Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Picked up for a Full-Season by ABC-TVLine

According to Matt Webb Mitovich, ABC has picked up Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a full-season of 22 episodes. Here's an excerpt from the article:

A follow-up of sorts to Marvel movies such as The Avengers and Iron Man 3, the freshman series premiered to 12.1 million total viewers and delivered TV’s highest-rated drama debut in nearly four years, with a 4.7 rating in the coveted 18-49 demo.

At last tally, the adventure-drama did 7.9 mil and a 2.9, edging out NCIS for the No. 2 spot at 8 o’clock.

Link to the full article:Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Gets Full-Season Order from ABC - TVLine



My thoughts: Despite the fact that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the one new show premiering this fall that I was perhaps the most excited about, aside from the upcoming NBC series Dracula, I've found myself thinking that the show definitely hasn't lived up to all of the hype that was surrounding it before premiered. Don't me wrong, I'm really liking the show, and I personally think that this past Tuesday's episode (Episode 1x03 "The Asset") was a major improvement upon the first two episodes. However, I've still been very disappointed by the show, and it's definitely not quite what I was expecting it to be like. I didn't realize that the show was going to be rather procedural, which I don't mind when it comes to some shows such as Grimm, White Collar or Perception, but that's not necessarily my favorite genre of TV shows to watch. Hopefully as the show continues, the writers will start to incorporate some more ongoing storylines and make it slightly serialized, because I personally think that would make the show a bit more interesting as it continues.

I also think that ABC may have been a bit too quick to pick the show up for a full season, because the ratings haven't stabilized yet, and I have no idea when the show's ratings will stabilize. The last show that I remember ABC picking up for a full-season before the ratings stabilized was Flash Forward, and as far as I can recall the ratings never did truly stabilize. They just seemed to keep dropping until the show was canceled. While Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been rather disappointing, I'm still enjoying it quite a bit and I hope the ratings stabilize soon at a level that ABC will be happy with, because I would hate to see Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. suffer the same fate that Flash Forward did.

Parenthood: Sonya Walger Cast as Love Interest for Joel in Season 5-TVLine

According to TVLine's Michael Ausiello, Sonya Walger has been cast in the recurring guest-star role of Meredith for Parenthood's fifth season. Here's an excerpt from the article, which gives some details on Walger:

Sources confirm to TVLine that Parenthood has tapped Sonya Walger to join the Season 5 cast in the recurring role of Meredith, a sexy, confident fireball of an architect who is working with Sam Jaeger’s Joel on a two-year project.

In the Sept. 26 premiere, Joel and Julia invite Mer over for dinner and she inadvertently makes Julia feel self-conscious about being a stay-at-home mom. Julia views her as a bit of a threat, even though she isn’t consciously trying to be.

Link to the full article:‘Parenthood’ Season 5: Sonya Walger Cast as Love Interest for Joel - TVLine



My thoughts: While I really liked Sonya Walger on Lost, I definitely liked her a lot more on Flash Forward, so I'm really excited to hear that she's going to be guest-starring on Parenthood next season. This whole storyline sounds like it could potentially be very interesting. That being said, I hope this storyline doesn't end with Joel and Julia getting divorced, because I really like them as a couple. However, I'm also in favor of any storyline for Julia and Joel that doesn't involve Sydney, because I've always felt like she was a major brat and I can't stand her 99% of the time. If the writers want to do storylines where Julia and Joel are dealing with their kids, I think they should do more storylines with Victor. I thought that the storylines that the writers did last season with Victor were much more interesting and often more touching on an emotional level than storylines with Sydney have ever been. That being said, I'm definitely looking forward to see Sonya Walger on Parenthood next season, and I can't wait to see how this storyline plays out.

Revolution: Not since Power Rangers has a TV show forced me to completely leave my brain at the door in order for me to be able to enjoy it (My thoughts on season one of Revolution) (Part 4 of 4)

(Part Four: Conclusion/Follow-up)

All things considered, Revolution is very flawed, but as I said earlier, I definitely saw potential for the show to be good when I watched the first episode, which is why I was willing to give it another chance and watched the second episode. While the episode “The Children’s Crusade” is ultimately the episode that won me over as a viewer and convinced me to start watching the show on a regular basis, I feel like the show slowly started to hit its stride starting with the episode “The Plague Dogs”, especially considering the way they handled Maggie’s death. The show definitely got a lot better throughout the course of the entire season though, especially in the second half of the season.

If there’s one episode that I think more highly of compared to the rest of the season, it’s definitely “The Children’s Crusade” since it’s the episode that got me hooked on the show in the first place. It did a really good job of explaining why Rachel and Ben chose to get involved with something that went on to have catastrophic consequences for the entire world. They did it because they believed it was the only way that they could ultimately save the life of their unborn child, Danny, who needed a special kind of medical treatment in order to live. I’m not a parent so I’ve never been in a situation like Rachel and Ben were in, but for some reason whenever I think about that aspect of the episode, I can’t help but think of Star Trek and Spock’s famous line in the movie The Wrath of Kahn: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

I don’t think Rachel and Ben should have necessarily let Danny die just to spare the rest of the world from being hurt by the turning off all the power, but the whole thing definitely sounds a little extreme to me just to save Danny’s life. It reminds me a lot of Once Upon a Time and how Regina/The Evil Queen cast a curse that sent everybody in the enchanted forest to a town in “our world” where time was frozen, they couldn’t leave Storybrooke or remember who they were all to get revenge on Snow White for telling her mother, Cora, about her plans to run off with the man she loved, prompting Cora to kill him. Not only did it seem beyond extreme to me, it was definitely a serious case of misplaced blame, but I digress.

If Rachel and Ben took some time to think about it and negotiate with the people who wanted their technology, I just think they might have been able to come to an agreement that was less extreme. I suppose the writers having their decision to get involved with those people be motivated by them viewing it as the only way to save the life of their unborn child is a much better motivation than perhaps having their motivation be driven solely by greed or money. Regardless of the fact that I think their actions were rather extreme, “The Children’s Crusade” is still a great episode that answered some of the audience’s questions, had a nice blend of drama and comedy and was simply an altogether awesome episode. While I hold the episode “The Children’s Crusade” in very high regard, which is part of why I’ve mentioned it so many times throughout this review, I also think very highly of the season finale (“The Dark Tower”).

Revolution: Not since Power Rangers has a TV show forced me to completely leave my brain at the door in order for me to be able to enjoy it (My thoughts on season one of Revolution) (Part 2 of 4)

(Part Two)

As I said in part one of my review, while I thought that the first episode of Revolution was rather average, I still managed to see enough potential for the show to be really good to make me want to watch the second episode, which was definitely a slight improvement upon the first episode, and I became gradually more and more satisfied with the show as the first season continue. I know the producers haven’t been making the show in order to please me as a viewer; after all I’m almost certain the producers are completely unaware of my existence. Although, whoever is in charge of maintaining the NBC’s official Twitter account for Revolution did tweet me on one occasion, thanking me for posting things related to the show on my blog, so perhaps they will end up coming across this review and reading it.

Anyway, I thought it was very smart of the writers to reveal Rachel’s fate by the end of the second episode, because wanting to know whether or not Rachel was still alive was one of the main reasons why I decided to watch the second episode even though I wasn’t blown away by the first episode. I don’t know the producers’ reasons for deciding to fire Andrea Roth and replace her with Elizabeth Mitchell, but I’m really glad that they did because I never really liked Andrea Roth on Rescue Me. Personally, I always thought that she was very annoying on that show whereas I’ve loved Elizabeth Mitchell in everything I’ve seen her in over the years. Elizabeth Mitchell is one of the main reasons why I decided to check out the show in the first place when it started, aside from the fact that the premise of the show sounded interesting to me.

Personally, I think revealing that Rachel was still alive and had been held prisoner pretty much all the years the writers skipped over in the second episode illustrates what I believe is one of the greatest strengths of the show. That strength would be that the writers answer questions and move storylines along at a nice pace for a serialized show instead of dragging things on forever like Lost often did, or like The Event, which was even more guilty of when it came to dragging things out too much. That was at least the case with Revolution’s first season, and I pray to God that the writers will continue to maintain that pace at which they reveal things throughout the rest of Revolution’s run, however long that may be, because it’s one of the few good things the show has been able to do at least a little bit better job of than Lost did throughout its run.

If the producers of Lost were working on this show, they would probably wait until at least season four to reveal the cause of the blackout and turn the power back on. Something tells me that they would also reveal the cause of the blackout as if it were merely some kind of afterthought with just a few quick bits of dialogue. After all, that’s essentially what they did when they finally revealed the significance of the numbers and their explanation for the numbers’ significance was ever dumber than the fact that it was power-inhibiting nanites that caused the blackout. I for one thought the writers’ of Lost were being extremely disrespectful towards the views when it came to explanation for the significance of the numbers and how they revealed that information. Revolution may have numerous flaws, but at least the producers seem to have more respect for the show’s viewers than I often felt Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse had for Lost’s viewers. They definitely gave the reveal of what caused the blackout the time and attention that it deserved, which is something that I felt Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse often failed to do on Lost when it came revealing the many mysteries of the show.

When it comes the writers revealing what caused the power to be turned off, I was shocked that the writers not only did that in the show’s first season, they also turned the power back on. Maybe it’s because I was so used to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse taking several seasons or in some cases waiting until the sixth and final season of Lost to answer some of the show’s biggest mysteries, but when Revolution first started I was totally expecting them to wait several seasons to do that and perhaps even longer to actually turn the power back on. I’m really glad the producers of Revolution didn’t go that route, because as much as I love Lost, I always hated that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse constantly waited way too long to answer a lot of the show’s biggest questions. In some cases, the writers left several of the show’s biggest mysteries completely unanswered and unresolved when the show ended.

Revolution: Not since Power Rangers has a TV show forced me to completely leave my brain at the door in order for me to be able to enjoy it (My thoughts on season one of Revolution) (Part 1 of 4)

(Part One)

It had originally been my intention to write a review of the first ten episodes of Revolution while the show was on its midseason break, but after a series of delays and deciding to focus on blogging about other TV shows that I knew had potential to bring in a lot more traffic than I believed a review of Revolution would, I ultimately decided to wait until the season was over to write my review. I would like to preface this review by saying that I will be talking about other TV shows in this blog post. Some of the those shows will be Lost, Flash Forward, Fringe, Supernatural and as some of you may have guessed based on the headline for this review: Power Rangers. However, since I don’t know how familiar the people reading this review will be with those shows, I’ll try to not dwell on those shows too much. Although, in the case of Supernatural, I don’t have much commentary to offer on the show since I’ve only seen the first episode at the moment.

Due to the fact that I have so many issues with Revolution, I’m going to try and get the majority of my complaints with the show and its first season out of the way in part one of this review so I can hopefully end my review on a positive note and ideally avoid coming across as a total negative nelly by the end of this review. That being said, here are my thoughts on the first season of Revolution.

When it comes to Revolution’s first episode, my overall assessment of the series premiere was that it was rather average, and I constantly found myself thinking about things that I liked about the first episodes of Lost and Flash Forward, which ultimately led me to watch the first episodes of both shows in preparation for writing this review. Watching the first episode of Flash Forward again really made me wish that the writers for Revolution had taken page from the writers for Flash Forward’s book in terms of how they structured the first episode. Don’t get wrong, I don’t think they should have necessarily completely copied the structure of the episode, but I do think they could have learned a thing or two from Flash Forward’s first episode.

For those of you who’ve never seen the first episode of Flash Forward, the structure of the episode essentially went like this: The episode opened with them showing Mark Benford who was the primary protagonist of the show waking up after the blackout, he gets out of his police car where he surveys the damage in the area that was caused by everybody around him, along with the rest of the world blacking out for two minutes and seventeen seconds. They then showed the title card for Flash Forward, when the show returns from the commercial break they went back several hours before the blackout and briefly introduced most of the characters until they once again reach the point in the day when the worldwide blackout occurred, and then the characters each started to deal with the immediate aftermath of the blackout for the remainder of the episode and the episode ends with two characters discovering footage of an unknown person who was somehow still awake when everybody else on earth was unconscious during the blackout.

Deception: NBC has come up with another copycat TV show, but it has potential (My thoughts on episode 1x01 “Pilot”)

Usually I only like to review shows that are currently on the air, but considering the fact I’m taking some time to reflect on the series as a whole before I post my review of the series finale of Gossip Girl and most of the shows that I typically like to comment on are currently on a break, I’ve decided to take the time to write a review for the pilot of Deception; that being said, here are my thoughts on the pilot.

The main thing that I found myself thinking about as I was watching the pilot was that the show is seriously lacking originality in a lot of ways, and I say this because I thought of at least four different shows that I’ve already seen before as I was watching the pilot. Those shows would be Revenge, Dirty Sexy Money, The Killing and Desperate Housewives. I know that some people might think that I’m being a bit random with some of the shows that I just listed, but those are simply several of the shows that the pilot of Deception reminded me of in some way. I’ll try to explain what elements of the pilot made me think of those shows as I discuss certain elements of the show in my review.

Let me go right ahead and say that while the pilot didn’t seem all that original to me, there were still enough things about it to make me want to continue watching Deception once it premieres on TV. The main thing that I like about Deception is that it features several actors that I’ve seen in other things and like, namely Victor Garber and Tate Donovan. The cast also consists of Wes Brown and Ella Rae Peck, both of whom I’m familiar with, but have mixed feelings about after watching the pilot. Wes Brown guest-starred in five episodes of 90210 at the beginning of its fifth and current season. I didn’t really like him on 90210, but that was pretty much because of the character he played, but Wes Brown and his character, Julian Bowers, ended up being one of my favorite things about the pilot, especially when it came to his scenes with Meagan Good, who plays the protagonist of the show, Joanna Locasto.

I’ve never seen Meagan Good in anything prior to this show, and I don’t remember hearing of her before either, but I really liked her in the pilot. In terms of her acting, she doesn’t come across as being on the same level of amazingness as Sally Field, but I still think she did a great job in the pilot, and I’m confidant she will continue to a great job on the show in the future. Here’s a brief side note: Sally Field is my favorite actress, and she has been my favorite actress ever since I saw her in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire when I was six years old. For those of you who might not already know, I’m currently twenty-five years old, but I digress.

Personally, I thought the pilot did a great job of setting up the characters and storylines. There are definitely several potentially interesting storylines based on what I saw. Although, the pilot definitely felt a little rushed in my opinion. Given the fact that this is only the first episode, I think I can forgive the writers for making the episode feel too rushed though. After all, a pilot of a TV show is supposed to do a lot of things. It’s supposed set up the storylines and the characters on the show, so networks can decide whether or not it has potential to be a good show and should be picked up to series. Not only does a pilot have to do that for the network, it basically has to do the same thing for the viewers at home too once it premieres on TV. That being said, I’m okay with TV shows being fast paced, because if they move too slow then the viewers can get bored and lose interest, causing them to stop watching. The writers really need to be careful about how fast the storylines move on Deception beyond this episode though, otherwise they could be completely out of ideas halfway through season two at the rate the story moved in the pilot, assuming that Deception does well enough in the ratings to be renewed for a second season.

American Horror Story: Casts Clea Duvall in Season 2-TVLine

According to TVLine's Michael Ausiello, Clea Duvall has signed a deal to appear in several episodes of the second season of American Horror Story. Here's an excerpt from the article:



There’s no official word on who she’ll be playing, but an insider says Duvall will appear in scenes with returning co-star Sarah Paulson.

Horror Story‘s second season — which started shooting on Tuesday — will be set in the 1960s at an East Coast asylum for the criminally insane run by Jessica Lange.

Other new faces on tap for Season 2 of the Emmy nominated hit include Big Love‘s Chloe Sevigny, The Voice‘s Adam Levine, French actress Lizzie Brochere, FlashForward‘s Joseph Fiennes, Oscar nominee James Cromwell, Secret Circle‘s Chris Zylka  while Paulson, Lange, Zachary Quinto, Evan Peters and Lily Rabe — who in Season 1 played Constance, Chad, Tate, psychic Billie Dean and doctor’s wife Nora — are all set to return but as new characters.

“Everyone looks so different,” exec producer Ryan Murphy told TVLine on Thursday. “People who were enemies last year are allies this year. The sets are amazing. It’s 1964, so everything looks very different.”



Link to the full article:American Horror Story Casts Clea Duvall -- Season 2 - TVLine







My thoughts: I've never heard of Clea Duvall before, but I have to say that I couldn't be more excited for season 2. The plot for season 2 of American Horror Story sounds very interesting, but I'm especially excited about the fact that Chloe Sevigny, Joseph Fiennes, and Zachary Quinto are going to be a part of the cast next season. The whole cast for season 2 is great though.

Common Law: Scoop on episode 1x11 "Hot for Teacher" from TVLine's Matt Webb Mitovich

Here's some scoop on Common Law from TVLine's Matt Webb Mitovich's weekly column Matt's Inside Line for the week of 7/19/12.

Common Law | Speaking of pretty therapists, fans of this USA Network dramedy may be wondering: Will either Wes or Travis ever get thinking about “laying down on the couch,” so to speak, with Dr. Ryan—seeing as she is played by the gorg’ Sonya Walger? “We go there. We go there,” Michael Ealy assures me. “Absolutely. How can you not? She’s smart, she’s good-looking, she’s sexy … she’s got that [British] accent, which probably helped her get the part. She brought a certain authority to the role; she was a total contrast to us.” Viewers can watch the sparks fly between the shrink and [spoiler!] in the Aug. 3 episode, “Hot for Teacher.”



Link to the full article:Supernatural, Once Upon a Time, White Collar, Leverage Spoilers - TVLine