Marvel’s Agent Carter

Thoughts?

I enjoyed watching it last night, and I think this review covers all my thoughts about it.


Here's one review;

http://www.avclub.com/review/marvels-agent-carter-snazzy-retro-and-super-cool-213419

 

I wanted to like it so bad but I felt it was weakly written and looked pretty cheezily cheap. Sigh. I may keep watching it just for Atwell and Fonseca, but it will be with less gusto than I had initially thought.

 

I liked it, it was a fun little time waster and I enjoy the 1940s setting. It's typical network TV show production values, a lot of scenes shot on backlots.

 

I thought the music in the show was used well.

 

Yes, the music was nicely done and there were quite a few clever/funny little bits. My favorite was cutting to the radio broadcast sound effects guys during the fight sequence, that was priceless.

I hadn't realized how "healthy" Atwell was, very well cast for the era.

 

My wife and I noted her bigger bust in the blonde scene, wondering if Agent Carter had padded it for effect. She was in costume, so it's possible that Peggy did that to increase it's effect.

 

I don't think so. . . I've seen Atwell in Pillars of the Earth (and unclothed in scenes) and The Prisoner . . . I don't believe there was padding in that dress.

 

Search for pictures online, she's not wearing padding.

 

I liked it.

Seemed to move at a fast pace.

 

I enjoyed the show, too. I'd bet this is one of the most expensive shows on television, between the historical settings and all the visual effects. The only drawback to me is the butler, Jarvis, which to me is a weird choice in the show. Centering all the action mainly on one character is a real gamble, and they don't have the ability to show her as part of a team, which is very challenging from a story standpoint.

But the production values are fantastic, the sets look great, the lighting is spectacular, and the show looks terrific. I really liked what they've done so far.

 

Shooting on backlots probably kept the costs down a little bit, though there were some various Los Angeles locations sprinkled throughout the 2 episodes last night.

I'm also looking forward to the new Daredevil series that will premier on Netflix on April 10th (and will be followed by Jessica Jones about 9 months later). Those 4 Marvel series for Netflix are shooting on location in New York and they have roughly $50 million budgets per series to work with (13 episodes).

 

Wow, we may not have been watching the same show because I was not impressed by the set, the lighting, etc.

And the story was weak imo. Sigh. I wanted to like it!

 

I thought the show looked more like a $5,000,000 feature than it did a network TV show. Trust me, this was a very, very, very expensive production. Did you see the nightclub scene with about 150 extras, all in 1946 costumes? Streets with about 20 1940s cars in them? Huge explosions with an entire factor blowing up (actually imploding)? Maybe we saw different shows or I was delusional.

 

I enjoyed this show quite a bit. I also thought it looked pretty good especially for a TV show.

 

I saw those, I just didn't think they looked that great, certainly not as great as you think they did. Our mileage varies.

 

The ratings appear to have been only moderate. SHIELD premiered back in 2013 with a rating of 12 million viewers overall with a 4.7 in 18-49 demo. Agent Carter’s premiere rating was 6 million viewers overall and a 1.9 in 18-49 demo. This article makes the claim that Marvel has found its dedicated fanbase that will show up for anything, and that fanbase is about 4-6 million strong.

 

These days a 1.9 is just fine as broadcast TV continues to head the way of the dinosaur.

 

This is a weird trend to me -- the superhero show with the superheroes taken out. Agent Carter is the third show like this to come along in the last couple of years, after Agents of SHIELD and Gotham. There's a show about life on the planet Krypton in the works apparently -- what's next, a show about journalistic ethics at the Daily Planet?

You need the focal point of the hero for this genre. (At least this show, which I haven't seen yet, has one character at the center.) See The Flash for an example.

 

That was kind of my gut feeling. I felt like "this is a fanboy niche show that's never going to have huge ratings." Way too inside, too complicated, and too rooted in the comics and Marvel movies for a mass audience. I think it's a decent show, but I can see why it's never going to be a huge hit.

I think this started with Smallville, where they had to delay showing a lot of Clark Kent's powers for ten years while instead emphasizing the melodrama and soap opera nature of the characters' relationships. Not my idea of a good show, particularly when they tampered so strongly with the Superman legend.

Having said that, I'm enjoying Gotham, even though I didn't expect I would. The lead actor in the show has got some presence and while the stories are outrageous, you almost don't miss the lack of superheroes (or supervillains for that matter). In this case, though, the visual effects have gotten really wretched in the latest shows. Some of them look like shots a 10-year-old whipped up out in the garage...

 

It's called making hay while the sun still shines (on everything comic book).

 

The purpose of the show was to fill the gap while Agents Of Shield is on hiatus until March 3rd. Personally, I was entertained by the show and I look forward to the remaining 6 episodes.

 

The show is supposed to be about how things got so bad in Gotham City that they needed a hero like Batman to come along -- but Gotham is already there! It's been there since the first episode. So, it's Batman without Batman.

 

It seems that way. But as much as I'd like to hate this show, it's kept me going. I find it outrageous and over-the-top, but it's never boring and it's got some interesting stuff in it. I gotta say, though, Gotham is one of the most violent TV shows I've ever seen, particularly the recent episode.

Agent Carter was also extremely violent. I have a theory that the networks are really pushing the envelope because a) ratings are down overall, and b) they feel the pressure from censor-free channels like Amazon, Netflix, and AMC (which has some censorship but not much).

 

I was a little surprised by the amount of violence in Agent Carter, it didn't bother me, but it's more than you would normally see in Agents of Shield on the same network.

 

I think the moment that bothered me was when the cops beat the living crap out of the suspect. I get that this was pre-Miranda, but I think one or two punches would've done it, and they didn't have to linger on it as much as they did.