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The first three episodes of the new television series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are not encouraging. Series writers have under-done themselves by replacing the villainous Hydra organization with different adversaries for the TV version of S.H.I.E.L.D., namely, a lame ensemble cast, average scripts, and the Damocles sword of boredom.

My number one reason to watch Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was Agent Coulson. He lives! American actor Clark Gregg's portrayal of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson is a star-making role, on a par with Australian actor Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith in the trilogy of Matrix films. Gregg portrays the perfect, buttoned-down, Competent Organizational Man, at home with S.H.I.E.L.D., or the I.B.M. of the 1960s. Gregg's agent Coulson is always calm, cool, and collected, because he's very well trained, but he's no automaton. He has a brain, and a sly, understated, dry, sense of humour. This has been the role of Gregg's career.

I thought Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would be first-and-foremost a starring vehicle for Clark Gregg's agent Coulson, but not quite. Figuratively, and literally agent Coulson is not the one driving this bus.