On Sunday night, during the season finale of Once Upon A Time, ABC revealed the first promo for their fall tentpole Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents is considered a surefire hit for the fall: it will have multiple built-in audiences, including Marvel comics readers, fans of The Avengers and the various superhero franchises (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America) that converged in that blockbuster hit, and executive producer Joss Whedon’s small but rabid following, who were devoted to him long before he wrote and directed The Avengers, when he was known primarily as the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, and Firefly.
ABC is clearly banking on the strength of these franchises rather than on the faces of the show’s actors: the Marvel logo, shots of Thor’s hammer and a raging Hulk, and Whedon’s screen credit get far more airtime in the promo than any of the show’s characters. The exception to this is Agent Coulson (played by Clark Gregg), whose presence is surprising since–stop reading right now if you haven’t seen The Avengers–his character was killed during the climactic battle, providing the glue that finally brought the team together. A six-second Vine also released by the Agents production team on Sunday ended with the tag #CoulsonLives. Could Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. be resurrecting Coulson through some sort of Tony Stark-esque technological miracle?
The full trailer for S.H.I.E.L.D., which ABC released on Tuesday, offers something of an answer to that question: just as new agent Grant Ward (played by Brett Dalton) brags that he has “Level 6 Clearance” and knows that Agent Coulson died “before the Battle of New York,” Coulson himself enters the room. “Welcome to Level 7,” he quips. Whedon, who co-produces Agents with his brother Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen (his collaborators on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog), is well known for bringing beloved characters back from the dead in creative ways; it will be interesting to see how he’s managed Coulson’s resurrection.
Both the promo and the full trailer feature Coulson’s voiceover explaining that the show follows “the cases that S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn’t classified: the strange, the unknown,” which makes Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. sound like The Avengers crossed with Buffy, The X-Files, and Heroes–or, in other words, the greatest television show ever made. In addition to the promo and trailer (which you can watch on YouTube), there’s also a new site, www.wearetherisingtide.com, that tracks the show’s production and features so-called superhero “sightings” from fans. ABC’s new fall schedule has Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airing at 8 p.m. Tuesdays; you can bet we’ll be watching.