Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Pilot: Joss Whedon is back!!! But truth be told, I found this pilot rather underwhelming. Perhaps it was because of all that hype, but I was expecting more. Having said that, it was still loads of awesomeness, with crackling good lines, shout outs to most of the movie-Marvels heroes/moments, and most importantly a solid cast. The trick here is to balance the darkness of this black-ops, secret agents theme, with the lightness and brevity, and dark comic, that Whedon is known for. And I think he did a good job thus far. Pilots are always exposition heavy, and that's their role, but the next few episodes will really determine if this ABC series will take off, or will it end up like "Firefly" and "Dollhouse". Clark Gregg and Chloe Bennet are the clear standouts here; I really liked the tech-and-science team of Elizabeth Henstridge and Iain De Caestecker (they are like the Xander and Willow on steroids, or Topher on adrenaline); Ming-Na Wen is still an enigma, but I am intrigued by her backstory; Brett Dalton, let's hope he is more than just a pretty boy, hopefully more like Charles Gunn/Wesley and less like Paul Ballard.

Quotable quotes:

Maria Hill: "...a God"
Agent Ward: "I don't think Thor is technically a God"
Hill: "You haven't been near his arms." ... OMG! LOL!!! Genius!

Coulson: "Welcome to Level 7...sorry, that corner was really dark and I couldn't help myself." *snark*

Coulson: "When you get shanked by the Asgardian Mussolini, you can tell it your way." LOL!

Simmons: “I’m not Hermione, I can’t create instant paralysis with that.”

Skye: “With great power comes… a ton of weird crap that you are not prepared to deal with.”

Episode #2, "0-8-4": This outing is slightly better than first, and the cast are really starting to gel together. Especially since this episode is designed to reflect their differences and the group dynamics within. A typical Whedon-esque episode where they group works together, overcome their differences and beat the bad guys. But as the episode was not written by Joss, there seem to be less quotable quotes this time round. May and Fitz-Simmons are still the standouts here; Skye is interesting but the penultimate scene was a bit surprisingly. Poor Agent Ward, still rather dull. Pretty, but dull. But, OMG!, Fury is in the house! There's definitely some history going on between May and Coulson. I think this series won't do blockbuster, "Avengers"-style numbers, but it is a great fun for the fans/geeks/nerds.

Quotable Quotes:

Coulson: "The last [0-8-4] was a hammer."

Skye: "You took a bullet"
Coulson: "-ish". hah!

Coulson: "[Tahiti] is a magical place." Not so much a quip, but another clue; was Doctor Strange involved?

Coulson: "Do you need anything else before I go back and check on the device fueled by evil?"

Episode #3 to #5: Honestly, this series is leaving me rather underwhelmed. There are moments of sparks, but the quality as quite appreciably dropped since Joss's pilot. But thankfully #5 finally gave us some insight and headway into Skye's character. Although honestly, character development and complexities are sorely lacking in this series. The only really interesting character is May. Even Coulson is getting one-dimensional, but at least his quips are still razor sharp. Sadly, Ward is still rather block like; Fitz and Simmons are entertaining enough but currently they are better served as backdrop comic relief rather than upfront like Topher in "Dollhouse". These characters just need to be better written. Hopefully with the Big Bad introduced in episode #5, the upcoming episodes will get slowly evolve.