Tag Archives: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD

Inside Netflix and Marvel’s Titanic Team Up on ‘Daredevil’

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Marvel is no stranger to powerhouse collaborations — look at next month’s Avengers: Age of Ultron — but its most promising, game-changing partnership this year has nothing to do with Iron Man and Captain America. Instead, it kicks off tomorrow, when its new TV series, Marvel’s Daredevil, debuts on Netflix. As I wrote at Quartz,

Bringing together Marvel and Netflix, Marvel’s Daredevil, which debuts its thrilling 13-episode first season on Netflix April 10, ushers in an Avengers-level teaming up of Hollywood titans. In the past few years, no two companies have changed the entertainment landscape as much as Marvel (now every studio is pursuing its own version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe) and Netflix (which between pioneering binge-watching and creating groundbreaking shows like Orange is the New Black, has knocked every other network on its heels). Now they are at it again, devising an exciting new path for the crowded TV superhero genre.

And the series — the first of five Marvel/Netflix shows that will culminate in Marvel’s The Defenders, an Avengers-like teamup of its “street-level heroes” — is fantastic:

Unlike the other TV superhero series, Daredevil is aimed at grownups—or, at least, not the kids who watch much of Netflix’s other superhero fare. Karen Paige (Deborah Ann Woll from True Blood), the firm’s first client turned secretary, notes that after the violent events of the first episode, “I don’t see the city anymore. All I see are its dark corners.” And that is where Daredevil lives: the show employs a very dark palette (after all, Murdock doesn’t need lights). While Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Agent Carter are glitzy and glossy, this one is gritty and grimy. An early episode features a brutal, gruesome decapitation; not something you’d find on any broadcast TV show.

But where Daredevil—which erases all memories of the mediocre 2003 film with Ben Affleck—really shines is in its inventive action sequences, particularly an ingeniously executed, prolonged fight sequence late in the second episode. It feels real, and brutal. You can see superheroes fighting back guys all over TV, but nowhere else does it feel this visceral.

Marvel and Netflix still have a long road ahead, but they couldn’t have asked for a better start to their partnership than Daredevil. Don’t miss the series when it debuts tomorrow!

Inside Netflix and Marvel’s titanic team up on Daredevil

Marvel’s TV Takeover: Television Chief Jeph Loeb on What’s Next After ‘Agent Carter’

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As Marvel’s Agent Carter wrapped its brisk, eight-episode first season in fine form last night, I spoke with Marvel’s head of television, Jeph Loeb, for this Daily Beast story about what’s on tap for the company next (five upcoming Netflix series, starting with Marvel’s Daredevil) and why Agent Carter was able to immediately connect with audiences in a way that Agents of SHIELD did not last season.

From its outset, Agent Carter received a much more enthusiastic response from audiences than S.H.I.E.L.D., which Loeb attributes to confusion over what exactly S.H.I.E.L.D. was when it premiered in fall 2013. “There were certain expectations about S.H.I.E.L.D. that people had,” he says. “Despite the fact that we had a very strong message out there which is ‘not all heroes are super,’ I still think people came to the show thinking that the Hulk was going to be in the first episode and Iron Man was going to be in the second episode and Cap was going to be in the third episode. But once they got into the show and realized, ‘Oh, look at all these characters and look at this world and look at what we’re getting out of it,’ then they were ready to get into the show and take it where it was. With Carter, there was no misinformation. It was: Here she is, this is the world that we’re in.”

And even with seven Marvel series on-air and in the pipelione, Loeb doesn’t think the market is oversaturated yet:

“There’ll always be room to expand. This isn’t about which shows we’re doing. It really is about, ‘What’s the best story?’ We’ve never chosen any of our shows based on a particular need as much as the stories that we want to tell and how they can work both to help build out the brand, and at the same time help build out the storytelling that we’re doing,” he says. “Part of the reason why the Netflix shows happened was because we’ve wanted to be able to tell the stories of the street-level heroes, and that was a better fit for that network than what we were doing over at ABC. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other shows at either network that wouldn’t be fun and exciting to do.”

Check out the rest of the interview, in which Loeb reveals which Marvel actor is already begging for a Daredevil cameo, how Marvel keeps track of all the characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and which films/shows they’ve appeared on and why the company’s TV moves aren’t a response to whatever rival DC is doing.

Marvel’s TV Takeover: Television Chief Jeph Loeb on What’s Next After ‘Agent Carter’

Schoolhouse Rock

My 10 Favorite Stories of 2014

During TV & Not TV’s week-long look at the Best (and Worst) of 2014, I’ve discussed the best shows of the year, the top performances, the biggest disappointments and named the year’s TV VIPs. Today, we’re concluding the week with something a little different: my 10 favorite stories of 2014.

Let me explain: the reason I founded TV & Not TV in the first place was to finally compile all of my stories in one place, because it’s been easy for them to slip through the cracks, even for those who follow me on Twitter. So today, I’ve picked my 10 favorite stories I wrote this year — a mixture of profiles, reviews and analysis, for four different outlets. In case you missed any of them, here’s your chance to catch up!

Here we go, in chronological order:

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Swimming with Sharks: The Moguls of ‘Shark Tank’ Tell All About Making Inventors’ Dreams Come True (Parade, March 15)

Shark Tank has been one of the quietest success stories on television, with ratings growing steadily each season, which is unprecedented, especially for a reality show. It’s also largely been overlooked by most outlets who write about TV, which is why I was so thrilled to write the definitive story on the show and its six Sharks — Lori Greiner, Daymond John, Robert Herjavec, Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary and Barbara Corcoran — for Parade

(While the link above will take you to the main story, you can find the whole thing, including sidebars on all the Sharks, here.)

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How ‘Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’ Finally Found Its Way (The Daily Beast, May 14)

No series arrived this season with more hype, and more disappointment, than Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. But then, thanks to a huge assistant from the twist in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, SHIELD finally became the thrilling show it was always supposed to be. In this Daily Beast review of Season 1, I looked at show’s rocky first season, and its improbable comeback.

why most tv shows peak

Why Most TV Shows Peak by Their Third Season (Quartz, July 19)

You just never know where I great story idea is going to come from. During a Brooklyn Nine-Nine set visit last summer, I spoke with executive producer Mike Schur, whose fascinating thoughts on why most shows peak by their second or third season became my favorite TCA summer press tour story (especially after I paired Schur’s take with that of Modern Family creator Steve Levitan).

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How Amazon Built a Studio That’s Finally Challenging Netflix (Quartz, Aug. 12)

I had so many questions about Amazon Studios and the company’s strategy — How does it measure success? Why don’t it disclose ratings info? How does the public pilot process really work? Why didn’t Amazon pick up Community or Enlisted? — and director Roy Price answered them all for me in this Quartz story on the eve of Amazon’s third pilot season.

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‘You’re the Worst’: TV’s Best Couple is Awful and Perfect For Each Other (The Daily Beast, Aug. 21)

Some shows are so fantastic that I feel as if I have no choice but to sing their praises to as many people as possible. That’s the main reason that I pushed so hard this summer to review You’re the Worst‚ which ended up as one of my Top 10 Shows of 2014. If you’re still on the fence, read my review, and then start watching!

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Joan Rivers Pulled Off Hollywood’s Greatest Comeback (Quartz, Sept. 5)

As Hollywood mourned the death of Joan Rivers, I appreciated the opportunity to recount how she pulled off Hollywood’s greatest comeback, by clawing her way back into the spotlight after Johnny Carson had turned his back on her. While most of her obituaries focused on her work as a trailblazer for female comics, her dogged journey after being blackballed by Carson was equally spectacular.

Schoolhouse Rock

‘Schoolhouse Rock’: A Trojan Horse of Knowledge and Power (The Daily Beast, Sept. 6)

As I started thinking about which stories would make up my list, this was the first one I wrote down. To celebrate ABC’s upcoming Schoolhouse Rock special, I reflected on the show’s lasting legacy — it was an essential part of my Saturday mornings as a kid — for The Daily Beast, and managed to get my two kids hooked on the show in the process. I’d call that a win-win. Even after all these years, knowledge is still power!

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‘NCIS’s’ Mark Harmon is the World’s Biggest TV Star (The Daily Beast, Sept. 23)

Sometimes, the best stories fall into your lap when you least expect them. While I was at People, I spent years unsuccessfully trying to land an interview with Mark Harmon, who rarely grants interviews. But this summer, I was given some face time with Harmon, and turned that into a somewhat unconventional Daily Beast profile of the world’s biggest, yet most humble, TV star.   

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Why a Great Second Season is Often Too Late to Save a Struggling Show (Adweek, Nov. 11)

Since I began contributing to Adweek this fall, I’ve been tacking some TV issues that have been bugging me for months and years, like why shows that improve by their second season — like Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and FX’s The Bridge — aren’t able to win back viewers who bailed on them in year one. FX Networks CEO John Landraf had great insight (as always) about why this happens, and also shed more light on his agonizing decision to cancel The Bridge.

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Why Kim Kardashian is the World’s Best Marketer (Quartz, Nov. 13)

Given that I’d gone on a Kim Kardashian detox after leaving a certain job last year, If you told me I’d be writing a story A) praising Kim Kardashian B) for Quartz C) calling her “brilliant” and admiring her “acumen,” I would have said you’d lost your mind. But I surrendered after her Paper magazine cover went viral — and then again 24 hours later. The result: the only Kardashian story I’ve ever written or edited (and there have been a lot over the years) that I actually enjoyed!

And that — phew! — concludes my look back at 2014. Here’s hoping that TV in 2015 is even better!

Why a Great Second Season is Often Too Late to Save a Struggling Show

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At Adweek, I got to write about an issue that’s been bugging me. Shows are improving themselves in their second season — like Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and FX’s The Bridge — but they aren’t winning back viewers who bailed on those shows in the first season.

I spoke with FX Networks CEO John Landgraf, who had great insight (as always) about why shows can’t win back their viewers, no matter how great they get. As he told me,

The problem, FX Networks CEO John Landgraf tells Adweek, is that viewers simply have too many other options to be patient. “There will be about 350 scripted original series this year aired on linear and nonlinear services in the U.S. That’s really an unprecedented volume,” said Landgraf, whose team compiles a list of every season of scripted and unscripted series that airs. Last year’s total: 1,400 original seasons of material, with 2014’s tally looking to be even higher. “And so I think that consumers just have too many options,” Landgraf said. “Why should you ever watch anything other than something that’s the equivalent of a four-star movie or a four-star television show?”

Landgraf also talked about his agonizing decision to cancel The Bridge, a show which soared creatively in Season 2.

Why a Great Second Season is Often Too Late to Save a Struggling Show

‘The Blacklist’s’ Frustrating Fall: Keen’s a Keeper, but Red Regresses

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At The Daily BeastI check back in on The Blacklist, which aired its fall finale last night. I wrote last spring that James Spader was single-handedly keeping the show together with his virtuoso turn as Raymond “Red” Reddington, and the NBC drama should wipe the slate clean of his costars and reboot with a group more worthy of sharing the screen with Spader.

Amazingly, the show did almost exactly that in the offseason, but the problems still exist. As I wrote at The Daily Beast,

So why does Season 2—which just had its fall finale Monday night—feel like such a disappointment so far? Because in focusing on all those necessary fixes, producers lost sight of the show’s raison d’être: Spader. Two steps forward, two steps back.

The Blacklist’s Frustrating Fall: Keen’s a Keeper, but Red Regresses

The ‘Avengers 2’ trailer was supposed to save ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Oops.

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Last night’s leak of the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer was bad news for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was supposed to debut the trailer during next Tuesday’s episode.  As I wrote at Quartz:

The leak eliminated what might have been Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s last, best hope to win back at least part of its initial audience. Because once viewers check out of a show—as they did during the show’s rocky first season—they rarely return to give it a second chance.

Marvel finally gave in and…

The ‘Avengers 2’ trailer was supposed to save ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Oops.

The TV Superhero Guru Behind ‘The Flash’

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Greg Berlanti and I have been Twitter friends since back in 2012, when I fell for his USA summer miniseries Political Animals. But we’d never actually met until we sat down together at TCA summer tour to do this Daily Beast profile.

One of TV’s most prolific producers — he’s co-showrunner on Arrow and The Flash, a producer on The Mysteries of Laura, has three series (and counting) in development for next season, and is also producing the bigscreen Peter Pan reboot Pan — Berlanti talked about what’s in store for The Flash, his obsession with comics, how he’s succeeded with TV comic adaptations where Marvel has failed and the disadvantage to having so many projects on his plate:

The only slight disadvantage to doing more and more things is you really have to be where the problems are. So you don’t get to be as much where things are going well. And so, if there’s two things that I’m working on that are going well, I’m not in that story room or on that set. I’m wherever we’re having some challenges. Then, by the time we take care of those, I go back to the other ones. So the disadvantage of having multiple things is on a day where everything is going badly on all things. You want to shoot yourself! The advantage is that’s usually not the case. Usually one or two things are going all right, and it buoys your spirits a little bit.

His take on The Flash is broadcast’s best pilot this fall. While almost all new shows take much of the first season to find their way, Flash arrives impressively fully-formed and self-assured. And, oh yeah, it’s a helluva lot of fun.

The TV Superhero Guru Behind ‘The Flash’

The Leaner, Meaner Season 2 of ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’

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Back in May, I wrote about how Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD had finally found its way. As the show prepares to kick off Season 2, I spoke with its two showrunners, Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen for this Daily Beast interview about balancing secrecy and spoilers, what they learned from Season 1’s rocky start and which Marvel Universe characters will (and won’t) be making appearances this season. After having her hands tied for much of last season, being forced to keep quiet about, and then react to, the big reveal from Captain America: The Winter Solider, Tancharoen talks about the freedom of Season 2:

Well, we have a very clear big bad. We have Hydra. It’s very nice and liberating to say “Hydra” and have it out in the open! Last season was definitely challenging, because we were not allowed to mention them or allude to a mole of any kind. So now, coming into Season 2, we exist in a new paradigm. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra are viewed as one and the same.  So we’re putting our characters through a different sort of journey, where they still want to be out there and helping the world and the people through this world, but they have to do it from the shadows.

They also discuss the possible return of Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Joss Whedon’s level in involvement in the show and — something of particular interest to me — if they will can finally take the periods out of SHIELD (which is something that I’ve already done on this site).

The Leaner, Meaner Season 2 of ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’

How ‘Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’ Finally Found Its Way

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No series arrived this season with more hype, and more disappointment, than Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. The show seemed destined to seamlessly expand Marvel’s bigscreen dominance to television, but as I wrote at The Daily Beast,

Instead, for much of its dreary first season, S.H.I.E.L.D. was a pretender, saddled with cut-rate CGI, one-dimensional characters (and in some cases, half-dimensional actors) and most damning of all, devoid of anything even remotely resembling fun. Yet in true comic book fashion, just when it seemed that all hope was lost, in the past month the show—against all odds—finally found its way. Now, Tuesday night’s feisty, rewarding season finale has me doing something I never would have thought possible: counting the days until next season.

I delve into the show’s many problems this seasons, and how the big twist from April’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier has finally helped Agents of SHIELD became the thrilling show it was always supposed to be.

How ‘Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’ Finally Found Its Way

Television is Taking a Cue From Summer Movie Blockbusters

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It’s upfronts time once again: the annual week in which broadcast execs unveil their new TV lineups to advertisers. And as I wrote at Quartz, as networks grapple with season-to-season ratings decline, they are trying a new tactic: approaching their lineups as if they are summer movie schedules.

The networks are coming to the same conclusion as the movie studios: the best way to potentially attract huge audiences, both domestically and internationally, is by relying on “safe” projects featuring well-established, beloved brands. That’s a big reason why Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was one of the few new series to get a renewal this year.

And if a network picks up my NCIS: Avengers idea, I’d better get a cut of the profits!

Television is taking a cue from summer movie blockbusters