12 Things Agents Of SHIELD Needs To Fix For Season 2

12. More Involvement From Joss Whedon

It's a no-brainer, isn't it? The Marvel mastermind behind The Avengers' absence from Agents Of SHIELD was never more keenly felt than when the jokes just weren't landing and there wasn't quite enough emotional investment in the characters to care about whatever exposition-heavy craziness was happening in the plot. While Whedon did direct and co-write the pilot episode - and it's telling that it's still one of the show's most playful and simultaneously sincere outings - he contributed no more (credited) scripts to the season and it's unclear how involved he was as an Executive Producer, though from a look at his work schedule prepping and shooting Avengers: Age Of Ultron and his absence from pretty much every interview regarding the show it's pretty safe to say he wasn't on set or in the writers' room all that much. And while you don't necessarily need Joss Whedon running the place to make a show work - Tim Minear on Firefly and Marti Noxon on the latter seasons of Buffy certainly proved that - you kind of do if you're trying to make a show that's straining to imitate his voice. The self-deprecating banter and clever wordplay present in much of the show is entertaining at best and irritatingly affected at worst, tending toward the latter when showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon and Jeffrey Bell aren't on scripting duty, but it almost always has a false ring to it, likely due to the effect Joss' writing and his own presence has had on the writers and the shape Agents Of SHIELD has taken. But without him to steer the ship, everyone left in charge seems to have second-guessed at 'what Joss would do' instead of forging their own path, only really redeeming themselves when a company synergy strategy mandated key plot changes. The producers either need to get their captain back to right themselves or get a new one and forget they ever marched to anyone else's fife.