Names and faces

Christina Aguilera said a season away from The Voice was the break that she needed to get reinvigorated - for herself, the show and the contestants. She was back in one of the show’s signature red chairs Monday night, when the hit talent competition’s fifth season premiered on NBC. In West Hollywood, Calif., last week, Aguilera said the show was taking a bit of a toll on her - coupled with her demanding life outside of it, including being a mother to her 5-year-old son, Max. “As artists, we need to feel like we’re appreciated and we’re understood and we’re given the breathing room because we’re constantly in front of the camera giving, giving, giving, giving. And then I’m a mother on top of that, and it’s giving, giving, giving at home. And it’s like, when do I get something back?” she said. Aguilera said she’s teaching this year’s crop of singing hopefuls to seek that balance between life and work. “It’s learning how to better care and protect and nurture yourself,” she said. “I’m giving these kids that coaching advice on my team this year and I’m trying toget them to step, sometimes away from, sorry, the competition of it and just live and breathe into music and remember why you’re up there on that stage.”

A movie-size blockbuster is a rarity on the small screen, but Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D boasts the pedigree to make a run at it. The drama series, which debuts tonight on ABC,has the comic-book heritage and the added benefit of hitmaker Joss Whedon (The Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as co-creator and executive producer. That is why Brett Dalton considers himself a very fortunate actor to be playing Grant Ward, a combat and espionage expert serving with the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. “Nobody’s more lucky than me to get this part, and I know that I won the Lotto on this,” said Dalton in a Los Angeles interview. His credits include Army Wives and the part of President Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert in the TV movie Killing Lincoln.Dalton said he considers himself well-steeped in the world of comic book-based films and is partial to the tongue-in-cheek asides of Marvel properties such as Iron Man, compared with the darker tone of DC Comics as exemplified by Batman. A sense of humor is part of Marvel’s Agents as well. “It goes with the reality of the moment, but it’s not afraid to give a wink now and then and not take itself seriously,” Dalton said.