The Point Radio: Why AGENTS OF SHIELD Disappointed You

After a tremendous start to the season, Marvel’s AGENTS OF SHIELD has faced a few challenges, mainly in growing an audience that keeps waiting for familiar super heroes to show up. We talk to Joss Whedon,  Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb and EP Jeffrey Bell about just why they isn’t likely to happen. Meanwhile, X-MEN:APOCALYPSE starts to build a cast, and what TV are you tweeting about? THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

The Point Radio It's my problem, so what's right and wrong with ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and how do those Marvel movies really affect things? We talked to creative staff and the stars too as well about it. Plus some more solid plans for X-Men Apocalypse and what are you watching and tweeting?

Let's get to The Point. This is The Point, The Point Radio, get The Point Radio. It's been an interesting year for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC. Starting out the blockbuster ratings, the show then ran into some ratings challenges and has done its best to try to make sure it captures live audiences as opposed to those who

DVR it, which makes some pretty big difference in the ratings games. Meanwhile on set, actor Clark Gregg, who plays Agent Colson, told me he feels his overall experience well has just been great. I love playing the guy. It's just been this bizarre journey because I grew up reading comic books. I'm a huge sci-fi nerd. I love this stuff. I knew my neighbor, John Favreau, was putting

together an amazing cast for Iron Man. That was one of my favorite comics. Then I got a call. There's a little tiny part to want to be in it. I was like, yes! He's probably going to get cut out, but yeah! Then to have it get fleshed out in that movie, added to these other movies, giving more and more meaty, amazing stuff to do. Then most movingly to me, to have it connect with the fans in a way where they just didn't accept his death and kind of waste a campaign on Colson's

behalf. It's really moving to me because he's them. He's an avatar for the fans and a human in a world of super humans. It's just to kind of walk out there and get that response and have the show get that response and to show up and get to play this guy again because I thought I was done. It's really a dream come true for me. And he credits his fans 100%.

To have Colson kind of loved that way, it's a huge testament to what Josh wrote for Colson. I really think the show and the response and the Colson-less thing is really because Josh really took what was there already instinctively and turned it into this thing that really revealed what was really there. That he was a fanboy, that he had a ridiculous, embarrassing man crush in Captain America. I think that's really what made this happen.

Meanwhile, the biggest challenge from the creative side is walking a fine line between the plans that Marvel has for their movies, keeping those on track and keeping the show a relevant part of the overall Marvel universe. Head of Marvel Television, Jeff Loew. You know, look, the reality is I'm sure at some point you've told a story and then all of a sudden someone in the back says, it's a kitty. It's a kitty. And he just spoiled my story.

So that's what it is. We're just trying to bring some of the urgency back to television and we live in a world where every little thing, just boom, it's out there all over the place. And we love social media and we want to be part of social media. But for the same token, it would be great if you could sit down and watch a television show without knowing every single thing that's going to happen before it happens. Still, everybody asks, when are we going to see

the Avengers? Executive producer and writer Jeff Bell addressed that. Well, you know, obviously the biggest one is that we don't have the budget to have 30 Ironmen come out at the end and save the world. And so, you know, we have to go in a different direction. And that direction is that, you know, television has a kind of intimacy that you have on a regular basis. You know, when television first came out, what made it different from going to the movies was that these

people were in your living room. And so you had to make it so that they were people that you wanted to share time with. And if you think about the most successful shows that are on television, you know, dating all of that to the beginning, it's because you fell in love with the characters and you wanted to repeatedly see them. Well, now what's happened is that, yes, it's important to watch television on a 60, 80 inch screen. But the other thing that's happening to us is that we

watch television on a laptop, we watch it on a tablet, and guess what? Now we watch it on a phone. And how big is the phone? Oh, it's this big. And what do we do with the phone? We press it against our faces. What is more intimate than that? It's actually touching you. So we're, you know, our job is to create characters that you feel comfortable enough that you, they can be this close to you. And you're like, wow, they feel like my friends or they feel like someone I know, or they, or I

aspire to be that person. Staying in step with any current Marvel movies can still be risky. As show creator, Joss Whedon told me, what if we get preemptive? And they push all the episodes a week and then there's, you know, it's tricky. But being able to throw a little something in there and for everything to feel like it's all part of the same big story is exciting. We're not going to pass up that opportunity totally. It's not going to build off of that. Catch up with Agents of

S.H.I.E.L.D. with on demand from your local cable system or on abc.com and new episodes returned to the network early in 2014. Here we are with the latest in Pop culture. The guys who did the Walking Dead game that everybody loves are about to do the same thing for the HBO series Game of Thrones. Telltale Games announced their Game of Thrones project will be available as a digital download for consoles, PC, the Mac, and mobile devices too early in the new year. It's just

another indication of how important social media is, especially to television. Nielsen has listed a top 10 most tweeted about TV shows for the past week. And that includes things like Bonnie and Clyde, The X Factor, Scandal, American Horror Story, Coven, the CMA Country Christmas, the Grammy nominations that at the top of the list the most tweeted about TV program over the past few days, and BC's live performance of The Sound of Music. You're not surprised to learn that that

X-Men apocalypse will be set up in the last few moments of the coming X-Men movie, Days of Future Past, are you? Here's the interesting part though. They say that it'll focus on the cast from the first class film and not necessarily from the major films as well. This of course probably due to a budget consideration. However, Bryan Singer is involved the direct X-Men apocalypse, which is said now to be in theaters in May of 2016. So there's that weird time between Christmas and

New Year's you have to figure out what to do. Here's something that could certainly fill the bill. How about marathons of Breaking Bad and Walking Dead for free. Five seasons straight, a Breaking Bad will air each day starting at noon Friday, December 27th and ending on Monday, December 30th. And there'll also be a two-day marathon of The Walking Dead on December 31st, New Year's Eve. It'll start at 9 a.m. with episodes airing back to back all the way through

5 a.m. on January 2nd. Both of course will be on AMC. The BBC has created a pretty innovative and a very interactive trailer for the upcoming third series of Sherlock. It has a lot of little easter eggs for you to click on during the trailer that give you even some more added content. It's got to be seen to be believed. So of course we've got it up for you right now at our website GetThePointRadio.com and keep in mind that Sherlock permits back in the US on PBS on January 19th

and on the BBC in the UK on the 1st of January. MTV has optioned the rights to Terry Brooks short of Shinara novels and it could be a good deal for the property because if it does pick up it'll go direct to series and bypass the pilot process. John Favreau has set the direct and the former showrunners of Smallville will write and executive produce the series as well. The property was launched in 1977. There have been 25 books in the series so far and it's arguably the most

popular fantasy series that has yet to be adapted to film or television with some 26 million books in print just in the US. Time to get serious the holiday just a few weeks away so a few of the things we're going to tell you about in comic stores this week certainly belong in that gift giving category but there's some treats for you as well starting with a Starcourses retro series Brain Boy and a good jumping on point is they collect the stories that Rann and Dark Horse

presents a year or so ago in a special zero issue out this week. For the gamers not yet into comics here's another transition Halo Escalation begins a series from Dark Horse with a first issue and also from DC another first issue Justice League 3000 this week. From the gift giving side there's the new 52 villains omnibus collecting all those issues that were so hard to find earlier in the fall into one big volume for about 150 bucks. If you have a fan who grew up with the Teenage Mutant

Ninja Turtles here's a little less expensive something for them. TMT's 25th anniversary hardcover with stories handpicked by Kevin Easton and some even remastered and recolored by him as well. From IDW there's Alex and Ada number one a second printing of that and a new issue number two out this week. Drum Hiller previously Strange Ways number one gets a second printing and also there's a second issue of that out as well. Those of you into the weird side of the holidays know

the legend of Krampus. Image brings it to a regular series it begins with the first issue this week. Also a new issue of Walking Dead number 118 as well. The alleged return of Peter Parker continues in Amazing Spider-Man number 700.2 and .3 this week. Hulk gets a Marvel Nights series with a first issue this week as well. A cool indie called Death Sentence gets a second printing of its second issue and a new third issue out this week. Dynamite's revival of Doc Savage begins with

the first issue and the WWE hits comics from paper cuts in a new series written by superstar Mick Foley. The WWE ongoing begins with a number one issue this week and several extra covers as well. All these and more waiting for you in a comic shop near you. Here's how we go about finding them. You can check of course the comic book locator service dial them up at 1888 comic book. You can check the link on the front page of ComicMix.com or you can go to a website called findmycomicshop.com.

That's it for right now but a busy week we're back in a few days with Peter Jackson and the cast of The Hobbit to find out just what the middle of the story has to offer us and then there's a Christmas story and the new version that Ralphie is bringing to Broadway. In the meantime keep up on pop culture 24-7 to give The Point radio.com on your desktop or your laptop. Listen free on any mobile device too you can easily do that with the app called iNet Radio. Get it free in the app store for an

android or an apple device at iNetRadio.com. The podcast turns up a couple times each week on ComicMix.com and michaeldavisworld.com and the iTunes podcast directory and keep up on all of it on social media Facebook and Twitter under The Point radio. See you back here in a few days.