TV Rewind… Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1×03 – ‘The Asset’

Originally published on Set The Tape

The third episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finally starts to give the audience a peak at what the series is going to look like now that the hype of the pilot episode has gone and after the first episode without a movie character appearing (other than Clark Gregg’s Coulson of course) in order to garner interest of excitement. Thankfully, whilst not perfect, ‘The Asset’ does give a good indicator as to how the show will be going forward.

It’s the first episode we have where the team is already established and they have their first real secret agent story. When scientist Franklin Hall (Ian Hart) is kidnapped from a S.H.I.E.L.D. convoy using mysterious gravity manipulating technology it’s down to Coulson and the gang to locate him and plan his rescue.

It’s a good spy story and in some ways it reminded me of early Alias, especially with the female agent infiltrating a swanky party, but luckily it has enough of its own identity and Marvel-ness to be different from other such espionage stories.

The episode in many ways feels more like a second pilot, using Skye (Chloe Bennet) as our introduction to a side of S.H.I.E.L.D. that we’ve not yet seen. She gets to see how they gather their intel, plan their operations, and ultimately is the ‘agent’ they send in to complete an important part of the mission.

Whilst Skye is a good vehicle for introducing the audience to this world as she’s as much in the dark about S.H.I.E.L.D. as the audience, it is something that is already running the danger of making her the central focus in what should be an ensemble show.

Thankfully, the rest of the team do get small moments to shine, even if they don’t get a chance to really do much. Ward (Brett Dalton) reveals some insight into his past when he tells Skye about his childhood and the cruelty of his older brother. Despite the future developments that will take place with Ward, this is actually a very honest look into the character’s past, an important event that massively shaped the man he is. It also gave the character some much needed depth, rather than just the snarky agent who doesn’t like working with a team.

‘The Asset’ also gave Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) some good moments too, with a few lines that stole the scenes they were in. Simmons calling out Coulson for repeatedly shouting Fitz’s name whilst he’s trying to bring down the security system – “Saying his name repeatedly does not increase productivity!” – is a fun little jab at what is a big television/film trope. Fitz also manages to get a few laughs, both when he turns up to listen in on the mission with a huge bowl of popcorn, and when trying to avoid what he really means when he stammers “she probably used her… uh… boobs”.

This episode will also go on to be massively important later down the line in season five, so if you’re not up to date jump ahead to the next paragraph to avoid spoilers. The inclusion of Franklin Hall, the comic book identity of super villain Graviton, had fans expecting this to be an origin story for that character, one that would give the series a super powered antagonist. Keeping it on the back burner for years, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would surprise viewers by not only bringing gravitonium back in season five, but making it a huge story component, and Graviton their finale villain. Having set this all up in episode three but waiting five seasons to use is a actually a pretty genius move, and feels like a lot more organic and real series of events, rather than falling into the television trope of setting things up in the same season they’re going to be used, or possibly the end of the season before.

‘The Asset’ isn’t a perfect episode, it still feels like it’s trying to push the humour too much for what feels natural and right for the tone, but it’s an episode that shows much more what the series can be than those that came before it. It’s fun, it has mystery and intrigue, it shows the characters outside of their comfort zones, and it has some crazy set pieces too. The first half of season one of the series was definitely a show that had ups and down, but this is very much one of the ups.


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RIP Whitney

This evening, just a few hours ago a good friend of mine passed away. Whitney Hackett. After battling terminal cancer for months she lost her battle.

I remember the first time that I saw Whitney. We were working together at a call centre for a company called Teleperformance. She had just started her training. I noticed her straight away because of her Pokemon hoodie. Being a geek and someone that's into Pokemon I immediately thought 'I need to talk to that person'. Anyone who comes to work wearing an Umbreon hoodie is bound to be pretty awesome after all.

When we finally got chatting it was pretty clear that we had similar interests, and a friendship began to form. Over the months that we worked together we went from colleagues to good friends, and I would always look forward to our shifts together, even if they were bound to be long and stressful.

When I left Teleperformance one of the few things that I was sad to be leaving behind was Whitney. On my last day she gave me a gift, a Pokemon key-ring. This gift wasn't just something that she had picked up in a shop though, this was something that belonged to her, something that she had had with her every day that we'd worked together. Of all the gifts I received that day, all the messages of good luck, that tiny gift was the most important to me. I still have it to this day, on my keys, with me wherever I go.

As can sometimes happen when people stop working together our friendship drifted and we didn't speak for a few months. When I finally spoke to her she had not long received the news about her diagnosis. I couldn't believe what she told me, I didn't want to believe what she told me; but that was when I knew that I couldn't let our friendship slip again. I had to make sure she stayed in my life.

I made that determination into something that drove me forward to making sure I passed my driving test as quickly as I could, desperate to be able to use my new license to visit her. Thankfully it worked, and I was able to start seeing my friend again. I visited her, took her out, even kidnapped her to make sure that she saw the latest Pokemon movie.

During this time we chatted online a lot too, and she told me that she was planning to raise money to go to Japan. Thankfully there are so many generous people in the world, and Whitney's target wasn't just met, but totally broken. The level of generosity people showed, some to a complete stranger, was amazing. She finally got to have the holiday of her dreams, the one that we'd spoken about so many times.

When Whitney took a turn for the worse, when it became obvious that the end was close, her family asked if I wanted to come and see her, a chance to say goodbye.

All the way over to her house I wracked my brain thinking about what I would say. I wanted to tell her that she is one of the bravest people I've ever known. I wanted to tell her that she's one of my only friends in the area, and that I treasured our friendship. I wanted to tell her that I would never forget her. But I didn't know how I was supposed to do this. How to put it into words. How are you supposed to say all of that to someone as they lay dying?

In the end I didn't say any of those things. I sat with her, holding her hand whilst she struggled to stay awake. Instead, I told her the most important thing, that I loved her. That was the last time I saw her, just a day before she passed.

Before I went in to see her, her mother told me that she didn't look like Whitney anymore. She didn't. She was tiny and frail. She didn't look like the girl I knew. But that's not how I remember her. When I think of Whitney I don't think of her in that bed at the end; I remember the young woman who talked about Pokemon, who spoke with me about anime and manga, who told me about all of the places she wanted to visit and things she wanted to do if she ever got to go to Japan. I remember my friend who should have been thinking about her future career, who should have been imagining her wedding, who should have been considering if she wanted children one day. I think of that young woman facing the worst scenario imaginable and doing it with such strength, grace, and dignity.

Whitney may be gone, but whilst her family and friends remember her she'll never leave us.

I'll always remember our times together, I'll treasure our friendship, and I'll always keep her fox safe, the piece of her given to me to remember her by. Goodbye Whitney, at least your fight is finally over.

Amy.

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Looking back at… Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Originally published on Set The Tape

I’m not sure how old I was when I first watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit but the thing that stuck out in my mind straight away was Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd). I’ve seen Christopher Lloyd in other roles, and have found him charming and enjoyable to watch, but his performance as Judge Doom still gives me the creeps, even decades later. There’s a lot about this film that’s stand out and iconic, but Doom is always it for me.

It’s strange to think that Lloyd wasn’t the first choice in the role, though it is a shame that we can’t see a version where Tim Curry got the part, but it’s not the only part of the film where the first choice was someone else.

The film had multiple drafts, directors turned the film down, none of the principal cast were the first choices. It’s amazing that despite the ups and downs in the pre-production and the difficulty in obtaining the rights to use all of the animated characters the film ended up being as good as it is. Thankfully, the end product was a critical and commercial success.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit isn’t the first film to combine live action film and traditional animation, there’d been dozens by the time it came out, but it was the first to do things differently, to break the rules. The camera moved in scenes so that the animation didn’t look like it was placed on flat backgrounds, the lighting and shadows moved like they would in fully live action scenes, and the cartoons interacted with real objects as much as possible.

The film looked at the rule book and threw it away, it gave audiences a new experience and it still stands the test of time because of this. The people behind the film had to tell a good story and make new technology at the same time. It’s both a piece of great entertainment, and a breakthrough in film making.

What makes Who Framed Roger Rabbit last isn’t the technology behind it, it’s the story and the characters. Set in an alternative 1947 Los Angeles, where ‘toons’ are real living creatures that live and work with real people, at its heart it’s a mystery story. A detective noir wrapped in bright, colourful cartoons.

The plot revolves around the murder of a movie mogul, a crime for which Roger Rabbit is framed. Anyone who is familiar with detective mystery stories will be familiar with where the plot goes, revealing an ever expanding mystery; but Who Framed Roger Rabbit isn’t just content with going through the motions of a mystery story, but goes out of its way to tell a deep and engaging story, a plot with multiple lays and twists.

Yes, it’s a kids movie, but beneath the bright colours and cameos from classic characters such as Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse it’s got emotional depth and adult themes. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a film that appealed to me as a child because it’s over the top and wacky, but carries on being a film I’ll watch again and again as an adult.


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Ghostbusters: Answer The Call – Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

The team from the 2016 Ghostbusters return for another comic outing following their inclusion in the Ghostbusters 101 crossover event. Whilst we all know how the internet reacted to the newer version of the Ghostbusters the team itself was very entertaining, with some great quirks and character traits, all of which are further explored in Ghostbusters: Answer The Call.

After responding to a call at an old brownstone in New York City, the Ghostbusters find themselves going up against a spirit a lot more powerful than they were expecting, a Schreckgespenst, or Boogyman. The spirit is the ghost of a mad scientist called Dr Kruger who has found a way of invading people’s worst fears and trapping them in their nightmares (yes, the characters do address the fact that the ghost that invades dreams is called Kruger).

This nightmare invaision ability gives the story ample opportunity to explore the psyche of the characters, giving more insight into the characters than the actual film did. We learn about their insecurities, their past traumas, and in the case of Holtzman, what makes her so determined to be strange and different.

We also learn of an event in the past that connects all of the Ghostbusters to a time long before the events of the first film. Whether or not it means there was some kind of fate involved in the four of them coming together is left open, but it does add an extra layer to the characters then there was before.

Kruger seems to challenge our heroes in ways that the villain of the movie didn’t, he makes them doubt themselves, to lose faith in their abilities and even come close to giving up on being Ghostbusters altogether. The stakes feel bigger than anything that the team has faced before, and this makes it feel like a worthy follow-up. If this story was used for a sequel film it would make for a great second movie.

The story has some good action in it, as well as the deeper character beats, with some over the top moments that really are too silly but work brilliantly. The proton whip that can be used to drag spirits out of people they’ve possessed is a particularly cool and inventive device, though the ghost killing zamboni might be Holtzman going a bit too far, especially as it tears a hole in the roof.

Corin Howell’s art is great throughout, and is able to capture the likenesses of the characters and infuse them with energy. It’s not just the Ghostbusters that Howell makes pop on the page, his ghosts are particularly good, and whilst Dr Kruger looks good it’s his spooky ghost child that really steals the scene.

Ghostbusters: Answer The Call is a great follow up to both the original film and Ghostbusters 101. It manages to be full of action, character development, scares, excitement, and even some emotional depth. Whilst I found the film enjoyable it didn’t go too deep into the characters, and this book manages to make up for that. It may even appeal to some of the people who hated the film, though that’s perhaps asking too much.


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Torchwood: The Culling – Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

I loved the Torchwood show, I think that it’s a very underrated part of the Doctor Who universe. Yes, the first season wasn’t the best, and started off very shaky, but the series just went from strength to strength. As such, I was excited to read this new addition to the Torchwood story.

Unfortunately, I’ve not read the first two volumes of the Torchwood comic, and as such felt a little lost for ‘The Culling’. The third part in an ongoing story, I was unsure of who every character was, only had half the information on what had previously happened through some of the dialogue, and was left trying to put the pieces together myself.

This isn’t a fault with the book, as I’m sure that they’re writing for an audience that has read the previous parts of the story rather than a casual reader jumping in at this point; but every comic has to feel somewhat accessible for new readers. ‘The Culling’ fails on this point, and would not have been a book that I’d have continued to read if it was not for the need of reviewing it. Hopefully the next volume of the Torchwood comic will make things easier for readers and give them a better jumping on point.

The story of ‘The Culling’ follows on from the defeat of the Vervoids in the Arctic, the result of which being a human/Vervoid hybrid created from the DNA of both Jack and Gwen. As soon as I discovered that the story would be focusing on the ‘child’ of Jack and Gwen I groaned a little inside. THe Jack/Gwen potential relationship was one of the things that I liked least about the early part of Torchwood, and s something that I was glad to see less focus given to. Gwen and Rhys were a great couple, and I loved their relationship; and Jack and Ianto were brilliant together, so I was worried that this ‘child’ story could put these relationships in danger.

Luckily, the ‘child’ in question, called Sladen, is not a real child of the two, and the characters never act as if she is. She’s a genetic accident, made purely by chance. The story doesn’t push the idea of Jack and Gwen as her parents and it stops the story from falling into some poor pitfalls.

Whilst the story manages to dodge the bullet on this point, it’s somewhat lacking elsewhere. There’s little to no character develpment within the story. The only characters that have any real sense of personality are those from the show, and only because they’ve had characterisation in the series, whilst the characters that are new to the comic are fairly bland and one dimensional.

The book instead relies upon the story to grab attention and to entertain rather than the characters, but the story moves way too quick in places, jumping from event to event within the space of a few panels. In one scene Jack and Gwen say that they are a few hours behind Sladen, yet are confronting her in the very next scene. The pacing just feels off in a lot of places, and this works to the detriment of the overall experience. The conclusion is also somewhat of a let down, with a very brief confrontation that doesn’t feel like it has any real stakes before suddenly being over.

Torchwood: The Culling feels less like a competent follow-up to a beloved series, and more a rushed and ill defined story. It could have been a lot better, and probably would have been if it had six issues to tell it’s story rather than just four. It could have made things more accessible to new readers, taken time to explore its characters, and could have paced things much better. As it is, Torchwood: The Culling feels lacking in a lot of ways.


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