 30, 2017 by SimoneS

[Matt K]

Well, I watched the first half-hour and it was terrible.  The costuming was just awful.  Maximus and Luna looked the parts but Medusa, not even close.  I did love how her formal dress was just plopping shoulder pads on top of that terrible dress.  Medusa as a character needed more presence and I won't even get into her hair.  But if you can't afford the special effects for it, then why make this in the first place (at the very least her hair shouldn't be looking that flat). 

Blackbolt just needs a better actor.  It's a character that can't talk so you can either just have him sit/stand there and let Medusa do the heavy lifting (which brings some intrigue as to whether she's strictly translating for him or not) or you need an actor who can act with just his face and his expressions.  Instead he looked like he was trying to poop most of the time.

Coming from someone familiar with the comic book characters, the only good one was Maximus.  Iwan really nailed down the part and actually showed some complexity.  

I have to reiterate though, if you didn't have the budget why do the Inhumans (Namor, assuming the TV rights don't have the same issue as the movie rights, would have made more sense for a Kingdom of ___ series).  The "regular" Inhumans are supposed to look weird, but best they could do was put some crap on one guys jawline and make one lady look like she had a big chin.  Also the CGI for Lockjaw was pretty janky which was a shame as he's probably one of my favorite Inhumans. 

Overall, I'll probably check back eventually and see if they improved, but given all the issues plus Scott Buck as show runner I'm not holding my breath.  As someone who watched AoS from the beginning, it's pilot was lightyears ahead of this one and I'll readily admit that AoS had a pretty lackluster first half of season 1. 

 

ETA: If anyone wants to see Iwan Rheon in something very different, I highly recommend Vicious, while that show had its issues, Iwan was pretty funny as Ian McKellen's straight neighbor/friend.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Matt K

[HunterHunted]

20 minutes ago, Fireball said:

So I watched:

• If I continue to watch I'll probably be rooting for Maximus to kill everyone.
• The we're better then you because you're just human attitude doesn't make me want to root for the "good guys".
• The whole cutting of the hair scene went on too long.
• Love Lockjaw.

Maximus is kind of making a ton sense. They are increasingly crowded with dwindling resources in Attilan. They have a bullshit awful bigoted caste system where Inhumans with lesser or no gifts are treated terribly. This really really really needed to be connected to Agents of SHIELD. In Agents of SHIELD, we know that more Inhumans continue to transform on earth. We know that Jiaying created Afterlife as an Inhuman sanctuary, a terrigenesis process that mimics what they do in Attilan, a rigorous emotional screening process to evalute if a person should go through terrigenesis, and no bigotry based on what gifts a person acquires. I mean a caste system. Really?!?!?

I would have rather spent more time watching Maximus fomenting dissent in the lower castes and maybe even creating alliances on Earth. The rest of the Royal family was being willfully blind and oblivious about what was happening on Earth. Maybe the Royal family escaped to Earth to avoid having to make the changes that the people wanted or needed. While on Earth they learned their lesson stopped being exclusionary bigots and that's when Maximus decided to kill Blackbolt.

Why did they go with Scott Buck?

[Matt K]

16 minutes ago, SimoneS said:

If they want me to view Maximus as the bad guy, the "good guys" cannot sneer at him because he is "just a human" and doom other "humans" to life working in the mines. A caste system and/or Apartheid isn't admirable or rootable. What I don't get is; if Maximus is " just a human" how did he secretly recruit all these people with powers to conspire with him to carry out the coup? It would be more believable if it was the humans who decided that they had enough and were taking over, but then who would root for the inhumans? I am not even rooting for them under these circumstances.

I'm kind of pissed they made the "workers" people with useless or no mutations.  In the comics they were the Alpha Primitives and those were people who underwent terragenesis and its essentially took their intelligence (it made them like cavemen, primitive as the term says).  That way you can understand why the Inhumans keep them as a slave labor force even if you don't agree with it (which is usually where Maximus comes in).

Plus it adds the interesting wrinkle of genetically paired parents being mandatory in order to prevent creating more.  So you can do an episode with Luna (or whoever) falling for a certain Inhuman but turns out to be genetically incompatible and use that to further flesh out the world.   Overall just a ton of missed opportunities.

[statsgirl]

I've never read the comics so I'm coming to the show naive.

What strikes me the most is the number of bad actors on this show.  Ken Leung and Iwan Rheon (loved him on Vicious) do the best they can with the material, although I keep expecting Rheon to grow a mustache to twirl. 

Was Serinda Swan always that bad an actor or is the purple tunic/red hair combination sapping her ability? So are the actors playing Auran and Black Bolt.  Maybe in smaller roles they might do better but they can't hold my interest here.

Other questions:  Why is the little guy called Maximus?  Why is Gorgon a man when there is already a Medusa on the show? Do the writers know what a meritocracy really is because that society based on your genes sure wasn't?  Did Ken Leong really think this was a better bet than Night Shirt?

I would be sad if Crystal or Lockjaw died.  I don't care if any of the rest do (I was hoping the Aluna character would stay dead.)  They tried to clone Felicity from Arrow but she doesn't have any of the charm of the original.

58 minutes ago, SimoneS said:

If they want me to view Maximus as the bad guy, the "good guys" cannot sneer at him because he is "just a human" and doom other "humans" to life working in the mines. A caste system and/or Apartheid isn't admirable or rootable. What I don't get is; if Maximus is " just a human" how did he secretly recruit all these people with powers to conspire with him to carry out the coup? It would be more believable if it was the humans who decided that they had enough and were taking over, but then who would root for the inhumans? I am not even rooting for them under these circumstances.

Maybe that's his secret power -- being able to tap into what others want and promise it to them.

Between the writing and the acting, this show doesn't seem to be worth my time.  There are better sci fi/fantasy shows out there

[missbonnie]

Wowza! The next time someone wants to tell me that AoS is bad, I am going to direct them straight to this mess. I debating going to see this in IMAX and I am so glad I didn't. I would have been seriously pissed blowing $15 plus concessions to see this wretched mess. 

[ramble]

I’m not familiar with the comics or the actors on this show but I generally give Marvel a chance on almost anything. This was bad. Even as I watched it I was muttering to myself out loud about how bad it was.  

Medusa was wooden and hard to watch. I don’t know the actress, but she seemed to be acting in high school play and her costume was one they had left over from last year‘s production of a Star Trek rip off.  I ff’d through the “dramatic” hair shaving event. I found myself laughing instead of caring. Her pronouncement after she semi-killed the villain’s henchwoman, and her declaration to Black Bolt at the end all felt like overly wrought high school angst  

Maximus was a cardboard cut out of a villain. I know, in theory, I should be on his side due to the caste system, but honestly I just wasn’t invested enough to care. He also came off weasely to me. Maybe that was the intent, but I had a hard time seeing much more than jealous little brother weasel. I thought Black Bolt was more convincing in his role even though he never spoke. 

The positive? I thought Lockjaw was pretty cool. I also liked the beautiful Hawaiian scenery. Hum, what else?  I was neutral about the sister princess. Yes, I’m reaching. I imagine I’ll watch a couple more episodes to see if it was just introductory growing pains, but I have my doubts. 

Edited September 30, 2017 by ramble

[AnimeMania]

What are they digging for in the moon mines? They should let everybody who didn't turn into an Inhuman go live on earth. Hard to side with the Royals, they could at least give the miners some equipment to dig with.

[HunterHunted]

1 hour ago, SimoneS said:

What I don't get is; if Maximus is " just a human" how did he secretly recruit all these people with powers to conspire with him to carry out the coup? It would be more believable if it was the humans who decided that they had enough and were taking over, but then who would root for the inhumans? I am not even rooting for them under these circumstances.

I don't think it's all that hard to believe that Maximus could recruit people with powers to support him in the coup. Maximus' parents had Medusa and Crystal's parents killed for challenging the social caste system. With the two teens we saw go through terrigenesis, the sister could fly and was suddenly socially elevated. But because they couldn't figure out that her brother could see the future, they sent him back to work in the mines along side his parents. There have to be Inhumans who have similar problems with the caste system. It's either split their family apart or they have family imprisoned because they spoke out against the system.

The thing that is important to realize about the upper caste is that if they don't recognize the Inhuman's gift as important, then the person isn't elevated. The father of the teens had some changes to his to his hands. His son can see the future. Both worked in the mines. The lower caste is a mix of people who have no gifts or gifts that were deemed useless or unimportant.

[dungeonwriter]

Medusa's purple dress was so ugly, it was painful. I get they wanted to be true to the costume, but she didn't look queenly at all. She looked like she should strangle the royal tailor. I usually love Serinda Swan (she ruled my heart in Breakout Kings) but she seemed so wooden here. And the hair just looked fake. Although the shaving scene was awesome, finally a glimpse of her talent. 

Maximus came across as pathetic and I wanted Ramsey Bolton to come in and teach him to be a real villain. I get he cares about Medusa but don't shave her, shoot her. Seriously, one bullet, do it. You leave enemies alive, you ask for trouble. And confining the princess (how is she a princess if she's basically Pippa Middleton? Her sister married the king, that shouldn't make her anything but a high ranked lady) to her room like a child is the height of stupidity.  She can set people on fire, and freeze people. Again, shoot her. 

Black Bolt actually did it for me, he's a mute who emotes amazingly and he does come across as a hero. 

But why are we supposed to root for people who live in luxury while so many labor in the mines with their bare hands?

"We're running low on food, maybe we should reconsider our system of genetic apartheid?"-The villain. 

"Nah. Pass the delicious food and sweet digs, I am blessed by genetics and living it up."-the hero.  

[Gregg247]

That was glorious!  TV shows today are so overly focus-grouped and shaped by committees of executives, that its almost impossible for a show to arrive over the airwaves so shockingly terrible in every possible way.  This show somehow managed to slip through every crack there was and arrive on America's doorstep as one of the truly worst shows ever produced.  Bravo, Producers!

So the Inhumans from Agents of SHEILD (kind of a poor man's X-Men) LIVE ON THE MOON in royal palaces.  The king and queen freely admit to enslaving any of their subjects who don't have inhuman powers.  The "bad guy" wants freedom for the people (he probably just wants the enslave everyone for himself, though).  The royal family is shipped off to Hawaii, where they already know all about cars and such.  However, the GIANT TELEPORTING DOG is captured by the bad guys and put to sleep (not literally, though---he's really just sleeping).  The "star" of the show doesn't talk.  The queen has HAIR THAT CAN FIGHT!  Until it gets shaved off! (I couldn't stop laughing at that part)  Miles Strom, from "Lost", is back on The Island and gets....lost.  Some guy with hooves can stomp the ground and make everyone else fall down.  But he also wears shoes--which somehow stay on his hooves even though he has hooves, not feet.  The main bad guy's Number 2 is EVIL and kills a random gentleman who's just trying to do his job, cleaning his tour bus.  But then she gets killed by the bald queen-with a pocket knife (I guess the special effects budget was used up on the concrete bunkers everyone lives in ON THE MOON.).  NASA no longer works on space exploration; its now the job of some company with a single big screen computer inside a giant empty warehouse (although they DID manage to land a rover on the Moon, so good job on that!).

Was the comic book this show is based on come out in the 60's?  It must have, because I feel like this whole show is someone's bad acid trip brought to life for all of us to experience together.

Back in the late 70's, I saw a busted NBC sitcom pilot starring Gale Gordon (Mr. Mooney from "The Lucy Show") and funnyman Charlie Callas as 2 monks in a monastery.  The entire show was a bunch of really old dudes in robes making jokes about stomping grapes and vows of silence.  I've often thought that was the worst idea for a TV show ever produced.  Decades later, I'm proven wrong!

[immortalfrieza]

34 minutes ago, dungeonwriter said:

 

Maximus came across as pathetic and I wanted Ramsey Bolton to come in and teach him to be a real villain. I get he cares about Medusa but don't shave her, shoot her. Seriously, one bullet, do it. You leave enemies alive, you ask for trouble. And confining the princess (how is she a princess if she's basically Pippa Middleton? Her sister married the king, that shouldn't make her anything but a high ranked lady) to her room like a child is the height of stupidity.   

 

It's typical villain stupidity, if villains killed the good guys when they had the chance the good guys wouldn't last a single episode/movie/whatever. It's a grand tradition that Bond villains were masters of.

Quote

She can set people on fire, and freeze people. Again, shoot her.

Speaking of which, Crystal shows a strong reluctance to set the guy she clearly despises and his guards on fire even while she's alone with him on a balcony. Either she's an idiot or she's actually buying into what Maximus is spewing.

Quote

But why are we supposed to root for people who live in luxury while so many labor in the mines with their bare hands?

"We're running low on food, maybe we should reconsider our system of genetic apartheid?"-The villain. 

"Nah. Pass the delicious food and sweet digs, I am blessed by genetics and living it up."-the hero.  

I've noticed that's a pretty common with protagonists and antagonists these days. It seems like nobody cares to write heroes that are actually in the right and thus worth rooting for and villains who are actually in the wrong and thus worth hating. The only way to even tell that the villain is supposed to be a villain lately is to have them be total dicks to everybody around them and do stupid evil villain things like kill and torture people for the sheer hell of it just because they can. I fully expect that by the time Black Bolt and Co get back to their home on the moon Maximus will be having his death squads roaming around shooting random people for dissent or something like that, just to underpin that yes, this is the guy you should be rooting against.

2 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

 

It would be funny if the kid was faking seeing the future and manipulating Maximus into over throwing the government because of some anti Inhuman agenda growing in the lower classes.  I saw snakes around you.  nudge. nudge. Shave Medusa.  Oh, the Genetics council is plotting against you....

I was thinking something along those lines. True or not, showing up to threaten the Genetics Council because you suspect them of plotting against you is SURE to put an end to their plans! In case you couldn't tell that was sarcasm. Max, if they were planning to overthrow you threatening them is only going to strengthen their resolve, and if they weren't NOW they definitely are going to start after how you've walked right up to them all but wearing a sign saying "I'M AN INSANE DICTATOR!!!" on your chest.

Edited September 30, 2017 by immortalfrieza

[Miles]

That was some horrible dialouge. The first scenes with the surfers on the beach? Yikes. Really anything with the surfers. But everything else wasn't stellar either.

Funniest moment: Let me pet some air and pretend a dog is there. Seriously that was the worst integration of CGI I have seen in a looooooong time. The CGI itself was pretty good however.

Villian who comes back to life after being stabbed was annoying. Shouldn't Medusa know her powers? Stab her some more and preferably sever her spinal column, if you know she's a healer.

Guy who can predict what impact his actions will have on the immediate future can't predict that stepping in a certain place will lead to him falling off a mountain?

What are they mining for and why don't they have robots doing that with all the advanced technological bullshit they have lying around?

Hoved guy must have been the crappiest captain of the guard ever. It seems every single one of his subordinates rebelled against the royal family and he had no idea until after it had happened.

 

Despite all this gripes, I think it was barely passeble, but it better improve fast. Not sure how long I can stick with it.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Miles

[HunterHunted]

10 minutes ago, Gregg247 said:

That was glorious!  TV shows today are so overly focus-grouped and shaped by committees of executives, that its almost impossible for a show to arrive over the airwaves so shockingly terrible in every possible way.  This show somehow managed to slip through every crack there was and arrive on America's doorstep as one of the truly worst shows ever produced.  Bravo, Producers!

I agree that this was pretty terrible, but for reasons that are different from yours.

10 minutes ago, Gregg247 said:

So the Inhumans from Agents of SHEILD (kind of a poor man's X-Men) LIVE ON THE MOON in royal palaces.  The king and queen freely admit to enslaving any of their subjects who don't have inhuman powers.  The "bad guy" wants freedom for the people (he probably just wants the enslave everyone for himself, though).  The royal family is shipped off to Hawaii, where they already know all about cars and such.  However, the GIANT TELEPORTING DOG is captured by the bad guys and put to sleep (not literally, though---he's really just sleeping).  The "star" of the show doesn't talk.  The queen has HAIR THAT CAN FIGHT!  Until it gets shaved off! (I couldn't stop laughing at that part)  Miles Strom, from "Lost", is back on The Island and gets....lost.  Some guy with hooves can stomp the ground and make everyone else fall down.  But he also wears shoes--which somehow stay on his hooves even though he has hooves, not feet.  The main bad guy's Number 2 is EVIL and kills a random gentleman who's just trying to do his job, cleaning his tour bus.  But then she gets killed by the bald queen-with a pocket knife (I guess the special effects budget was used up on the concrete bunkers everyone lives in ON THE MOON.).  NASA no longer works on space exploration; its now the job of some company with a single big screen computer inside a giant empty warehouse (although they DID manage to land a rover on the Moon, so good job on that!).

I think this is sort of an unfair criticism. This shared universe has people with weird super powers because they are aliens, humans with alien DNA, humans who are half living planet, acquired from ancient alien artifacts, through medical experimentation, magic, and eating a strange plant. If you're watching these properties, you either accept the weirdness or you don't watch it. Is Medusa's telekinetic hair any stranger than the sentient cape in Doctor Strange, a moving talking tree in Guardians, or a man wearing a suit that allows him to shrink to subatomic level or increase his size ten fold? Also with the Hulk, where does his mystery mass come from? Bruce Banner is like 160 -170 lbs, but the Hulk is 1,000lbs. The rest of the Marvel universe is just as ridiculous as this is.

For me, the issue with the show isn't just how cheap it looks (very), how bad the dialogue is (terrible), how wooden some of the actors are (Sequoia), but the ways in which this show seems to gloss over things that would otherwise be huge ideological conflicts in the rest of the Marvel Universe. In Civil War, the conflict about whether the Avengers are autonomous and answerable to a higher governing body splits the team in two. On Agents of SHIELD, they've had huge conflicts about treatment of Inhumans, registering and tracking them, oversight of SHIELD, and whether there should be a war between humans and Inhumans. Here, we're told that our hero has been operating an apartheid system, but the bad guy is the one who wants to end it. This show doesn't seem to have much nuance to it and we're far too deep into the MCU to be fooling around with quarter-assed basic bullshit. This is halfway through phase 3. Iron Fist was terrible, but it didn't look this shitty.

I will say that having this random company investigating the moon is one of those areas where the show falls apart. Had this been connected to Agents of SHIELD and the larger MCU, this could have been a Roxxon company, which we know is where Hydra die-hards tended to hide out. And we know that there is a faction of Hydra that was completely obsessed with Inhumans.

10 minutes ago, Gregg247 said:

Was the comic book this show is based on come out in the 60's?  It must have, because I feel like this whole show is someone's bad acid trip brought to life for all of us to experience together.

Back in the late 70's, I saw a busted NBC sitcom pilot starring Gale Gordon (Mr. Mooney from "The Lucy Show") and funnyman Charlie Callas as 2 monks in a monastery.  The entire show was a bunch of really old dudes in robes making jokes about stomping grapes and vows of silence.  I've often thought that was the worst idea for a TV show ever produced.  Decades later, I'm proven wrong!

The Inhumans were introduced in the 60s, but most of the MCU properties were created around the same time.

[steelyis]

That was thoroughly awful.

How can something so badly written even reach the filming stage?

I haven't witnessed writing that stupid since Smallville went off the air. I lost count of how much dumb shit happened. Literally dumb shit happened from the opening scene to when Blackbolt got a call on his wrist cell phone that the cops totally wouldn't have taken away from him the second he was arrested.

Christ.

And am I supposed to find racist slave-holding elitists likable or even relatable? Fuck that shit! Slavers are not fucking good people, never mind sympathetic protagonists! Why the fuck should I care if they're deposed and/or killed? Max could have launched those fuckers into space (except Lockjaw) and I would have cheered.

The performances, if you can call the actors' dead-eyed, melodramatic droning acting, made me reevaluate my stance that the Martha scene in BvS is the worst line reading I've ever heard in a comic book related property. There were at least a dozen worse head shaking, cringe inducing line readings in the first forty-five minutes of this idiotic bullshit--and half of them came from the vortex of suck that was the actor playing Crystal. Rejoice, Finn Jones, you are no longer the worst actor Marvel ever hired.

Speaking of which, Inhumans makes Iron Fist look like a masterpiece by comparison and that's really fucking embarrassing.

[Jacks-Son]

4 hours ago, ramble said:

Maximus was a cardboard cut out of a villain. I know, in theory, I should be on his side due to the caste system, but honestly I just wasn’t invested enough to care. He also came off weasely to me. Maybe that was the intent, but I had a hard time seeing much more than jealous little brother weasel. I thought Black Bolt was more convincing in his role even though he never spoke.

I agree with most of what you wrote. The actor playing Maximus always plays an ass. He was an ass in "Misfits" and was sort of a jealous little fvck. I see he's reprised his role here.  Sure, he seems to be all about the problems with the caste system and I agree with him there, but his motives seem more self-involved as in how the caste system has shut ME out because I have no powers. The Royals, while participant in the caste system, seem somewhat sincere and benevolent. I was watching the show with my grandson and he admitted that if he had the power, he would descend to Earth and try to take over. I MUST have a serious word with him. That's like invading a country and deciding to take their oil, because you can. Just because you can, doesn't make it right or ethical. Invading Earth because you have power and they don't and they have a better world than you seems like a dick move.

This show seems like it's going to stir the pot and I don't see how it's going to mesh with the MCU or even AoS. Please, please don't "F" with my precious Quake, or Yo-Yo.

[Jamoche]

This episode would've been a lot shorter and smarter if their wristbands had half the features of a basic smartphone/watch combo: "Find My Friend", text messaging, and vibrate mode for when you've got headphones on. Oh, and actually wearing the wristband.

[Guest]

56 minutes ago, Jamoche said:

This episode would've been a lot shorter and smarter if their wristbands had half the features of a basic smartphone/watch combo: "Find My Friend", text messaging, and vibrate mode for when you've got headphones on. Oh, and actually wearing the wristband.

There is no excuse for not having text messaging given that the King doesn't talk.

[Rachel RSL]

I'll be the oddball here and say that I rather enjoyed it. It's definitely not Emmy-worthy material but I was entertained. I wonder if maybe it's because I don't watch AoS (gave up after the first few episodes - I was bored) so I don't notice things/inconsistencies the rest of you do. But, as a stand alone show with nothing for me to refer back to, it was pretty good.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Rachel RSL

[paulvdb]

I am completely unfamiliar with the comics and the other Marvel series and movies, so I came into this with no knowledge about who these people were or what their society was like. And my expectations were very low because of what I had read about it. I thought it was ok, but agree with other posters who say that they can't see the royal family as the good guys. Maximus made some good points about the caste system, but it seems very clear to me that he's really only using the lower caste for his own power and has no interest in actually helping them get better lives. And I don't think it's just me knowing that he was Ramsay Bolton on GoT. So basically there are no good guys on this show.

Of course I can see some stupid things on the show. Like others already mentioned, you really should have texting features on your communicators when you have a king who doesn't talk. And Ramsay Bolton Maximus really should have killed some of these people when he had the chance instead of shaving their hair or locking them up in their luxury apartment.

[SimoneS]

7 hours ago, statsgirl said:

What strikes me the most is the number of bad actors on this show.  Ken Leung and Iwan Rheon (loved him on Vicious) do the best they can with the material, although I keep expecting Rheon to grow a mustache to twirl. 

I am forgot to mention Iwan's role on Vicious. He was so good. He held his own with Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi and totally broke that villain typecasting from GoT. I don't know why he took this weak role. He would have been better off in a run of the mill procedural.

 

6 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

I don't think it's all that hard to believe that Maximus could recruit people with powers to support him in the coup. Maximus' parents had Medusa and Crystal's parents killed for challenging the social caste system. With the two teens we saw go through terrigenesis, the sister could fly and was suddenly socially elevated. But because they couldn't figure out that her brother could see the future, they sent him back to work in the mines along side his parents. There have to be Inhumans who have similar problems with the caste system. It's either split their family apart or they have family imprisoned because they spoke out against the system.

The thing that is important to realize about the upper caste is that if they don't recognize the Inhuman's gift as important, then the person isn't elevated. The father of the teens had some changes to his to his hands. His son can see the future. Both worked in the mines. The lower caste is a mix of people who have no gifts or gifts that were deemed useless or unimportant.

Was this in the show? Because if it was, I missed it and if it wasn't, how does the show expect the millions of people like me who watched and don't read the comics to know this? However, I did come away with the opinion that the inhumans are unsympathetic hateful assholes who deserve to be overthrown which I suspect wasn't the show's intention.

Edited September 30, 2017 by SimoneS

[Happywatcher]

9 hours ago, Terrafamilia said:

Am I a bad person because, all the murder and treachery and general asshattery aside, I'm kinda with Maximus at this point?

If Auran, the new guard boss who heals, hadn't murdered the bus driver, then the new king and court would be the good guys.

The old regime, who we are supposed to be cheering for, are nobility playing and joking around while half their population are slaves doing manual labor. Maximus is right, about everything.

[owenthurman]

4 hours ago, steelyis said:

am I supposed to find racist slave-holding elitists likable or even relatable? Fuck that shit! Slavers are not fucking good people, never mind sympathetic protagonists! Why the fuck should I care if they're deposed and/or killed? Max could have launched those fuckers into space (except Lockjaw) and I would have cheered.

Thank you. If it weren't for posts like yours, this show would have made me lose faith in humanity.

[shrewd.buddha]

The word "bad" isn't enough for this show - - how about "atrocious" or "abominable" ?

There were so many offenses, almost all of which have already been mentioned. Here are my main ones :

• The premise of the royal family  and the slave caste is horrible - - why did TPTB think that would go over well in this day and age?
• The actors that I recognize are decent - but the writing makes them look like amateurs. Painful to watch.
• There is no excuse for someone who cannot speak not to be able to communicate (sign language, text phone, pen and paper).
• The grand city of Attilan looked like a concrete pit - terrible sets and lighting.  
• The fight choreography is sad.
•  Gorgon's legs are wrong and the hooves look like cheap shoes. All the costuming looks cheap  and rushed - especially Medusa's wig.

I think that if anyone at ABC/Disney/Marvel really cared about this Inhumans  project - or considered how it would diminish their other shows/movies - they would have never released this. 

I noticed that ABC had almost no advertising to promote  the premiere after its poor IMAX  performance (that I noticed). 

Edited September 30, 2017 by shrewd.buddha

[jenrising]

Yeah, I don't get the point of this. The royal family is a bunch of assholes. So I'd be happy if they all died. But the "freedom fighter" is just as much of an asshole. So unless this show is the rest of the Attilan citizens coming to earth and locking the entire main cast* up on the moon to stilted lecture each other to death, I don't care one tiny bit where the show is going.

* Except for Lockjaw. He's a giant teleporting dog. He can come too. 

[SimoneS]

32 minutes ago, shrewd.buddha said:

• The premise of the royal family  and the slave caste is horrible - - why did TPTB think that would go over well in this day and age?

Maybe ABC/Disney/Marvel thought since white supremacy is all the rage these days that slavery/apartheid would boost the ratings? There is so much they could have done to fix this, but chose not to for some inexplicable reason. They could have made eliminated the royal family's anti-human comments and attitudes. Instead of sneering at Maximus over dinner because he is human and happily exploiting and living off the labor of humans, they could have been discussing a political strategy to eliminate the human caste/slave system. At least showing that they were opposed to the system, but there were political interests keeping it in place would have made them somewhat more sympathetic.

Edited September 30, 2017 by SimoneS

[Lady Calypso]

I only ended up watching the first hour, so I had to read recaps for the second half.

So, this wasn't the worst pilot I've seen, but I do think that it wasn't good. The issue is that the writing was pretty bad, and the acting was too. I'm sorry, but if you're going to have a main character who doesn't talk, choose an actor who can emote well...or at all. Also, don't have one character constantly translating for him. I expect the Royal Family to know their Attilan sign language, not just his wife. Also don't have the wife also translating when it's just the two of them. Subtitles are ok in this scenario. I read that the actor actually worked hard at the creation of the sign language part so it would be not like ASL but its own version of sign language, but I just feel bad for him putting so much effort into this when it probably won't even matter when the show gets cancelled.

Also what was weak was I guess the attempted conflict between the King and Maximus. So I presume Maximus is going to get more cartoonishly evil to prove that the King and Queen are the protagonists? Because all I think is that, though his attempts are misguided, I'm on Maximus' side. They imprison and enslave non-Inhumans or ones with shitty powers? And we're supposed to root against Maximus because....why? I guess because they'll have him start killing people so that Silent Man and Queen Hair look better? The conflict there could have been written really well; right now, it just comes across worse for the supposed protagonists. Also, of course there's a stupid fucking love triangle with Black Bolt, Medusa, and Maxiumus. Because that'll make things better. 

As for other characters, I found none of them interesting. I guess Lockjaw is kind of fun as a CGI dog, but I assume we'll get less and less of him for budget reasons. 

I did laugh at Gorgon's bad hoof feet. They certainly didn't look like hoofs most of the time.

Ken Leung is usually better than this; his acting was pretty terrible. I also don't get the purpose of aerospace lady. Her scene drove the show to a halt for me, even more than it already had in the first hour. 

I probably won't try to find the time to see watch what I missed in the second hour, and I'm still unsure if I'll watch the third episode. 

[Guest]

I kind of marvel that the show is as dreadful as it is but its still somehow bad in a way that its not even fun to snark on.  There isn't any levity at all.  No funny moments.  No moments that are so bad that its unintentionally funny.   Its just kind of oppressively bad and depressingly so.

I couldn't even laugh as Bolt's exaggerated emoting via Claymation facial expressions when the cops were arresting him.  And that should have been funny. 

[starri]

I actually kind of liked seeing Medusa's hair when it was in motion; it looked better than the snippets we saw in all the teasers and trailers.  So naturally, there was about 30 seconds of that before her budgetary head-shaving.  

Serinda Swan seemed like she was really trying, and probably could have done a lot more with better material.

I can't decide if Anson Mount was choosing to play Black Bolt as though he was constipated, he himself was constipated during filming, or he was just really uncomfortable in all that skin tight leather (he looked like he was about to break out into a sweat a lot), but for a character who is only going to read by non-verbal acting, he seemed to use a single expression.  I did think the sign language looked really good and fluid, which is to his credit.

The actress who played Crystal came across like an Inhuman Kardashian.  

Jack Kirby drew Attilan as a gleaming, high-tech city of spires and towers in his gorgeous Pop Art style.  The exteriors here looked like a Soviet construction project that was left half finished when the USSR collapsed.  And the interiors looked like something out of a 70s sci-fi.  A BAD 70s sci-fi.

I was hoping it would be fun to hatewatch, but honestly, it's too boring for that.

[Raja]

7 hours ago, steelyis said:

That was thoroughly awful.

How can something so badly written even reach the filming stage?

I haven't witnessed writing that stupid since Smallville went off the air. I lost count of how much dumb shit happened. Literally dumb shit happened from the opening scene to when Blackbolt got a call on his wrist cell phone that the cops totally wouldn't have taken away from him the second he was arrested.

Christ.

And am I supposed to find racist slave-holding elitists likable or even relatable? Fuck that shit! Slavers are not fucking good people, never mind sympathetic protagonists! Why the fuck should I care if they're deposed and/or killed? Max could have launched those fuckers into space (except Lockjaw) and I would have cheered.

 

 

The Royal family itself seems to be worse than the Agents of SHIELD Afterlife and Jaiying's  Inhuman leadership by a factor of 10. Except for Maximus killing a free born earth Inhuman to draw part of the Royalty to Earth I am with the villain. No doubt he will go into Inhuman genocide on the moon in the next few weeks. I am not sure were this is falling on the Agents Of SHIELD timeline but the surfers definitely knew about Inhumans yet the TV cast of Blackbolt just says something weird and not a suspected one of them. I suspect that was for the very few who watched this as something new and have not been with the ABC Agent shows or Marvel Netflix

While awful as a stand alone movie perhaps a character or situation will come out of the next six weeks to tie into AoS

[AnimeMania]

If you are going to continue to watch, here are a few things to watch out for.

Why did Black Bolt's parents kill Mesuda's parents?

Why did Black Bolt kill his own parents? 

Why is Maximus treated so well when he has no powers? (nepotism?)

Why is Maximus so interested in winning Crystal over to his side?

How does Crystal (and other gifted Inhumans) use their powers to benefit Attilan? The one case that we saw looked pretty bad, where Auran (Leather Lady) threaten to kill the family of the Inhuman so he would teleport her safely to earth (even though he said it caused him pain). It seems like they like to use Inhuman powers instead of (their more advanced than earth) science and technology.

Why do they waste terrigen crystals, one per person, they could gather all the children of a certain age in a room and throw in a terrigen crystal.

Why don't they supply science and technology to the Inhumans without powers?

Why do the subjugate Inhumans without powers?

Why would they choose to live on the moon instead of Earth? If they just don't want to come in contact with humans, there are plenty of places humans don't live, like Antarctica, underwater, underground, deep in a cave, etc.

1 hour ago, Lady Calypso said:

I did laugh at Gorgon's bad hoof feet. They certainly didn't look like hoofs most of the time. Ken Leung is usually better than this; his acting was pretty terrible. I also don't get the purpose of aerospace lady. Her scene drove the show to a halt for me, even more than it already had in the first hour. 

Gorgon sometimes wears shoes that make his hooves look like feet. I am sure aerospace lady will have a large role in upcoming episodes now that she has gone to Hawaii to investigate. Aerospace lady's human-ness will allow the Inhumans a way to explain/justify the Attilan way of life.

[immortalfrieza]

5 hours ago, paulvdb said:

I thought it was ok,

Which was my reaction as well. I don't think the show is as fit-only-for-the-garbage awful as most of the posters here, but it's definitely a profound "meh." I've come to expect a lot better than "meh" from Marvel when it comes to their movies and TV shows. It's not really surprising though considering the show only exists because Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter was pissy over his Inhuman movie not going forward so he rushed this thing out. Whenever anybody makes anything out of ego or pettiness or lets that interfere with the process it always sucks and Marvel's Inhumans is no exception.

I hope it improves in future episodes but it's honestly looking to be Marvel's first flop at this point so they will have to REALLY step up their game.

[CooperTV]

This is just bad.

So the evil guys is so obviously evil he wears black and is also played by Iwan Rheon who is type-cast at this point? And the Good Guys (tm) are good because the Evil Guy hates them. Even though their monarchy is based on unfair caste system that ostracizes non-mutants, they're lawful godsend rulers and any objection to that should be seen as Bad (tm). The Bad Guy supporting [nominally] inclusion, equal rights and democratic vote should be hanged. In the meantime we are supposed to feel sorry for Black Bolt in the police custody, even though he stole a suit, assault an innocent civilian and beat up a cop who just was doing his job.

Possibly the Royal Inhumans and Michael Burnham from STD should be friends, seeing as they're both obnoxious douches and everything.

[marketdoctor]

Quote

I hope it improves in future episodes but...

This is my feeling as well.

There was potential:  Maximus, like many interesting bad guys, had a point.  He was more an "antagonist" than pure evil, and he didn't kill Lockjaw.  He lied, and was willing to kill, but he really had a point about the caste system.

As an occasional gamer, I appreciated that Medusa seemed to be a great example of Lawful Neutral, especially when she was the law.

The worst things:  the opening long shot about the CGI city of Allitan--it looked like the opening of Civilization IV (from 2005, on a PC.)  Likewise, Medusa's wig wasn't good--and I wondered why they went with such an obvious wig until the shaving scene.    I also liked how Lockjaw's teleporting wasn't exact when he was going from the Moon all the way to the Earth, and vice-versa.

I could have used a line about a gravity enhancer--otherwise the characters would have had a VERY hard time going to Earth (6x the gravity of the Moon), in addition to walking differently, etc.

I'll give the acting a small pass, since apparently there were re-shoots and it's a pilot (and I liked some of the characters) but I'm glad I didn't pay for this.  I don't think IMAX would have helped; the CGI was showing in 720p.

[dungeonwriter]

1 hour ago, Lady Calypso said:

I guess because they'll have him start killing people so that Silent Man and Queen Hair look better? The conflict there could have been written really well; right now, it just comes across worse for the supposed protagonists. Also, of course there's a stupid fucking love triangle with Black Bolt, Medusa, and Maxiumus. Because that'll make things better. 

Queen Hair is officially the greatest title ever. And considering a brief google search got me a dress that would have worked just as well, what did they think shoving her into that spandex abomination? 

For a show that invented its own sign language, it didn't invent a culture. Names like Gorgon and Medusa are there with names like Black Bolt and Maximus. The clothing of the royal family seems to make no sense as well. 

 

 

They look like Comic Con cosplayers from different shows, although the men do look a bit better.