Agents of SHIELD season 5

[Morpheus 02]

Um, this kind of thing happens all the time. The original STAR TREK, for instance, routinely used the same guest-actors over and over, playing different characters, as did the later shows. See Mark Lenard, William Campbell, Diana Muldaur, Morgan Woodward, Majel Barrett, Suzy Plakson, James Cromwell, etc.

It's not "cheating." It's theater, show-biz, acting. A certain willing suspension of disbelief comes with the territory.

You DO know the examples you gave are 25-50 years ago...where fans weren't as vocal or cared as much about continuity or diversity.

I wouldn't have called it cheating as much as lazy. Now, if the actor can portray a truly different character, and that would be due to make-up and accents/voice (like Suzy Plakson did, or Tatiania Maslany or Chadwick Boseman can do today), most people wouldn't mind. SOme of the other examples others gave also had a major change due to make up, so they clearly seem different.

If they look and sound like a character they just played...COULD be a problem (at least a major annoyance).

I didn't get a good look at the AoS character, so, so far that doesn't bother me.


And back to Daisy....if she DOES become director...i hope we see it in a coda.. like 5 years later or something. ...maybe an office with paintings of Coulson and Carter and Fury in the background.

They also need to have a new tech geek that outshines Daisy's skills, but perhaps still gets humbled by her.

 

[DEWLine]

Wondering if - as we expect of the heel-turn of Qovas - the Confederacy isn't just a front for one particular branch of the Kree Empire.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's 5 years later, so it's unlikely that Daisy's hacking skills are close to useful any more.

Windows 8 was king back when she owned the field.

It's a whole new world.

 

[Morpheus 02]

It's 5 years later, so it's unlikely that Daisy's hacking skills are close to useful any more.

Windows 8 was king back when she owned the field.

It's a whole new world.

And actually this last episode she was mentioning how hard it was for her to do something (eithet look for or hide info..
I forgot the details)

I felt like at one point I was up on tech...but now feel left behind

 

[RJDiogenes]

This was a really great episode for Talbot. It was nice to see him back and alive, if not entirely in his right mind. It was kind of touching how he expected SHIELD and Coulson to come to his rescue, and how he knew it wasn't Daisy who shot him. I also liked how he stood his patriotic ground when Hale tried to tell him that America was founded on oppression and that symbols don't matter. He was in pretty tough shape there at the end, so I hope they don't kill him off after all this. It would actually be kind of nice if he became part of SHIELD.

And we also learned how Daisy's meager quake powers have the potential to destroy the planet-- all that super-soldier research is out there and Hale has plans for it. YoYo is right that everything the saw is coming true. I wonder how they will eventually break the loop.

Daisy is showing no inclination for forgiving Fitz, but Simmons is another story. Taking a cue from YoYo, she is taking Deke's existence as evidence that she and FItz are invincible. I got a kick out of Fitz's reaction to Deke being his grandson. "He is the worst." But, of course, eventually the time loop will be broken, so neither YoYo nor FitzSimmons are invincible, and that is a bit worrisome.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

I'm kind of surprised Simmons is on the whole being invincible mentality when they have both knives. Seems like the best time to destroy the original to see if the future one disappears or not. But I guess there wouldn't be any way of knowing if it was a replica, but I would have at least tried for kicks. I am dying to see how this loop gets broken.

 

[Christopher]

Seems like the best time to destroy the original to see if the future one disappears or not.

That shouldn't work, though. Generally in time travel stories, people or things that come back from a timeline that's then erased (or altered) continue to exist (or retain their original memories) in the present, because they're no longer part of the timeline when it's changed. For instance, the version of Chief O'Brien who came back from a near future where DS9 was destroyed and helped prevent its destruction. Or Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' Derek Reese, who retained the memories of the future he'd been from after the heroes' actions altered it, leading to a later meeting with a traveler from the new future whose memories differed from his. Or Kiera Cameron in Continuum's finale, though going into detail would be a spoiler. Given how common that is in fiction, I'm surprised so many people take it for granted that anything from an undone future would be erased. Yes, some time-travel stories have done it that way, but it's far from a universal rule.

And in real-physics terms, it's impossible to "erase" a timeline anyway. Either time is immutable, or a parallel timeline is created alongside the original; either way, the original timeline and everything in it continues to exist. And given that we know there already is a future in which the time loop is closed and the SHIELD time travelers failed to alter anything, that pretty much suggests that creating a parallel is the only way to change things -- as in real quantum time-travel theory, their time travel both succeeds and fails in altering the future in parallel quantum realities.

Granted, there is at least one Star Trek episode that contradicts the usual rule and has someone from an altered future disappear once it's erased -- the duplicate Picard in "Time Squared." I rationalize that by the fact that there were two Picards coexisting at the same time, and the "erasure" of the future Picard's timeline was a collapsing of the two quantum states of the universe into one, so the two simultaneous Picards also quantum-collapsed into a single one. So that might work with the multitool. But it shouldn't work with Deke any more than it did with O'Brien, because there's only one of him existing at the present time.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Yeah that's true. But, if they destroy the original and nothing happens to the future one that'd be a quick way to show that the timeline can be changed. Unless, I guess, Deke's knife gets passed down in place of Fitz's instead.

 

[Christopher]

Unless, I guess, Deke's knife gets passed down in place of Fitz's instead.

Impossible. That would only work if it were somehow magically unchanging and indestructible, so that a new knife was indistinguishable from a 74-year-old knife or a 148-year-old knife or a 222-year-old knife or a... 74 billion-year-old knife, etc. to infinity. But the older knife is visibly worn and rusted compared to the original. It couldn't possibly take the place of its younger self. (Nor could Admiral Kirk's glasses in The Voyage Home, despite the tendency of many fans to assume that they exist in some kind of infinite loop. Entropy makes that impossible.)

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Granted, there is at least one Star Trek episode that contradicts the usual rule and has someone from an altered future disappear once it's erased -- the duplicate Picard in "Time Squared." I rationalize that by the fact that there were two Picards coexisting at the same time, and the "erasure" of the future Picard's timeline was a collapsing of the two quantum states of the universe into one, so the two simultaneous Picards also quantum-collapsed into a single one. So that might work with the multitool. But it shouldn't work with Deke any more than it did with O'Brien, because there's only one of him existing at the present time.

I rational that by saying it was Q's fault, as it was intended in the original script. Of course, that's just the "A wizard did it" excuse, which can be perceived as lazy writing.

Not that I expect that to happen here. I fully expect the loop being broken with some capability they already possess but don't know it yet, and the consequences aren't inherently seen. Unless, of course, Deke does disappear, but I doubt that, too, no matter how much I wish it.

Impossible. That would only work if it were somehow magically unchanging and indestructible, so that a new knife was indistinguishable from a 74-year-old knife or a 148-year-old knife or a 222-year-old knife or a... 74 billion-year-old knife, etc. to infinity. But the older knife is visibly worn and rusted compared to the original. It couldn't possibly take the place of its younger self. (Nor could Admiral Kirk's glasses in The Voyage Home, despite the tendency of many fans to assume that they exist in some kind of infinite loop. Entropy makes that impossible.)

Well, it's not like that hasn't happened before in science fiction. I'm blanking on an obvious example at the moment, but I know it's happened somewhere. I want to say Futurama or LOST, although the former is unlikely considering how they strove towards science accuracy, even with the loopier stuff.

 

[Greg Cox]

You DO know the examples you gave are 25-50 years ago...where fans weren't as vocal or cared as much about continuity or diversity.

True, which makes the curmudgeon in me wonder when and why modern viewers got so literal-minded and resistant to the idea that, you know, movies and TV shows are just make-believe: smoke and mirrors and actors putting on a show? Whatever happened to just enjoying a movie without worrying about whether you saw the same actor in another role five movies earlier? Deep down inside, we all know these are just actors playing roles, right? it doesn't ruin the movie to recognize the actor behind the role.

At the risk of showing my age (again), I don't recall losing sleeping over the fact that Dwight Frye played at least three different characters in the old Universal FRANKENSTEIN movies. Or that Sinbad was played by a different actor in each of the three Ray Harryhausen movies. And audiences didn't seem to mind or find it confusing.

It does seem to me sometimes that modern viewers are strangely allergic to anything that might possibly remind them that what they're watching is not "real." Possibly because they have less exposure to live theater?.

There's something to be said, perhaps, for not taking this stuff quite so literally . . . .

 

[Nerys Myk]

I wonder if it's connected to the rise of video and the internet. With media literally at one's fingertips it becomes more intimate.

 

[Christopher]

Deep down inside, we all know these are just actors playing roles, right? it doesn't ruin the movie to recognize the actor behind the role.

Again, that's misunderstanding M'rk's reaction. He was just saying he thought the guy was General Greller, the character Mensah played in The Incredible Hulk.

 

[Tuskin38]

Actor pool effect still seems to happen a lot with shows shot in Vancouver.

 

[Greg Cox]

Again, that's misunderstanding M'rk's reaction. He was just saying he thought the guy was General Greller, the character Mensah played in The Incredible Hulk.

Okay, fair enough. I confess this is one of my pet peeves/hobby-horses, which seems to keep coming up in on-line discussions.

 

[Marc]

As the episode was going along I was expected that we wouldn't see any other regular cast members other than Gregg Clarke but then we got the Lighthouse scenes.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"I still outrank you." Pasdar never disappoints as Talbot.

 

[Greg Cox]

"I still outrank you." Pasdar never disappoints as Talbot.

Don't forget "calamari Mata Hari." I laughed out loud at that one.

 

[DEWLine]

As "bottle" episodes go, this worked pretty well.

 

[JD]

Can someone please explain why Coulson is suddenly pushing Daisy as the one to replace him as director of SHIELD in the near future? Not Melinda May, not Alphonso Mackenzie and not even Leo Fitz or Simmons. But Daisy . . . the same woman who only has less than five years experience as a SHIELD agent, who is not even 30 years old yet, and who has a penchant for being rash and temperamental? Why is he pushing her to become the new director so soon?

For years, I had ignored the accusations that Skye aka Daisy Johnson aka Quake was the show’s Mary Sue. I began harboring suspicions when the show runners made Andrew Garner’s death more about Daisy than Melinda May, who was the man’s ex-wife. But this new story arc about Daisy becoming the new SHIELD director once Coulson bites the dust in the near future . . . this was the last straw.

This is just ridiculous. Typical MCU. Just when you think they’ve got control of the story, they screw it up with something stupid.

May is too old? She's only in her 50s right now. She's at the right age to take control of SHIELD, if Coulson bites the dust. Hell, both him and May are too young to retire anyway.

Besides, I'm talking about the near future . . . in a month or two down the road. Right now, Daisy is TOO YOUNG, she's too inexperienced and she's also too immature. Christ, May had to lecture Daisy on keeping her emotions in check and falling back on her training . . . in this episode. Mack has already proven that he's capable of being a leader in both Season 3 and earlier this season. Jemma had experience being a top SHIELD official in early Season 4.



So what? That was the comics. And honestly? The idea of Daisy being SHIELD's director at a young age is utterly ridiculous! Whoever wrote that must have been high on drugs or wallowing in LaLa Land.

This is all bullshit. If Daisy ends up leading the others at the end of this season, I'll have no choice but to regard this whole thing as a complete failure.

It's a bit odd to be reacting like this now, when Coulson has been preparing her to take over for him pretty much from the moment her brought her into S.H.I.E.L.D. back in the pilot. I've assumed that was the endgame for the character going all the way back to the first or second season.

I did not expect to get a big flashback episode for Hale, so that aspect of this one was a surprise. It was interesting getting to see more of the inner workings of Hydra, and I loved getting to see Whitehall again, along with young versions of Sitwell and Strucker.
We got some great stuff for Talbot here. I especially loved his and Coulson's different reactions to the food and Ruby ignoring them in the cafeteria.
The fact that Fitzsimmons and Yo-Yo all think they're invincible, makes me think that at least one of them will die.
I loved Fitz reaction to finding out Deke is his and Simmons' grandson.