Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [review time]

I can't even begin to describe how much I enjoyed the pilot of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — but I did manage to put into words how much I disliked The Avengers. The disparity between quality and hype is at its greatest with The Avengers. Some will argue that other contenders include Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, but the IMDb ratings don't lie: Inception has an has an 8.8, making it number 16 of the greatest films of all time (if only for mass appeal), Dark Knight Rises has an 8.6 (number 57), and The Avengers has a measly 8.2, and sits at number 168. But we can all agree to give this award to Avatar (7.9) and quit bickering.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., on the other hand, hasn't created -that- much hype so far (I guess with Thor 2 coming and Avengers 2 on the radar, the fanboys are well sated) and is head and shoulders above the quality of The Avengers, at least in the first episode.

From the first, I liked the tone they set. Pretty classy. The first fight scene has opera (or some shiz) in the background. There's a nice mixture of humour and gravity to this pilot, where the agents form up a motley team of qualified yet mis-matched troops to be a kind of "welcoming committee" for new super heroes who don't understand their powers, much like The Company or the World Superhero Registry (lol).

I'm excited about the cast so far. Cobie Smulders looks amazing as Agent Maria Hill; her character comes across as a far bit less useless than in the film, and I hope she becomes a frequent player. I'd never seen Chloe Bennet (Skye) before, but immediately fell in love with her, and I'm sure Brett Dalton (Agent Ward) and Ming-Na Wen (Melinda May) will grow on me... The other two members of the cast promo shot you've seen everywhere (including above) are genius duo Fitz & Simmons, played by Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge respectively.

They definitely tried for Whedonesque humor.

"I don't think Thor's technically a god."

"Well, you haven't been near his arms"

When a (beloved?) long lost character steps out from the shadows to reveal he's still alive: "Sorry, that corner was really dark and I couldn’t help myself. I think there’s a bulb out." And scene.

"Next to people skills she drew — I think that's a little poop."

It got tempting to write down every silly joke, but I decided on restraint. Just prepare yourself for some good moments, folks.

And prepare yourself to be reunited with old friends!

There are a few Whedon favorites I hadn't seen anywhere else yet: Charles Gunn! and Shepherd Book! I hope J. August Richards and Ron Glass make it into the series for more than just the pilot, because I'm super excited.

In comparison to The Avengers, the pilot for S.H.I.E.L.D. had a -satisfying- resolution for its conflict, none of that Hulk-smashing Loki bullshiz. It's a eucatastrophe Tolkien would be proud of. At the most pivotal moment, when it seems there is no going back and no way to win, a saving grace changes the course of history; previously established as imaginable yet impossible, this solution will only work once (okay, the eagles saved the citizens of middle earth more than once, so the old man's a hypocrite, but his theory works. A good eucatastrophe makes for a good ending to any story).

I'm off to watch the next episode. Cheers!

Your favourite Sci-Fi stars in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse

It's always nice to see your favourite stars turn up time and time again in your favourite shows, and if you pay any attention to Joss Whedon's series' at all, you'll have noticed he has favourites too. Actors he enjoys working with turn up in many of his projects, and Dollhouse is no exception. It's a pretty good reason to watch the show. But it's not even just Buffyverse, Firefly and The Cabin in the Woods I'm going to be focusing on here. There will be special guests from other sci-fi projects as well. I've been keeping my eyes open for them!

Eliza Dushku as Echo

We first got to know her as Faith, another slayer and badass foil to Buffy, and part of what made the show worth watching. Now Dushku plays Echo, or Caroline, a lost girl whose memories and self have been removed by the Dollhouse and replaced by whatever they want to program her with. It's kind of like in the Matrix when Neo downloads kung-fu skills into his brain. The question is how Caroline came to be a doll, or as the company calls her an "active", or programmable empty zombie-like adorably clueless being that fulfills... desires. And solves mysteries. And pulls off heists. And pretty much anything else you pay her to do. It's a nice bonus that she's pretty. You can also check her out on an episode of season 4 of Big Bang Theory. Let me know in a comment if you've seen her in any of your other favourite sci-fis.

Tahmon Pinkett (Helo!) as Agent Ballard

It completely kills me to see Helo from Battlestar Gallactica in every episode of Dollhouse. And you will hear me refer to him primarily as Helo, because that's who he is. Remember his, "Frack, I'm sleeping with a cylon" face? You're going to see it again. He's just so good at it, why let that talent go to waste? Adorable. He's been on Stargate SG-1 and Dark Angel as well. Less to the point, I noticed he was on Castle with Nathan Fillion, another Whedon fave, so kind of a cool co-incidence.

Amy Acker as Doctor Saunders

This pretty peppy girl you've come to know as Winifred Burkle on Angel (a Joss Whedon production) is barely recognizable as Doctor Saunders, a sad and scarred employee of the dollhouse who is tormented by her loyalty to the corporation, and by whatever mangled her face. She's conflicted, and a little grouchy. You'll also see her in an episode of Alias, one of Supernatural, and in Whedon's The Cabin the Woods next to this man:

Fran Kranz as Topher Brink

He might be relatively new among Whedon's favourites, but the character isn't new at all. He's your young, nerdy, hillarious genius a la Warren or Andrew from Buffy. But now he's in Dollhouse and Cabin in the Woods. Fun fact: He and Amy Acker are also in a newly slated Whedon Shakespeare adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing that's going to have lots of these favourites casted. And he was what IMDB lists as a "passenger" in Donnie Darko which could just mean an extra on a bus or the airplane, but knowing Donnie Darko, that could be code for some freaky time-travel thing.

Harry Lennix as Boyd Langton

If you've seen this face before, it's because you've seen the sequels to The Matrix; he plays Lock in Reloaded and Revolutions. Okay Harry Lennix has been in a lot of things but we're focusing on the sci-fi! On Dollhouse he plays Boyd, Echoe's handler, which means it's his job to protect her, and to control her. He prefers to do the former. He becomes very attached to the doll and shows devotion to her almost before the dollhouse aka his employer. Again, very adorable, once you see how docile and childlike Echo can be with her mind wiped and how Boyd treats her like his daughter when he should treat her like a bomb about to go off.

Alexis Denisof as Senator Daniel Perrin

Okay, I actually haven't seen him yet as I'm not into Season 2, but this is Angel's Wesley Windam-Price we're talking about, and I have some fun-facts about him. You could say he's a Whedon favourite based on his place in Buffy and Angel, but he hasn't done a lot else in Hollywood. But did you know that he's married to Allyson Hannigan, who played Willow on Buffy, and that he plays Sandy Rivers on How I Met Your Mother with her? Not impressed? Well here's another fun fact: You know the opening lines of The Avengers? "The Tesseract has awakened" blah blah blah "And the humans, what can they do but burn?" Guess who voiced that character, known only as "The Other". That's right, Whedon favourite Alexis Denisof! Crazy. And he'll be playing Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. So worth a mention at the least!

Alan Tudyk as Stephen Kepler

Take Wash from Firely and add some pot and an obsession with the environment, and you will get the essence of Whedon's favourites. One beloved role and cast member evolves into an even more hilarious one. Seeing Wash show up in Dollhouse was what drove me to write this post, because seeing him in a verbal battle with Helo from Battlestar Galactica was just too much for me, and I knew I couldn't be the only fan of niche nerdy things whose mind would explode after looking at this exhaustive list of crossovers. I live to search IMDB to see who has worked with whom, so you don't have to!

A couple more name-drops. Enver Gjokaj, who plays the active Victor, made it into The Avengers as a cop. Summer Glau from Firely and Felicia Day from Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog also deserve a mention, if only to pile excessively onto my point that this show is full of your favourite sci-fi cast members!

Of course, let me know in a comment if I missed anyone or anything. I would definitely like to make this list exhaustive and include all of the roles that connect one actor to another in a giant network of nerd fandom!

Saw The Avengers. It was okay. [Review Time]

If you haven't seen The Avengers yet, you must be completely immune to hype. Give yourself a pat on the shoulder.

But to be fair, it is entertaining and worth the watch, especially if you're interested in witnessing a curious film trend I've been noticing lately that's pretty much formula for The Avengers. The trend is this: the beginning is smart, suspenseful, and witty, with a somewhat interesting story. For the end, you can just turn your brain right off. And people love it.

Buffyverse on Twitter

So, if you're like me, you want your Twitter feed to be full of tweets from your favourite celebs, and what actors could be more charming and hilarious than Whedon's faves? So here's a few of your favourite Buffyverse characters and the names you can find them under on Twitter. Just to let you know right off the bat, our hero Miss Buffy Summers doesn't have a certified Twitter account. You won't find Sarah Michelle Gellar on Twitter, but I'll update this if she ever gets an account.

So Many Firefly Quotes, So Little Time.

I was really surprised to find upon rewatching an episode in the series that many of my favourite quotations came from the pilot episode, Serenity, alone. Here are a few of them:

Mal: We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. And you know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die. Huh? Look at that chiseled jaw, huh? Come on!

Blogging about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, starring Neil Patrick Harris, by Joss Whedon [review by starlight]

"And by the way it's not about making money, it's about taking money. Destroying the status quo because the status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it."

Dr. Horrible is just another of those nerdy cult things that requires a few watches to really fall in love with, which in my opinion makes a great piece of "film". Of course, Dr. Horrible is difficult to classify as either movie or tv series because it is too long to be a short flim, too short to be a movie, and there's only one episode. So maybe it's a single-episode TV show? Anyways, if you like either Joss Whedon or Neil Patrick Harris, there's really no downside to taking about 40 minutes out of your life to enjoy this weirdly unclassifiable piece of... whatever it is.

Well, I just can't help but post about Buffy... again [rant and rave]

"And they have no purpose that unites them, so they just drift around, blundering through life until they die, which they-they know is coming, yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them. They're incapable of thinking about what they want beyond the moment. They kill each other, which is clearly insane... and yet here's the thing. When it's something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they're lame morons for fighting, but they do! They never... they never quit. So I guess I'll keep fighting too." -Anya on Humanity

After watching the series finale of Buffy for the first time, I found I had a bit of a rant in me. Don't get me wrong, it was thrilling, there's just one flaw. But please, allow me to begin with how great a conclusion my hero, Lord Whedon, came up with, and rave about how it made me cry and cry and cry, and how everything went as it was meant to - including who lives and dies.

Angel Season 4, Awakening [musing, with spoilers]

What made this episode, entitled Awakening, so incredible is that Joss Whedon gives us an ending to all of the show's current issues tied up in a nice little bow, and then dismantles it all, and with just a single line, leaves the whole thing in a painful, ugly mess. The plots had all been resolved with a disappointingly fairy-tale ending, and I can't believe I didn't expect that Whedon would pull something along the lines of the "it was all a dream" ending, except far more spectacular.

14 years ago, the Slayer started slaying - The anniversary of Buffy the Vampire Slayer [musing with nostalgia]

I know I recently posted about Buffy, but today is the 14th anniversary of the show airing on the WB. To celebrate, here are some great quotations from the first episode!

Buffy Summers: So, you like to party with the students? Isn't that kind of skanky?
Rupert Giles: [witheringly] Oh, right. This is me having fun. Watching clown hair prance about is hardly my idea of a party. I'd much rather be home with a cup Bovril and a good book.
Buffy Summers: You need a personality, STAT.

Once More with Feeling, the Musical [review by starlight]

"That's the penalty/When life is but a song"

The full-length cult musical is right. Once More with Feeling is perhaps the most beloved episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which the series' venerated cast sing, dance and fight demons. This episode is not a completely random addition to the series - it actually had some foreshadowing and a flushed out plot. Dawn comes across a trinket in the Magic Box in a previous episode, and tucks it away in her pocket for safe keeping (the little thief!) The trinket is used to summon a demon of song and dance from another worldly plane, whose songs can become violent and lead to death (of course).

Dollhouse - Another Joss Whedon series to watch out for [review by starlight]

 

"She can be anyone, except herself"

I enjoyed finally watching the pilot of Dollhouse last night. Not the unaired pilot, mind you, just the one Fox chose to show us, which was a little bit confusing and offputting. The premise of the show is delivered through some really terrible exposition. It's about an illegal laboratory operation where people who have gotten themselves into some trouble can have their identities erased - for a price, obviously. We are given the story of Echo, the incredibly beautiful and talented Eliza Dushku, as an example. She has gotten herself into a fix she can't get out of, and choses to give herself to the Dollhouse for a five year term. Her memory and personality are erased, and she gets loaded up with different people's minds for different assignments. In this first episode, we see how she can be given all of the knowledge of a hostage and kidnapping negotiator and perform this woman's job using all of her skills, which have been loaded into her head Matrix style.

Thinking Maybe it was Time to Let the Slayer Die [review and musing time]

I've been a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer since maybe the 3rd grade when I used to cuddle up on the couch next to my sister and actually quiver in fear at the scary vampires. I'm a dedicated fan, I won't lie. Until recently I had never watched much of it in sequence, but I remember I was in the 7th grade when season six was airing, and we actually had pajama party sing-alongs to Once More With Feeling. I've suffered attacks from people who wonder how an English major can suffer the cringe-worthy dialogue and corny plots. I argue that it's all incredibly charming when you let the show take you in. There's not much more I can argue in terms of the quality of the show except, as I've said before, that Joss Whedon knows what he's doing, and if it's deliberate, it's art.

Firefly - You can't take the sky from me [review by starlight]

Embarking on an unfinished 14 episode stint in a sci-fi television show may be unattractive to both regular nerdling viewers and the main stream, but whether you regularly sink your teeth into 20 year spaceship journeys or prefer to keep your feet firmly on Earth, Firefly is definitely worth your attention for a mere half-season at the least. You can put aside your Battlestar or your Gossip Girl for a week or two and find out why the premature end of this cult favourite is bewailed by watchers everywhere.

Just a bit of a Buffy Rant [review time]

Lately I have been noticing a lot of blasphemy from Firefly lovers in my community. The Buffy hating. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is just something you have to see before you could possibly appreciate its quirks, and by seeing I don't mean five minutes of the awkward dialogue between Alyson Hannigan and Nicholas Brandon that can only be described as nerdy banter. As the creator of both Firefly and Buffy, and several other shows which I haven't watched yet, Joss Whedon has always been actively involved in much of the writing for the show. You can't just watch a few minutes of the banter and say "This is terrible dialogue" and turn it off.