It was a little hard to watch really...acting and dialouge was choppy and it forced us into the Avengers universe in a rather harsh way...hoping that the show improves; but I'm gonna call it now, Coulson is a robot/android (Vision?!?)

Yeah dude, I was thinking "Oh man, is Coulson an LMD?" I really hope not. I like his character a lot and I'd feel gutted if it turned out he was just an LMD like Spidey's Spideyslayer parents in the Lifetheft storyline back in the '90s. Speaking of that,

OK well I've just watched it and - without spoilers - it's a rough start. Firefly's first episode was better that's for certain. The pacing was uneven and the acting left a great deal to be desired. The story was... ok but nothing great. I'll give it a couple more as always but not loving it so far.

Probably because Firefly's first episode was supposed to be the third episode or something like that if I remember right. Anyone?

First, a few clarifications.

Packer, yep, Firefly was aired out of order on Fox. The Train Job first, Serenity 1 & 2 second. The DVD / Netflix set everything right, but anyone who watched it on network back in the day was rightly confused.

Jetty, wasn't digging at Once at all here. I mean I don't like the show much, but then I didn't get in on the Ground Floor, so it confuses the crap out of me with all the characters / timelines / subplots. It's like Lost - you've gotta watch from E1 or be stuck missing some things. My wife watches and loves it. I was digging at the Once Upon A Time In Wonderland spin-off show, which looks pretty bad.

Okay, on to Agents of Shield.

I liked it, honestly. It didn't blow me away the way The Blacklist's premiere did - but that's probably because it didn't have James Spader being a creep. There were things I would have changed, but overall it's a solid-enough start to keep me interested for a season or so. Really, if Joss Whedon directed a Y.A. adaptation, I'd probably insist that it was "okay", so I guess there's some bias. The dialogue did seem typically "Whedoned", but I think Gregg's a good choice for the lead - I'm genuinely curious how they explain Coulson, and the hacker chick (Chloe Bennett) stole a lot of the scenes - plus she's pretty cute. I'm kind of interested to see how it ties into the MCU and if anything - Hydra, Zemo, Dell Rusk - from the comics gets added.

And the acting was far from CW atrocious. Seriously, watch Arrow, then watch Shield.

I had problems with Dalton and the European techies who kept shouting at each other. Dalton just seems kind of boring, and the Europeans were annoying. Plus did anyone think that instead of combining GammaSuperSoldierAlienExtremis whatsit from every Marvel movie they should have just expanded that "Bigger World" Fury mentioned in Iron Man? Like, actually introduce some new heroes? Ah, well. I'm sure there's time to bring comic characters into the fold, and it's probably best if they establish the principles first.

Oh, and where the f*** is Silver Sable? Melinda May? Who?!

I liked it. I like that the cast is top heavy with females (ba-dump-pahhhh). I like that they gave them a tech duo instead of one techy person who gets annoyed that no one ever understands their brilliance. At least with a pair they can bounce their brilliance off of each other and belittle the rest of the room for not "getting it". I really enjoyed the Whedonesque quips and I realize that, as with all shows, the actors will need to establish their characters and their chemistry as it goes along. I like that they made references to Extremis and the battle in New York. I think with time it will be an excellent show.

First ep didn't blow me away, but it has potential. Worth watching in the future, but I'll drop it like a bad habbit if they decide to put it opposite Arrow (Which is what I feared when I first heard about it)
It did what it needed to for a pilot: Give us a taste for what the series could be like, and set up most, if not all of the players. Though, I'm a bit dissappointed that Extremis looks like it'll be the super juice of choice. I really kind of hated that element of IM3, and that was the only part of IM3 I didn't like.

And I'm with you Acid. Totally thought the dude was Luke Cage. I hope they use heros and villains that would never get a shot at the movies. The Runaways could be a potentially interesting reoccering set of characters. Especially if they set the Pride up before hand and used them a few times as villains, first.

My wife (who cant stand my comic/toy obsession, but does like the movies) said "who the hell is that guy?"

I go: "I have no clue!"....then she said "we'll aren't you supposed to know all this stuff?!?" I laugh, cuz it's the gentlemanly thing to do....

Honestly, when I found out his name was Mike Peterson, I was hoping that he WASN'T Luke Cage. I have a thing against changing people's names for the sake of trying to mislead fans. Example: The John Blake Robin cheese factor at the end of the Dark Knight Rises (Which should've been called Knightfall IMO, BTW...)

I agree. Blake should have been named Terry MacGuinness. Hardcore fans would have known immidiately, but he's so much less well known to casual viewers that the surprise would have been a huge twist to most everyone else.
Especially given that JGL is an amazing cast choise for Terry, and that they set up Blake as discovering the cave, and potentially becoming Batman or Robin.