ABC is looking to employ a bit of synergy to crank up interest in their out-of-the-gate hit show ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’ by tapping into the box-office success of ‘Thor: The Dark World’. In tonight’s episode the team on that show will discover an Asgardian relic and the episode will serve as a “history lesson” on the people of Asgard. “After the fallout of the film, we’re in charge of the clean-up. We spilled into more of the ancient aspects into Asgardians and how they visited us long ago, so we get into a little bit of that aspect of Asgard and how it’s affected our planet in the past and currently.”
And executive producer Jed Whedon doesn’t want it to end there. With ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ arriving in theaters in the spring, Whedon hopes to continue tying the TV show in with Marvel’s movie universe.
“Nick Fury [Samuel L. Jackson] is in that one, and S.H.I.E.L.D. makes an appearance, so we will definitely try to tee-up some stuff and probably play a little bit of the fallout from that film. We’re hoping to do some cool stuff.”
The show is attempting to build up the Marvel Universe in live action, as Whedon expressed “We’re trying to flesh out the world. The Marvel brand carries with it a lot of familiar faces. We’re trying to flesh out the world of S.H.I.E.L.D. with the established characters and the characters we’re introducing to build out the larger organization that we operate in. That’s where some of the fun can be had.” To that effect, the show has recently introduced Agent Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernandez), Agent Blake (Titus Welliver) and Victoria Hand (Saffron Burrows) also introduced.
But what about the big white elephant in the room? What the heck is up with Agent Coulson, who so famously died in ‘The Avengers’? Whedon stated, “It’s a question that burns inside of him, but it’s a question that maybe he’s afraid of the answer. But soon enough he’s not going to let it slide anymore. It’s one of those things where you feel something wrong, but you don’t know what it is. Finding out might make it much worse.”
Executive producer Maurissa Tancharoen pointed to last week’s episode ‘The Hub’ as a significant step in Coulson’s journey. “It was a very significant thing in the episode ‘The Hub’ for him to deal with Victoria Hand lying to him and facing the fact that the organization that he’s been dedicating his life to lied to his face about the people within his team, which prompted him to make that phone call about his own file and again not getting the answer that he wanted. That’s significant in his journey.”
Of course, fans of the comics have already speculated that Coulson is a Life Model Decoy, a frequently utilized device in the comics. The LMDs are essentially androids that can pass for whoever they are built to resemble. But Whedon is hoping to surprise fans. “We’re just trying to come up with ways to make it surprising or make it not how they expected it to unravel. We know what it is, but we know that no one else does yet.”
And just to sweeten the deal, Whedon is hoping that Stan Lee, the founding writer of Marvel Comics will make an appearance.
What do you think? Is tying ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ on TV to the Marvel Cinematic Universe a good idea?
Source TV Guide
