On why I may not watch Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for much longer....

One of the shows I was the most excited for this season was Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  I was excited for 2 main reasons.  First off, it is a spin off of comic books and a great set of movies.  Secondly, it is a Joss Whedon show and Joss Whedon; for those who may not know; has history of doing awesome, incredible shows.  He created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse all of which I loved.  Sadly, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has seriously failed to deliver on much.

Going in, I knew that the show wasn't about superheroes, so that didn't shock me.  What did what the almost complete lack of Jossness in the show.  In BtVS, Joss took stereotypes and completely turned them on their head.  He made one blonde cheerleader into his hero, a second into a major villain, and killed what looked like a major character in the pilot episode.  As the show went on, it became famous for the banter, quips, and twists, much of which we now take for granted.  Joss also excelled at teaching moral lessons while not seeming to teach anything and without being preachy.

Unfortunately, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't deliver anything remotely close to this.  The characters and banter are incredibly mundane and bland.  It's like someone decided that they wanted to try and imitate Joss, but lacked his deft hand and failed miserably.  All of the characters are cookie cutter and (frankly) boring.  Ming-Na's Melinda is the most interesting character, mainly because she is an incredibly bad-ass fighter.  The rest of the cast is a fairly cookie cutter collection of a special agent, a hacker, and two tech geeks, none of whom are particularly interesting.

All of this I could forgive and I could hold out for more characterization later if the stories were interesting, but frankly, they are not.  They are ok and the action scenes are not bad, but overall it doesn't deliver anything that makes me want to come back.  I am honestly at the point where I am saying that if I miss an episode and tape it, I am not in a hurry to watch it again.  Not a good thing.  I want to love this show and I want to get lost in it, but sadly that is not happening.  I have decided that I am giving the show two more episodes (last nights and next week's) to impress me.  If it doesn't, then I am dropping it.