S.H.I.E.L.D. Pulls An 0-8-4 And We Know What That Means!

By Blake Summers

This week's episode of S.H.I.E.L.D. faced a challenge of following up the hugely watched pilot episode, which was the highest rated new drama of 2013. While the ratings for episode 2 slipped, that is to be expected, and Marvel actually put out an effort superior in every way to the pilot. The show keeps its campy attitude, introduces new threats and opportunities, and manages to surprise the viewer with a guest appearance (Read on or use google to find out who it was!).

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, risking my entire credibility as a non-credible writer to say that Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has potential to be the American version of Doctor Who. While that should be considered a crime to even type out, I did get am getting a Doctor Who vibe so far. The dialogue, action, and plot is all reminiscent of that brilliant British show that has thus far been untouchable by any American attempts to remake it. Sorry, Inspector SpaceTime.

S.H.I.E.L.D. really does have me laughing at almost every line. Some may say that's a bad thing, but I enjoy a show that is aware of what it's trying to accomplish, and not afraid to poke fun at itself. Lines like "Your frown will be on record" and "We're gonna have to kill the fishtank" could be taken directly from a comic book. I have no doubt that this bothers plenty of people, but I like the tone they have established. It goes in line with Coulson's/S.H.I.E.L.D.'s scenes in the films.

The actual plot could have been anything. They find a device and don't know where it came from, some people show up who also want the device, everyone flies around in a super-nice plane for a while...you know the story. The main purpose of the episode was to actually turn the hastily assembled S.H.I.E.L.D. team into an actual team, as opposed to its current every-man-for-himself state. This is the kind of cheesy plot device that I am not a huge fan of, but I suppose it's necessary to progress the characters in the long run. 

And now to reveal S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret weapon from this week...

That's right! An appearance from Nick Fury AKA Samuel L. Jackson himself. While that may not be a huge deal given his willingness to appear in, well, just about anything, it is exciting for fans of the movies since the television series operates on a fraction of any of the movies. Fury's appearance and dialogue with Agent Coulson was refreshing as well as downright hilarious. Those 2 are great on screen together, although I still feel like Marvel should just cut loose on Jackson and let him use as many curse words as he can for just one scene. Maybe they're saving that for the next Hulk movie. 

Overall, "0-8-4" was a huge improvement over the pilot episode, despite losing plenty of viewers. It still had a solid rating, but not enough to keep up with the ratings smash from its predecessor. If they can maintain the sort of audience size from this episode for a reasonable amount of time, then this show will be an enormous success. In case you were worried about the show becoming stale, I think the writers have that covered. At this point, we're beginning to know exactly what to expect with the structure and tonality of each episode, but that's not to say we don't have plenty of surprises in store for the remainder of this season.