Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates, TV | Tagged: clark gregg, dc comics, entertainment, fox, gotham, hayley atwell, Marvel Comics, Marvel's Agents of Shield, patton oswalt, superheroes, tv

Erik's Weekly Watch – Gotham Vs. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

By Erik Grove

Welcome back to another installment of Erik's Weekly Watch! This week I'm going to compare and contrast two of the biggest TV premiers for genre fans!

Here we go, folks. This is what we've been waiting for. The season premier of Modern Family and the series premier of Madame Secretary! … Wait. That's not right. Let's try that again. Monday night brought us the anticipated debut of Fox's Gotham, a kinda-prequel kinda-procedural show that begins the night of a famous double murder in the notorious city. Then on Tuesday Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D returned for a sophomore season with new agents and a new big bad. So, how did these two eagerly awaited shows perform? Let's throw them in the all-new Erik's Weekly Watch Cage Fighting Arena (patent pending) and find out!

*Warning: I'm going to keep spoilers to a minimum here but some bits are unavoidable.

Round 1: The Hook

Both of these shows are big-budget sales pitches giving us all a glimpse of what we'll get if we keep tuning in for twenty-something episodes. To do it right, we need to see just enough to get invested in the storyline and the characters, get some tantalizing hints about what might await us and a nice juicy cliffhanger.

Gotham relies heavily on its high-concept to make the sale. Viewers are enticed with familiar but prequel-ized versions of familiar characters. There's a threadbare mystery that drags the protagonists (Ben McKenzie's rookie Jim Gordon and Donal Logue's veteran Harvey Bullock) through the episode and there's rumbling of underworld instability but ultimately the show's hook succeeds or fails based on your interest in seeing Batman's villains and supporting cast before there was a Batman. McKenzie and Logue both do serviceable jobs with their characters but there's nothing surprising or revelatory. There's a nice scene that shows some nice, natural chemistry between them set in a meat locker but if this wasn't Gotham and these weren't pre-sold characters, there's not much new on display here. The big finds are actually in the supporting cast. Robin Lord manages to bring life and a vicious desperation to a proto-Penguin and the young actors playing Bruce Wayne, (Poison) Ivy Pepper and Selina Kyle (David Mazouz, Clare Foley and Camren Bicondva respectively) look and feel perfect for their parts. Also making a memorable and compelling appearance is John Doman as Carmine Falcone. Doman and his interaction with McKenzie's Gordon was one of the most engaging moments in the show for me and the family connection between the Gordons and Falcones is something I look forward to seeing developed more.

Unfortunately, a lot of the rest of Gotham is really mixed. The set design and art direction that initially got my attention was really spot on and immersive in most parts but sometimes felt too over-produced and unnatural. The soundtrack seemed to be trying way too hard and made me stop and say "why is this soundtrack so aggressive?" multiple times. The plot is efficient at introducing all of the characters to the show but ultimately quite pedestrian and predictable. The dialog seemed especially unnatural and sometimes overwrought. There's certainly promise in this show but I'm not sure anyone that's not already invested in it is going to be convinced by this pilot.

And in the red trunks, we have Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I was pretty harsh on this show in my fall picks but this episode seems to have been determined to make me eat those words. There was an energy and momentum that carried this premier very nicely from the amazing cold open featuring the soon-to-be-spun-off Agent Carter to the final (fondly clichéd) villainous profile shot. I was never bored and I didn't roll my eyes as much as I tended to in the first season.

It might be because my expectations were lower but I think this might be the best episodes of this show to date. I was worried about how the new status quo for Fitz (Ian De Caestecker) and Ward (Brett Dalton) would play out but I found both characters and actors on the money and surprisingly emotionally resonant in their new roles. The showrunners seem to have found a good balance between action, banter, plot development and mystery and effectively dealt out enough of each to keep me satisfied. Where the first season often felt like a watered down version of Marvel's cinematic universe, this season seems more comfortable standing next to its silver screen big brothers. This season's presumed new villains (a Nazi and super-strongman lackey) aren't especially innovative but they do seem appropriately formidable without being campy.

Winner: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Round 2: Action

It's tough to do fully choreographed satisfying action scenes on TV. A lot of shows just lack the budget or the scope to pull it off. How did these two do?

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had a lot more shoot-'em-up in this episode that most of the first season combined and a climatic car accident that seems likely to propel a lot of the plot forward for at least the next few episodes. Several of the main characters were sidelined from the action in this episode in ways that make good sense. Clark Gregg as Director Coulson is playing more of a remote commander and less of a field leader while Ward, Fitz and Simmons have other issues to deal with. Most of the action falls on May (Ming-Na Wen), Triplett (B.J. Britt) and Skye (Chloe Bennet). There's less gratuitous S.H.I.E.L.D.-fu than in previous episodes but this seems appropriate for story. It seemed in past episodes that the show had a tendency to bust out the fisticuffs as an almost aside to the rest of the plot, like a musical shifts in and out of songs. Here though, the action sequences felt integrated and natural to the plot and, most importantly, like the action had gravity and consequences. One of the key advantages Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has with any action sequence is knowing that anything can happen. None of these main characters are protected by a magical prequel force field from serious injury or even death.

Meanwhile, over on Gotham, McKenzie does most of the butt-kicking solo. From his first appearance at the police station, calming down and then smacking down an unhinged perp, Gordon is clearly going to rely on punching as much as detective work. There's a chase and then fight scene between McKenzie and a burly bad guy about midway into the episode that's remarkably well staged and it does a great job of establishing the differences between Gordon and Bullock. Bullock doesn't have the patience for a fist fight when he has a gun. Also worth noting is the often-repeated death scene in an alley after a movie.

While this scene has been playing out as part of Batman's origin a dozen times, this show does quite a good job of showing it again but making it really connect emotionally. Some of this is due to Mazouz being the best young Bruce Wayne in TV and film and the rest is all the moment when Gordon connects with young Bruce. This scene is the heart of the premier and ostensibly the whole series and it's done well. Finally, there's an amazing but very fast bit in the very end that shows a very dangerous side of Lord's Oswald Cobblepot. It's a great unexpectedly brutal closing moment and more than anything else makes me want to see more from the character and show.

Winner: Gotham

Round 3: Fan Service

Both of these shows are really banking on fans of the comics and other more famous incarnations of these characters/universes. Gotham seems especially beholden to it and bends over backwards to wink and nudge viewers while Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be trying to seek a balance between adding new things to the world (some successful, some less) and filling episodes with Easter eggs. I won't spoil all of the nods here but I'll warn you not to play a drinking game looking for references in either show.

Gotham certainly has the edge by volume in the fan service category. There's only one significant character on the show that's not an existing character from Batman's mythos (Jada Pinkett-Smith's unfortunately named Fish Mooney) and there are multiple shoe-horned mini cameos, the most groan-inducing being an appearance by one of Batman's rogues as a forensic technician. I think these references ultimately undermine the show unfortunately. You can only be reminded of Batman's rich cast of characters for so long before you start to miss Batman and wonder why you're getting all of the sizzle and no steak. I think Gotham would be better off creating its own world and characters that stand apart from Batman (see Gotham Central for how this can be done very well) and I hope we'll see some of that as the season progresses.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the other hand really seems to know how to pull off these allusions to the source material with style. I literally cheered out loud when a comic book villain used a version of his iconic weapon from the comics. I was also very pleased to see Patton Oswalt reappear and enjoyed the brief dialog between Triplett and Skye about all of his identical "brothers." The biggest bit of fan-service though is the appearance of Hayley Atwell as Agent Carter and a couple of Howling Commandos. These characters and this scene is so instantly enjoyable and full of potential that it ratchets up anticipation for the upcoming Agent Carter show.

Winner: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

It's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D 2-to-1! Come back next week when I'll throw Downton Abbey and Project Runway into the Thunderdome!…Or something else. You'll just have to tune in to find out!

Erik Grove is a writer in Portland, Oregon. You can read his fiction and blogs at www.erikgrove.com and follow him on Twitter @ErikGrove. He's pretty sure Downton Abbey would have Project Runway down with knives in the eyes before tea time.

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