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A look back at the highs and lows of 2015 television. By Brandon Wolfe Winners 1. Fargo (FX) Last year’s biggest surprise has evolved into television’s most consistently excellent and creatively energized series. In its second year, Fargo unleashed a boldly complex, tightly interwoven narrative concerning a brutal gang war in 1979, the hapless couple (Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst) who unwittingly ignite the fuse between the warring factions and the decent cop (Patrick Wilson) trying to keep order amidst the chaos and bloodshed. With a knockout cast, superb humor, delightful characters, defiant weirdness (those UFOs!) and more Coen Brothers references than you can shake a snow shovel at, Fargo is the best thing on the air right now, you betcha. 2. Justified (FX) After a penultimate season that seemed muddled and confused, FX’s contemporary Western came roaring back with its guns a-blazing, brimming with renewed purpose. The ballad of Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) and

This week's episode of Inside the Bucket is online! Revel in the digital mastery! With Free Comic Book Day in our rearview mirror, the boys from Inside the Bucket return! Join Matt, Brandon, and Davdi as they deliver the best movie and television news from our website SANDWICHJOHNFILMS.COM . The guys cover nearly every aspect of entertainment, from news about a Boba Fett standalone to recent television cancellations/renewals from the upfront events. They also discuss this week's Blu-ray releases and break down another big box office weekend. Please check out these and many other stories which we've included below. The three then go on their Rants and Raves, where they bitch and complain about all the things they're watching, following, and have their panties in a bind about from the week. After a spoiler-filled discussion of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the boys take their first mailbag question and try not to screw it up (at least Matt tried - Brand

ABC has renewed AGENT CARTER series for a second season. ABC has also renewed MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. for a third season. Please Leave A Comment-

Mockingbird is leaving the nest. By Brandon Wolfe The focus of the recently announced Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spin-off has finally been revealed . The show will center on the characters of Bobbi “Mockingbird” Morse (Adrianne Palicki) and her off-and-on lover, fellow agent Lance Hunter (Nick Blood). The characters were introduced early on in the parent show’s current second season as highly capable operatives working alongside (and occasionally against) Coulson and his team, their tempestuous relationship as former husband and wife being a major focus. The direction of the show has yet to be disclosed, but will be set up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as it winds down for the season. The spin-off is being developed by S.H.I.E.L.D. executive producer Jeffrey Bell and co-executive producer Paul Zbyszewski, who are collaborating on the script and will act as executive producers, with Zbyszewski is expected to serve as showrunner. ABC has not given the series the official greenlight

The horned one goes from Affleck to Netflix. Review by Brandon Wolfe Daredevil, Marvel’s “man without fear,” got off to a fairly disastrous live-action start with an eponymous theatrical film in 2003 starring Ben Affleck. That film, an overly melodramatic, atrociously clichéd instance of pre- Iron Man superhero detritus (albeit one with a killer Evanescence song), was so poorly received that it spawned neither a sequel nor a reboot (even 2005’s horrible Fantastic Four got both), the rights languishing in limbo for a decade before reverting back to Marvel Studios, their rightful owner. Rather than inject Daredevil into its intricate cinematic tapestry, Marvel, always eager to expand their reign in the bid for complete pop-cultural domination, went a different route, opting instead to launch Daredevil as a binge-friendly Netflix event series, the first of several it has planned. While it might have initially seemed as though such a significant character, one who once anchored

Marvel series to open another espionage branch. By Brandon Wolfe As the old saying goes, if something’s irreparably broke, make more of it, and thus Marvel is making plans for a spin-off to perennial televised disappointment Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Executive producer Jeffrey Bell and writer Paul Zbyszewski are developing the new show, which will not be instigated as a back-door pilot by the parent series, in the manner that The Flash was birthed from Arrow . The concept behind S.H.I.E.L.D. 2 has yet to be revealed, but given that the current storyline in the existing series has introduced a second branch of the spy agency led by Edward James Olmos, there is some speculation that the seeds for the spin-off may have already been planted. Discuss this story with fellow SJF fans on Facebook . On Twitter, follow us at @SandwichJohnFilms , and follow author Brandon Wolfe at @BrandonTheWolfe .

Wherein Team Coulson won't just let the experts do their job. Review by Brandon Wolfe The conflict between the Real S.H.I.E.L.D. and Coulson’s fake one is one of the better gambits that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has yet attempted, even if the divide separating the show’s intentions and the audience’s (well, my) reception is substantial. The show is insisting that Edward James Olmos’ Gonzales and his agency are the antagonists of this story and that Coulson and his merry band of crybabies are still our white knights, yet from where I’m standing, Gonzales is completely in the right. When Gonzales points out that Coulson has been infused with alien DNA and has been used as a conduit for an alien race, making him an unreliable wild card, it’s hard to dispute any of it. Even Coulson himself doesn’t seem to be able to. But beyond Coulson’s alien-related unpredictability, the proof is in the pudding. We’ve seen him and his team in action and have witnessed first-hand their numerous l

Coulson’s abilities are questioned, as well they should be. Review by Brandon Wolfe When Gonzales (Edward James Olmos, another impressive “get” for the series), the head of the “real S.H.I.E.L.D.,” informs Hunter of all the reasons why Coulson is not fit to run the agency, it’s hard to argue with any of them. Coulson has been infused with alien DNA, leading him to make erratic decisions. The deaths that happened on his watch were indirectly his fault. Moreover, the success rate in the apprehension of villains under his command is a big, fat goose egg and he runs his unit more like a squishy den mother than a lead agent. Coulson is the pits, and it creates a sort of cognitive dissonance in the viewer when the person making the most sense is someone we’re supposed to immediately distrust because he dares to oppose the chief protagonist. If Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were a smarter show, I’d think that perhaps it purposefully intended to call into question the competency of its hero

Maybe the new S.H.I.E.L.D. is the good S.H.I.E.L.D.? Review by Brandon Wolfe Say what you will about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – and I will – but the show attracts some impressive guest stars. That unmistakably has more to do with the Marvel brand name being the center of the showbiz universe than it does with the quality of the show itself, but it stands as an asset to a show that could certainly use one. In addition to Kyle MacLachlan, who’s still having the time of his life camping it up hardcore as archvillain Cal, the show also brings in Drea de Matteo and Blair Underwood this week. With a lead cast loaded with lightweights, shuttling in outside talent to pinch-hit can only help. What doesn’t help is that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t really know how to serve its guest characters any better than its primary ones. Take de Matteo, who anchored one of the more memorable and devastating story arcs on The Sopranos , one of the best television series ever produced. Here she’s a

I Sif returns, Skye shakes, viewers yawn. Review by Brandon Wolfe Pity poor Jaimie Alexander. As one of the few members of the Marvel Cinematic Universe low enough on the totem pole to be accessible for TV, she keeps getting roped back into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Lady Sif returns this week for her second appearance on the series. It’s not that Alexander isn’t welcome on the show, but she very clearly is being utilized not because Sif makes perfect sense as a regular popover to Coulson’s tiny, earthbound corner of the universe, but because she’s a much easier “get” than a Robert Downey Jr. or a Scarlett Johansson, whose characters would make infinitely more sense crossing paths on a frequent basis with S.H.I.E.L.D. I guess you work with what you have. Anyway, Sif wanders out of the ocean one night in Portugal with no memory of who she is (because amnesia is a device used only by the finest of shows). It isn’t long before her superhuman exploits land on Team Coulson’s radar

Series has superheroes now but same old problems. Review by Brandon Wolfe I thought it was getting better. Granted it’s been three long months since the last episode, but I had the faintest recollection of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. closing out its fall run on a minor upswing of quality. But checking back into Marvel’s flagship TV series finds the same collection of problems and shortcomings that have plagued this misbegotten show from the beginning still very much in place. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying some new things, sure, but it’s all built upon the same rickety foundation that’s always existed just beneath its floorboards. Yes, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has superheroes (and villains) now. That’s terrific. So did Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. All the eyeless, teleporting “gifteds” in the world can’t shore up the difference when your show is still populated by the same collection of drips spouting the same inartfully overdramatic, hopelessly clichéd dialogue i

Heroes Get Fleshed Out as Marvel Series Keeps Swinging Marvel’s Agent Carter “Time and Tide” Review by Brandon Wolfe Where last week’s two-hour premiere was packed to the gills with series-establishing exposition, Agent Carter slows its roll this week, taking a breath and allowing us to get to know our protagonists and the situations they occupy. Though she has had a firm place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for going on four years now, Peggy Carter is still a character we aren’t intimately acquainted with. Her role in Captain America: The First Avenger was fairly thin. She was little more than a tough-bird love interest to Steve Rogers, even if Hayley Atwell’s performance was richer than what was on the page. That film also skirted the plight inherent to a woman of that era working in such an overwhelmingly male-dominated field. Carter had an inordinate amount of agency in the film, rubbing elbows with government and military bigwigs without being met with any documented

Read on for the review of the Agent Carter premiere. Marvel’s Agent Carter “Now is Not the End” / “Bridge and Tunnel” Review by Brandon Wolfe Out of all the characters that have appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’m not sure that Agent Peggy Carter would have been my first choice for a television spin-off. That’s not a swipe at Hayley Atwell’s steely American agent (with a British accent), who was perfectly fine in Captain America: The First Avenger , but this wasn’t a character that seemed to necessitate further exploration on an expanded canvas. Add to that the fact that Carter was landlocked from the rest of the active Marvel Universe due to her existence in the 1940s, making the opportunities for movie crossovers virtually impossible, or at least less significant (even Cap himself is frozen in her timeline and therefore unavailable for cameos), and it didn’t seem like a show about Carter would prove a fruitful endeavor toward Marvel’s hyper-synergistic approach