After seven episodes, suddenly it hit me: this is The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a half-century later - but without the charismatic stars, and with the self-deprecating satire stripped away. That doesn't leave much. There's no edge, no sense of realism. There's also no sense of fun. Plots are threadbare. Dialog is lame. Characters are flat and painfully stereotyped.

There's also no feeling for the mood of our times. Covert organizations are hated, feared and distrusted as they've never been before, but this series can't bring itself to confront the issue. It comes off as really weak propaganda in favor of the establishment position that "some things have to remain secret." But stories are so incoherent that it can't even make that point effectively.

What really hurts is the vast potential that's being wasted. In the comics, S.H.I.E.L.D. was a catch-all, a place to toss leftover ideas... or to explore new ones, without interfering with the more valuable franchises. In other words, it's a concept with infinite possibilities. It's a chance to go 'behind the scenes' in the superhero world. To go big and high-tech, against traditional adversaries like Hydra. Or small, and personal.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. does none of this. It totally fails to adapt any incarnation of the comic. The brief Jim Steranko run alone offers enough ideas for a great series. This one manages to ignore all of them. In fact, after seven episodes, it's hard to tell what (if anything) it's trying to be about.

We always hoped that Joss Whedon would find the success he deserved, so that he could finally start churning out classic material like Firefly, unfettered by short-sighted networks. Instead, it seems that success has finally ruined him. Whedon has turned out exactly the kind of mindless network crap that we expected him to stand against. He should feel embarrassed to see his name on it.

Having said all that, I'm not ready to give up yet. What I've seen so far deserves a rating of 1 or 2, but I give it a 4 - for the interesting Agent Coulson character, for the earnest (if ineffectual) efforts of its young cast, and for just being there, a comic-book adaptation I never expected to see. And, most of all, for the (dwindling) hope that Whedon will take a few days off working on the next Avengers movie and kick this sorry mess into shape.

EDIT: As I'd hoped, things do pick up a LOT in the latter episodes of the first season. The continuity of the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier is integrated into the show, which is a huge help. Characters gain depth, and the tone becomes darker. I'd still like to see a bit more emphasis on character as opposed to cliff-hanger melodrama, but at this point I'm raising my rating from the 4 to a slightly optimistic 7. (Where 5 means something just barely worth watching.)

EDIT #2: As we reach the climax of Season Two, Agents of SHIELD is almost a completely different show than the one I originally reviewed. It's hard to pin down what's been done, but it's enough for me to officially change my score to an enthusiastic 8. All the shallow, artificial conflicts between characters have been replaced by deeper dramatic relationships. The big story arcs - especially the 'second SHIELD' and the Inhumans - are now much stronger and a lot more imaginative. It's not exactly Shakespeare, but it's great comic-book adventure.

EDIT #3: The ending of Season Three was one of the most amazing bits of writing I've seen in an action series - underplayed, unexpected and unforgettable. Agents has evolved into the perfect video comic-book, jumping from one cool situation directly to another, with just enough characterization to make it all emotionally involving. Top-notch television, by any standard.