PREHISTORIC LIFE - a book review

Dorling Kindersley’s book of PREHISTORIC LIFE... what can be said about it?

Firstly, it was intended as a book for children – that is evident in wonderful, well-shot (or well-designed) illustrations: some real-life photographs, some – 3-D images, some – drawn in more traditional ways. It is evident in text, which mostly consists of a series of short sentences and/or paragraphs, designed to give maximum of information in minimum of text.

Secondly, despite the above-mentioned intent, what PREHISTORIC LIFE comes across is a multimedia site made paper: the fact boxes contain all sorts of asides that just distract the reader, and the images themselves are different and distributed unevenly: most of 3-D images concern the dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles; the photographs (and other media) concern other parts of the book. 

Thirdly, the fact boxes themselves are uneven. Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Edmontosaurus and Euoplocephalus are the most detailed fact boxes (among the dinosaurs): the book’s writers, designers, other members of the staff team spent most of their attention there, showing various details of the skeleton. Fair enough. But the Iguanodon fact box shows only the bones of its front limb – and there is no mention of the fact that Iguanodon and Megalosaurus were the first dinosaurs to have ever been studied by scientists, which is simply wrong and incorrect.

Then we have the intended audience of the book. As it was mentioned before, the media element of PREHISTORIC LIFE aims at children, but the abundance of actual scientific facts, the size and weight of the actual book (with over 500 pages PREHISTORIC LIFE may not be heavier than an average brick, but neither it is lighter), the cost of it make PREHISTORIC LIFE a very hefty and doubtful gift for an average child: in this day and age they would rather look up the dinosaurs, the pterosaurs and the mega-mammals on the Internet rather than shift through the pages – for a lay person of a pre-teen/teen age that is boring and tedious, and an adult will find the text of this book to be rather childish and naive: “Monoplosaurus wasn’t related to Dilophosaurus”, “after Tyrannosaurus Allosaurus is the best-known theropod” – no duh! 

On their own, these factors are surpassable; combined they spell extinction for PREHISTORIC LIFE as a successful encyclopedia and promise more trouble for DK as a company.

S.H.I.E.L.D., April 15 - Providence

And so, another episode of “Agents” came to pass, and several new developments came to life – let us start with the less obvious one.

The series’ pace. If the earlier episodes went on at a pace that is more typical for action series, then starting from last two (and this one) episodes, “Agents” are moving at a much more breakneck speed; these three episodes occurred within 24 hours of “Agents”-verse; this makes the series a tense and exciting one to follow, but also exhausting; not even the movies move at such a breakneck pace...

Ah well, I am sure the scriptwriters and other stuff knew what they were doing – now about the characters.

The new team Evil or team Hydra. Agent Garrett is behind all of this? No, not really believable. He comes across like a mid-level villain who talks too much (seriously, he never ever shuts up!) who is competent, smug and ruthless; but anything more? Not seeing it. He (and the rest of Hydra crew?) is probably ready to turn on each other and everyone else, but they also have small enough numbers to comfortably fit everyone in into an underground complex beneath a barbershop in Havana. (That is pure James Bond, BTW.) Considering that Hydra is a huge organization in the comics the concept that this is the entire Hydra in the TV series just does not float – just as the concept of Garrett does not fit into the mastermind villain. 

Raina probably thinks so too – when she met the real Garrett she was disappointed, even if she hid it well and appeared to have recovered by the end of the episode. Now Raina is not a sympathetic character; she caused Doctor Debbie to die, she caused Chan to die, and many other people besides. That makes her an unlikely candidate for team Coulson – in TV tropes, if you selfishly caused someone to die, you are evil. But considering that she was trying at least to hedge her bets with Ward, it raises a possibility that she just may sell out Garrett and the rest of his crew to save her own skin at least.

Finally – Quinn. Ever since his debut in “The Asset”, he had issues with S.H.I.E.L.D., and he wanted his gravitonium back. Now he got the latter back, complete with professor Hall inside of it – but only Coulson knows about the last part. This is going to be a wrench in team Evil’s plans, just as the fact that Quinn can barely stand Garrett (and vice versa) and Raina has her own plans, will. Ah well, evil always turns upon itself, the fireworks will be interesting to watch...

On the other hand, as we move into S.H.I.E.L.D. territory we see signs of a very similar behavior. A choleric and rather unpleasant colonel Talbot is moving onto – and into – S.H.I.E.L.D. with his crew – and Coulson promptly moves out with his team, leaving the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. to deal with the situation by themselves. There was evidence of separation before, Coulson’s people and Hand’s people, Coulson’s values and Hand’s values and so on – but this is still cold.

Within Coulson’s team proper there are also tensions – Coulson still does not trust Mae (though Skye has warmed up to her), Simmons has developed enough of personal opinions to be skeptical of Coulson, unlike Fitz, and now got agent Triplett in her corner to make her own faction; and agent Fitz is jealous of Triplett because the latter is friendly with Simmons. Ah well, some competition might do Fitz some good – after all, Triplett did read “Moby Dick”.

To makes matters worse, nobody really trusts Coulson – this episode dealt with blind faith. As real-life events have shown, believing blindly in anyone can lead to problems; America’s blind faith in president Obama had backfired, badly – but sometimes believing blindly in someone is a part of being a team. Coulson believed that Fury is alive; the others believed in Coulson himself long enough to reach Providence, and so on. (For the record, Coulson’s speech just before the discovery of Providence about them not being “agents of nothing” was one of the most pitiful and crazy-sounding ones, however.) Of course, now that blind faith is put to the test, as Coulson can’t reveal to the others that Fury is alive – at least not right now; considering that Ward turned out to be evil, that’s probably an appropriate course of action to take, but...

But yes, Ward’s actions aim to show the corrosive effects of betrayal on trust; to make him look ‘realistically evil’, so to speak; etc. That is reasonable. But it will not be any easier for Coulson to keep the fact that Fury is alive under his hat either. Isn’t all that secret agent situation fun?

Finally, agent Koenig. Apparently, he acted as a comic relief after all the tension and drama and betrayal earlier in the episode. (OT: wouldn’t it make sense to put a building called the Freezer some place cold? They did put the Sandbox into the Sahara desert, for example – but that logic did not work with the Freezer, it was Providence that ended up in Canadian snows instead. Go figure.) Considering that most other agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are either killed off or just make cameo appearances on the show and are never seen again, odds are that we will not be seeing much of him in the future.

So: agent Garrett is forming team Evil, (himself, Ward, Raina, Quinn), and Coulson’s team had a lucky break – but now that Ward is coming over to get Skye’s password (or have Hydra bomb overrun Providence within the next 24 hours), it is over. The events are continuing to race forwards like a thoroughbred horse, and it is anyone’s guess as to what will happen next.

S.H.I.E.L.D., April 8 - Turn, Turn, Turn

Warning – spoilers ahead

And so, “Agents” are coming onto the new level of their existence (as characters of a show) – facing-off against their opposite number, the Hydra. Named after the multiheaded beast of Greek myths (and yes, the show had their laughs in discussing head vs. “head”, ha-ha), this evil organization is set on dominating the world, as evidenced by Marvel’s latest movie, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”. No, seriously, Whedon is a genius – he keeps the Marvel-verse tightly combined, unlike his own opposite number in the DC-verse (Batman, Superman, etc). Unlike other Marvel threats, Hydra is not a single opponent (like, say, Loki), that can be defeated in a single battle; it is a powerful organization whose members are interchangeable and who can always be ‘reborn’ in new and different ways. This makes it a worthy adversary for S.H.I.E.L.D., whose own agents are quite versatile themselves... 

But, anyways, back to the episode itself. As before, it is a good episode, but not a great one. Why? Let us see.

As it had started in the previous episode, “Turn, Turn, Turn” was all about trust – whom to trust, whom to believe, whose loyalty is the strongest. This is always a powerful motive in any spy thriller, which is what S.H.I.E.L.D. appears to be for the moment – a spy thriller. All of the multiple levels of trust & distrust featured in this episode are fine... to a point, but “Turn, Turn, Turn” turns this situation almost into a game of “Find the Hydra”: it’s Hand, no – it’s Coulson; no – Garrick and Ward...

Aye, Ward appears to have joined the Dark Side in this episode (especially since Coulson’s team has escaped from the Helicarrier in a very Star Wars™ ep IV way) but all of those facial shots make one wonder if something is going on with his head, his heart, or the filming crew of the show were just feeling artsy...

The rest of the team. They have been shaken up; May revealed to be colonel Fury’s personal contact, whose role was to keep an eye on Coulson, and if things were to go south with him – she and Ward were to take him down; only she didn’t. Why? Because they had history together, May trusted him.

Trust is another topic of the episode; the titular agents had to learn to trust each other ever since the episode “0-8-4”, and so they had – with various successes. In the last two episodes, however, this trust was put to its severest test, as May proved that she had secrets of her own, and Ward’s relationship with the other agents is also ambiguous (even without him shooting agent Hand at the end of the ep).

On the other hand, what Fitz and Simmons had was a conflict of ‘greater’ vs. ‘lesser’ duty; also the trials and anxieties of separation: “Turn, Turn, Turn” was the first episode where they express their feelings for each other so openly.

Back to duty. Agent Hand embodied the ‘greater’ duty – not just to your team, but also to your country, or at least the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. Her mojo was to do anything in order to prevent a greater disaster or to achieve a greater good (as it was shown in “The Hub”), and that’s why, while her death at agent Ward’s hands was over-the-top, it was also karmic – at least in that it was in the line of duty.

So: agent Ward has either joined the dark side, or something else is going on. The rest of the team has to pull themselves together or Hydra will pull them apart for good. Oh, and agent Hand is dead. In short, this was a very good episode.

S.H.I.E.L.D., April 1 - End of the Beginning

And so, we are back with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s more mainstream streak after Sif took away Lorelei back to Asgard. May has broken up with Ward, and Fitz & Simmons duo are having their own problems – Simmons wants to move to the Hub in order to study Skye’s (and maybe Coulson’s) blood in greater detail as well as the cure that had made them the people they are – but more about this later. 

Firstly, Deathlok. He was very impressive in this episode, becoming more and more robotic as the show progresses; in fact, the entirety of Clairvoyant’s scheme is apparently to build a more and more improved cyberwarrior: it started with the centipede augmentation device and continued to take over more and more of the host’s human body, requiring greater and greater body space – and developing ever greater sophistication. Deathlok by now is very reminiscent of robots from “I, robot” film, based on Asimov’s works, but very different. Also, “there is no Mike Peterson, there is also Deathlok” bit? It is very reminiscent of Joker coming into his own in the first, very first, Batman movie – nice tribute.

Then we got the team. Once again, “Agents” emphasize the teamwork and trust in S.H.I.E.L.D. – the agents are all but forced to cooperate, which they do with a very great efficiency, as they battle Deathlok. One on one, Deathlok is superior to any of them, but as a team the agents managed to put him on the run, leaving his master, Thomas Nash the Clairvoyant, behind. Only, it is not him – the Clairvoyant is a clairvoyant (a psychic seer of the future; think Trelawney from Harry Potter or Drusilla from BtVS), but an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. itself, and as “Yes Men” have revealed, agent May is its’ patsy. Or agent, if you like it better.

This is very important. In “Girl in the Flower Dress” Skye betrayed the team to Miles because of the history they have shared together, and because her bond with the rest of the team were not as strong as they are now. May’s history with S.H.I.E.L.D. goes much deeper than Skye’s, so her treason bites much deeper, especially to Coulson, who has professional history with May, it seems. 

Of course, May can point out that she is either a) a dupe, or b) loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., just not to Coulson’s part of it. “The Hub” and “The Magical Place” episode shows that there are at least two separate branches of S.H.I.E.L.D., working parallel to each other, but...nothing more. “End of the Beginning” only reinforces this impression further: there are two teams, they know about each other – but only in theory, not in practice or in the field – and this episode gives them field experience in spades – but not enough. Team “Coulson’s” aircraft is hijacked and agent Hand declares that as soon as the plane lands everyone is to be killed, making her a strong subject to be the Clairvoyant instead of the late Thomas Nash, who was killed by Ward – an act that pissed on Coulson.

To elaborate, by the last third of this episode, Coulson’s team began to fall apart, as they were at the beginning of the series: Coulson and Ward were about to have an alpha male showdown, May is working for someone else in S.H.I.E.L.D., and Fitz is not very happy with Simmons on one hand and has exposed May on the other. May has to act fast and think faster if she is to clear her name and regain the loyalty of her team (in her team), which is very necessary as agent Hand is about to kill them all instead.

So: the Clairvoyant may be down to his (or hers) last tricks – most potent ones yet; Mike Peterson is dead – there is only Deathlok; and Coulson’s team about to face their most strenuous test yet! The next episodes are going to be tense, and this episode was a very good one as well.

S.H.I.E.L.D., March 11 - Yes Men

A minor LG-related trivia note: before Rainer was the name to one of the guest characters of S4, it was the name of a one-episode villain back in S2 – a sign that between 3^rd and 4^th seasons LG underwent some change in management, not just in mythology – but couldn’t they have checked the names? Joe-Bob obviously wasn’t going to cut it, but being caught like this with Rainer? Embarrassing! 

Now, back to S.H.I.E.L.D. The brave and courageous S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have encountered lady Sif (pronounced lady Shif half the time during the episode). And they also met Lorelei – Sif”s archnemesis, ones supposes: the episode does not divulge, but there is history between the two Asgardian ladies, and it was a painful one, emotionally, if not physically: as far as sword prowess goes, Lorelei was no match for Sif. 

Norse speaking aliens’ aside, the team has undergone some new developments. For a start, Simmons has actually spoken up to Coulson, reminding him, perhaps, that she had a greater duty beyond even loyalty to him as the team leader. Also, the Fitz & Simmons duo had split up during this episode – this is important, because in earlier episodes, such as “Seeds”, the duo was almost like peas in a pod. In “Yes Men”, however, they were not – a minor detail, but an important one.

The duo of May & Ward, on the other hand, has mostly stopped existing: May, apparently, cannot forgive Ward for being unable to break from Lorelei’s spell, even though Sif warned her about it. Yet perhaps May just used Lorelei as an excuse to push Ward away: after all, she is spying on Coulson and/or Skye and/or other members of the team for the sake of Fury or some other party. Considering that “Agents” (as a show) are based on mutual trust and cooperation May’s actions imply that she may have fallen into the dark side – cue the March of the Empire...

On the other hand, Coulson and Skye have fallen into something, encountered something different as well – they may not be thinking of striking against S.H.I.E.L.D. yet, but they clearly are not going to be following the party line precisely. Between then, May doing that double-agent action, and Simmons involving Coulson in the discussion of greater good vs. more regular good, the titular team just may be spiting up along several lines.

Ward...this was not his best episode: he fell under Lorelei’s thrall and beat up May, for whom he has actual feelings – at least for now. When May’s own flaws will be revealed, it may be harder to figure out just where Ward’s feelings for May lie. In truth, of course, Whedon may have planned something like this from the start: the relationship between Ward and May was mainly physical without any in-depth bonding; May may have it with Coulson instead, but as this episode showed, that has its’ own problems. And yes, no relationship can survive based on physical attraction alone. And yes, May is proud of her skills and does not take kindly to being beaten (both literally and physically), and pride is a sin (one of the seven originals), which makes her a flawed character (and a good guy), but still, this is not probably the time to go into in-depth characters study either. 

Oh, and Fitz? Sadly, he was mostly the comic relief for this episode. So was Simmons, but she, at least, had that confrontation with Coulson by the end of the episode that was more serious than funny. Skye too was mostly in the background for this episode – but then again, she had not quite recovered from the events in “T.R.A.C.K.S.”, so that is reasonable.

In short, May has all but broken up with Ward and revealed her inner darkness, Coulson and Skye are about to go on a crusade for light and justice, Simmons may got onto her own crusade and recruit Fitz for the ride (they are a duo, after all) and Ward was charmed and enchanted by Lorelei. Oh, and we had a tie-in with the Thor movie series too. Cool.

S.H.I.E.L.D., March 4 - T.A.H.I.T.I.

Sadly, due to unexpected circumstances, I was unable to see this episode last night and so I will have to fully review it at a later date. (This infection is killing me)