Agents of SHIELD: Season 3 - Discussion (SPOILERS LIKELY)

[Ethros]

Eh, I thought this was the worst episode of AoS since early season 1. A 45 minute episode with 15 minutes of plot stretched along the entire runtime, and fairly mediocre plot at that.

I didn't think it was that bad, but I was expecting there to be a twist or maybe some kind of explanation in the last 10 minutes or so... instead there wasn't. It was like, they kiss, which everyone saw coming 50 lightyears away, then she gets rescued leaving him behind (which we already knew,) the end.
I felt like it needed a bit more oomf

 

[Marsden]

What annoyed me is that they never considered harnessing the internal heat as a geothermal power source. With the parts they had left over, couldn't they have rigged up some kind of steam turbine to generate an electrical current?

I thought a thermocouple could utilize the heat energy, they must have had some different metals available.

How awesome would it have been if the astronaut would have said his name was John Jameson?

I was hoping for that all episode.

 

[cylkoth]

Now I'm wondering what will happen if-- okay, when-- they get Daniels back. Will Simmons still be stuck on him, or will she realize it was just a function of being trapped together? Good old Fitz. We can imagine what it was like for him to listen to that story, but there was no hesitation on his part to help get Daniels back.

Sigh. I was hoping that Fitz and Gemma could just get together. Of course, it can't be that simple.

This being a Whedon show, after resucing him, Simmons discovers he's HYDRA! He escapes after stealing Fitz' cellphone battery tech, uses it to build a superweapon and delivers it to Ward.

And then Jemma tells Ftiz...








''I'm pregnant..''

 

[Star Wolf]

Eh, I thought this was the worst episode of AoS since early season 1. A 45 minute episode with 15 minutes of plot stretched along the entire runtime, and fairly mediocre plot at that.

I didn't think it was that bad, but I was expecting there to be a twist or maybe some kind of explanation in the last 10 minutes or so... instead there wasn't. It was like, they kiss, which everyone saw coming 50 lightyears away, then she gets rescued leaving him behind (which we already knew,) the end.
I felt like it needed a bit more oomf

I have the same reaction that I had to Sicario, okay but without moving the story arc I have no wish to watch a second time as I have most episodes after The Winter Soldier. After The Martian Simmons survival story was just okay but nothing special.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Eh, I thought this was the worst episode of AoS since early season 1. A 45 minute episode with 15 minutes of plot stretched along the entire runtime, and fairly mediocre plot at that.

I didn't think it was that bad, but I was expecting there to be a twist or maybe some kind of explanation in the last 10 minutes or so... instead there wasn't. It was like, they kiss, which everyone saw coming 50 lightyears away, then she gets rescued leaving him behind (which we already knew,) the end.
I felt like it needed a bit more oomf

Quite a bit of time elapsed between that kiss and her rescue. There was that shot of their two cots pushed together; which is a very telling image.

****

After it was revealed that he was an astronaut, I was hoping his name turned out to be Vance Astrovik. John Jameson would have been cool, too.

 

[Corran Horn]

Maybe it's craven of me and I shouldn't expect this kind of way of psychological thinking from a lighthearted show from Disney, but I find it very hard to believe that a man in this kind of position wouldn't want to have sex at that moment. Consensual or not. Instead, what is presented is a predictable lovey-dovey, survival romance.

Are there documented instances where people who've been in isolation suddenly become maniac rapemonsters when presented with the first female they see? That's pretty disturbing.

I do think it was contrived that they paired up - maybe if it'd been clear Simmons had given up hope of rescue in some way. It's never been apparent, though, that she felt the same way about Fitz as he did about her I suppose.

Still, if time had been running faster on the other side of the portal and something like 5 years had gone by I would have bought it more. That'd be long enough to pair them up somewhat naturally and short enough that they wouldn't have to age the actress or have her scientific skills degrade through lack of use.

 

[Reverend]

^When you have only one person and some murderous kelp for company, a desolate landscape and no sun, 6 months may as well be five years.

Also keep in mind that Simmons was on her own for the first month or so and didn't become intimate until something like four and a half month later when she was at a particularly low point and needed someone.

I'd say that's a fairly respectable amount of time under the extreme circumstances.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Jemma didn't seem to be dating anyone since we've known her?

It could have been years (or never?) since she'd last had sex.

Although...

During her Hydra days, a proper handler (who didn't care about Jemma's squeamish sensitivity if it got in the way of her job?) would have ordered Simmons to get a boyfriend from the Hydra labour pool. Someone with more clearance or access to better intelligence she'd have difficulty accessing on her own.

Who was Jemma's Hydra Boyfriend?

 

[Corran Horn]

Also keep in mind that Simmons was on her own for the first month or so and didn't become intimate until something like four and a half month later when she was at a particularly low point and needed someone.

Well, I think the argument is - if it were Fitz, would he have 'needed someone'?

 

[Reverend]

Jemma didn't seem to be dating anyone since we've known her?

It could have been years (or never?) since she'd last had sex.

Although...

During her Hydra days, a proper handler (who didn't care about Jemma's squeamish sensitivity if it got in the way of her job?) would have ordered Simmons to get a boyfriend from the Hydra labour pool. Someone with more clearance or access to better intelligence she'd have difficulty accessing on her own.

Who was Jemma's Hydra Boyfriend?

Somehow I can't picture a Hydra office/lab romance. I mean I physically can't. I tried and my brain lodged a protest and now all it'll do is play that really annoying song on a loop. You know the one.

Also keep in mind that Simmons was on her own for the first month or so and didn't become intimate until something like four and a half month later when she was at a particularly low point and needed someone.

Well, I think the argument is - if it were Fitz, would he have 'needed someone'?

Yes he would and he did. It was Mac and his low point was last year. Needing someone dose not always require copulation...though if his head-Simmons sub-conscious's reaction was anything to go by, he at least considered it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Somehow I can't picture a Hydra office/lab romance. I mean I physically can't. I tried and my brain lodged a protest and now all it'll do is play that really annoying song on a loop. You know the one.

There's a communist spy on the base in Manhattan, it's an interesting c-plot watching him squirm and panic as intelligence division circles the boy, but there was a middle management shuffle that required this turncoat a new Handler. Enter Mamie Gummer who doesn't fully introduce herself as his new handler until after she finishes blowing him.

Sex = Control.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Just guessing but I think: Kree. Inhuman disposal. Probably broken. Somewhere in Kree space. The janitor. eBay. SHIELD. Hydra. For Science!!! Millennia.

The janitor. That makes sense.

Yeah I don't know where some people get the idea that a man left on his own for an extended period will turn into a sex crazed maniac at the very first sight of a woman.
There's plenty of very real castaway stories where the man doesn't rape the first woman he sees. Indeed, I'm not sure I've ever heard of a single such instance. Once rescued, most of them are just glad to be back and desperate for a hot meal. It's a pretty sexist assumption when you stop to think about it.

Sign of the times.

Chuck Austin and Ed Brubaker are Marvel Comics writers.

Must be after I quit. I don't recognize the names.

This being a Whedon show, after resucing him, Simmons discovers he's HYDRA! He escapes after stealing Fitz' cellphone battery tech, uses it to build a superweapon and delivers it to Ward.

And then Jemma tells Ftiz...








''I'm pregnant..''

Noooooooooo!

 

[Richard Baker]

I think they did the alien planet environment pretty well. Strange enough to look like they were really elsewhere but not gratuitously bizarre.

 

[Christopher]

I would've liked it to be a little more bizarre. Filmmakers never really do enough to make planets seem alien. There are things I've often wished they'd do, like using different lenses to make the horizon seem closer (for a smaller planet) or farther (for a larger planet). And these days it'd be easy to use digital color correction to give an alien hue to the sky or the vegetation.

 

[Reverend]

I would've liked it to be a little more bizarre. Filmmakers never really do enough to make planets seem alien. There are things I've often wished they'd do, like using different lenses to make the horizon seem closer (for a smaller planet) or farther (for a larger planet). And these days it'd be easy to use digital color correction to give an alien hue to the sky or the vegetation.

On a TV budget, there's really not much you can do outside of digital grading and sky replacement.

Not that there really needs to be to be honest. If the photos from Mars, Titan and even Pluto are any judge then a rocky desert wasteland looks pretty much the same out there as what you'd find here on Earth. Rocks are rocks, sand is sand and geology is shaped by the same rules of physics no matter which galaxy you happen to be in.

Now you can get some pretty unique and outlandish looking rock formations here on earth, but unless they have the budget to travel half way around the world to film there, then it's hardly a reasonable option.

 

[Greg Cox]

The episode seemed like a one hour one shot to me with no movement in the season's arc going up against the World Series opener.

Why in the world does every episode have to "move the season's arc"? Some of the best TV I've seen has been single standalone episodes. Like, ya know, Star Trek.

I confess this one of my hobby-horses, too. We're so conditioned to think that serialized storylines are automatically better than standalones that any episode that doesn't advance an arc plot from Point A to B is dismissed as "filler."

Doesn't matter how brilliantly acted or directed it is, or how pithy the dialogue is, or how thrilling the action is . . .

Despite the fact that it's often the terrific standalone episodes that age the best, as opposed to that episode that existed primarily to set things up for that other episode.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I would've liked it to be a little more bizarre. Filmmakers never really do enough to make planets seem alien. There are things I've often wished they'd do, like using different lenses to make the horizon seem closer (for a smaller planet) or farther (for a larger planet). And these days it'd be easy to use digital color correction to give an alien hue to the sky or the vegetation.

They used color correction to make perpetual night, which wasn't too bad.

 

[Christopher]

They used color correction to make perpetual night, which wasn't too bad.

Which wouldn't have been so bad if there weren't already a thousand other movies that used digital color correction to make everything look uniformly green or orange because of some bizarre filmic theory that those are the colors audiences respond to most or whatever. It didn't hurt, but they could've done more.

 

[Reverend]

^Filming day-for-night is a practice that goes all the way back in the silent era. Generally speaking it's the only way to effectively shoot exterior night scenes on a location where you want to be able to actually *see* anything. Complaining about that is like complaining about the use of foley. It's how it is done.

Plus it wasn't night so much as a perpetual twilight of reflected light from the two or three planets, which I'm assuming is a gas giant primary and another moon. So at least there's a good reason for it.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

The episode seemed like a one hour one shot to me with no movement in the season's arc going up against the World Series opener.

Why in the world does every episode have to "move the season's arc"? Some of the best TV I've seen has been single standalone episodes. Like, ya know, Star Trek.

I confess this one of my hobby-horses, too. We're so conditioned to think that serialized storylines are automatically better than standalones that any episode that doesn't advance an arc plot from Point A to B is dismissed as "filler."

Doesn't matter how brilliantly acted or directed it is, or how pithy the dialogue is, or how thrilling the action is . . .

Despite the fact that it's often the terrific standalone episodes that age the best, as opposed to that episode that existed primarily to set things up for that other episode.

Well put, Greg.

Whenever I compile my favorite episodes of a TV series, they are almost exclusively stand-alone stories.

"The Visitor"
"Jose Chung's From Outer Space"
"City on the Edge of Forever"
"Blink"
"Fan Fiction"
"Once More, With Feeling"
"Pine Barrens"
"Home"
"Inner Light"
"The Briefcase"

Maybe it's my love of anthology shows talking, but there's something great about watching a complete story -- beginning, middle, end -- unfold in the span of an hour or half-hour. Very satisfying.