Hard NOC Live from SDCC 2016: Brandon Easton
Television and comics writer extraordinaire Brandon Easton joins us from the floor of San Diego Comic-Con 2016!
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Tag: Agent Carter
Agent Carter Diversity Scorecard
Okay, the second season of Marvel’s Agent Carter is over and it’s time to tally up the score!
We’ll be using a tried and true scoring system I just made up and will be applying with liberal bias. Agent Carter will be assigned a grade based upon a 100 point grading scale in which we begin at 0 and add or subtract points as appropriate. This system is based mainly on Hogwarts’ house points system, because we are nerds, after all.
Character Study: Edwin Jarvis
Even though Agent Carter is a miniseries airing during the winter hiatus of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the series continues to establish itself as one of the most important narratives Marvel has produced for reasons explained here.
The showrunners capitalized on a great storytelling opportunity in providing a powerful backstory to Agent Carter’s fellow countrymen and associate, Edwin Jarvis, Howard Stark’s butler and friend.
Agent Carter Adds Superhero TV’s Newest Trope
Marvel’s Agent Carter had its season premiere Tuesday night with a double episode, and all sorts of things are new.
For one, the somber, immediate-post-WWII-New-York-values tones have been replaced by a lighter, sunnier, Californian color that suits the show’s inevitable slide into the fifties. For another, Agent Daniel Sousa’s childish crush on Peggy Carter seems to have deepened into a reciprocal — if ambiguous — relationship. (On this, more later.)
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Why Marvel’s Agent Carter Truly Matters
While most of the Marvel one-shots have been entertaining and well crafted, I was really surprised at how much Agent Carter resonated with me. The more I learned about the miniseries currently airing on ABC, the more I excited I became.
It wasn’t until watching the first few episodes of the miniseries that I realized why.
My Top 15 Television Series of 2015
They say there’s nothing good on television. Clearly, more than a few shows were trying to disprove that saying. 2015 kept me busy in terms of reviewing shows but more than a few proved to be well worth it.
As is the standard, for a series to be reviewed (much less nominated), it must meet the guidelines of my Media Litmus Test.
So without further adieu, the following are my Top 15 Television Series of 2015:
What’s the Deal with the POC Characters on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
In a week where the Deadline Hollywood website shot itself in the foot for asking us to consider the poor white actors being denied work due to the current spate of “ethnic casting” for TV pilots and series, the ever-ongoing fight of POC actors to get more than table scraps is never far from mind. Despite the Bat Signal thrown up by Deadline to save whiteness in Hollywood, the fact remains that productions still routinely limit or shut out entirely actors of color from starring roles.
On Twitter this weekend the thread #whedonandrace critiqued Joss Whedon’s problematic depictions of black and other POC characters in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. This discussion has been ongoing among fans of color since Buffy and Whedon became a name; it just happened that this time it spawned a hashtag. Soon the thread became a general critique of his handling of race, encompassing Whedon’s other TV series as well as his films, including the series he co-created with Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon for Marvel Studios, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. While Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., at first glance, is diverse in its casting (at least of its secondary recurring cast members and guest stars; its regulars are largely white), the series reveals an unsettling pattern of how these characters of color are depicted.
Simply put, what’s the deal with POC (mainly black) characters being killed, maimed, or evil on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
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Five Takeaways From the New Ant-Man Teaser
After years toiling in development hell — along with Iron Man and Captain America, Ant-Man was one of the studio’s first announced self-financed properties — two directors and several insect-sized teases, Marvel Studios’ latest attempt to dominate the moviegoing world with more C- and D-list superheroes was finally revealed during ABC’s debut of Agent Carter and it’s possible the House of Ideas has done it again. After the break, we run down a few of the things that caught our eye as we wait for Ant-Man to become the latest Marvel hero to emerge from the summer blockbuster season as a household name.
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S.H.I.E.L.D. Season Two: Agents of C.H.A.N.G.E.
I don’t live-tweet very often. I usually leave that job to the professionals here. But last night, I found myself watching the second season premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC, and I happened to have my phone with me at the time.
It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of the series. From the jump last season, the show reminded me of everything that I usually hate from a Joss Whedon production. That said, I continued to watch it out of some sort of nerd obligation. And while the post-Winter Soldier episodes did get relatively better, the second season premiere wasn’t really on my radar all summer.
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Fall TV Nerd Problems
William Evans (@willevanswrites) of Black Nerd Problems joins Keith (@the_real_chow) and N’Jaila (@blasianbytch) to talk about this fall’s slate of nerd-centric superhero television shows, including The CW’s Arrow and Flash from DC Entertainment and ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter from Marvel Studios.