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Agents of Shield - Season 4

Yeah, the Watchdogs themselves are kind of meh, luckily that story has had Daisy and Robbie to make it interesting.
I'm glad we've got the whole team together now.
The Lola/Charger chase scene was a lot of fun.
I wasn't to surprised when Jake turned out to be a bad guy.
I liked that they at least joked about Jake and Ghost Rider falling into the fireworks before the explosion. Stuff like that can make a scene like that funny rather than eye roll inducing.
It's good to know Simmons wasn't totally oblivious when it came to Aida.
There are plenty of other examples. Dollhouse started out looking like a "client-of-the-week" show about Echo using her programmed personalities to help out various people in need, but evolved into a hardcore science fiction epic about how the technology to copy and overwrite minds led to the collapse of civilization. Even Orphan Black started out looking like it was going to be a police procedural with Sarah pretending to be a cop and trying to keep her partner from finding out, but that status quo lasted barely four weeks. I figured out some years back that the first few episodes of a show are mostly about appeasing cautious execs, making the show look like it fits a safe, conventional formula so as to get it on the air, and it's only when you get past the first 5-6 episodes or so that a show really begins to establish its true identity.

Sometimes this can backfire, though, since the same conventionality that appeals to executives can alienate genre fans. Threshold lost viewers rapidly because the first few episodes seemed repetitive and formulaic, and was even pulled from the air with 4-5 episodes not yet shown -- but when they were finally aired on Syfy, literally the very first episode after cancellation began the show's aggressive move away from repetitive formula and toward what would've been a constantly changing status quo as the alien invaders got more and more successful (to the point that they were actually considering renaming the show each season -- Foothold for season 2 and Stronghold for S3). And Syfy's own 2007 Flash Gordon started out shying away from its alien-world premise and trying to emulate Smallville with a largely Earthbound approach, so by the time they moved away from that 7-8 episodes in and started embracing the Mongo side of the story more, eventually abandoning Earth altogether, they'd already lost most of their audience, and even though the last 2/3 of the season was vastly better than the first 1/3, most people never saw its improvement and it was cancelled. Both shows might've succeeded if they'd started out being the shows they ended up being, instead of trying to camouflage themselves as something safer and duller.
That attitude did backfire with me and Person of Interest. I started it, but gave up after a couple episodes when it looked like it was just another case of the week procedural. I didn't go back to it until Season 3 or 4, after years of hearing people rave about it.
 
I'm sure that the Watchdogs are just a front for, or working for, a larger threat. In the comics they were a front for the Red Skull.
 
Really enjoyed the episode. This whole story is one of the most interesting series of episodes in the show, for me.

I also love the way Ghost Rider got his chian. (So I guess the people who were arguing about who the flaming chain in the ads was referencing were actually all correct ;))
 
That attitude did backfire with me and Person of Interest. I started it, but gave up after a couple episodes when it looked like it was just another case of the week procedural. I didn't go back to it until Season 3 or 4, after years of hearing people rave about it.

That was one where the network and the producers were constantly at odds over how much to stress the episodic vs. arc elements. It was a rather extreme case, in that we didn't begin to get an inkling of what the series as a whole was really about (the emergence of strong AI and its consequences) until the start of season 2, and that didn't really start to become a central thread until the end of season 2. So instead of taking a half-dozen episodes or so to start easing into the core themes, it took more like two years. It's a show that requires a degree of patience, but that patience is greatly rewarded eventually.

Still, I think that in some ways, CBS's insistence on keeping the procedural, client-of-the-week element throughout the series was to its benefit, because it underlined the core theme that individual lives are just as important as the big picture and should not be sacrificed in its name.


I'm sure that the Watchdogs are just a front for, or working for, a larger threat. In the comics they were a front for the Red Skull.

We've already met Parminder Nagra's character, the senator (?) who's working for the larger global organization using the Watchdogs as a front. Although I really hope it isn't Hydra this time. I'm so sick of Hydra.
 
People have been bitching about the low ratings ever since the first season. This show's strength has always been in the delayed viewing audience, and the season premiere with Ghost Rider brought in the show's largest delayed viewing audience ever.

Overnights and Nielsen's are just irrelevant nowadays.
 
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Pity the ratings are so awful, I assume the 4th will be the last.
Maybe. It tends to have live+7 ratings gains that are well above average.

It would be sad to lose all these characters now, as I've really grown attached to them.

It's good to know Simmons wasn't totally oblivious when it came to Aida.
That was awesome.
I'm glad the science team can all be back on the same page now.

And I also liked the line "Whose life did Fitz save with the lie?"
"Yours."
 
Poor Lola. What happened to her "flight functionality" and why won't Coulson let Mack fix her?

Something is bound to go awry with Aida now that she's literally out of the closet, and there's trouble brewing since Simmons was able to spot that she was an android. That was a great scene when Aida was talking to Coulson about her hands and he replied that he's an amputee, too. Close call, but also kind of touching.

The fight between Fuse and GR was pretty good, especially the last-minute save when GR caught the flaming chain. Also when GR dragged Fuse's body out of the festive inferno and said, "You said alive, right?" :rommie: And it was sure lucky for Coulson and company that all those fireworks knew enough to explode straight up.

I'm glad Daisy is back with the group, but I wonder how much she really can be back. Coulson was pretty grim, happy that she was okay, but not happy with the situation. And I don't think the new director will be very tolerant of her escapades.
 
We haven't seen Lola fly since late season one, when Coulson and Skye used her to escape from Deathlok on the Bus from high altitude. The way she was smoking when she landed, I assume she burned out all of her anti-grav units. I can't imagine that replacement parts are easy to find.
 
We haven't seen Lola fly since late season one, when Coulson and Skye used her to escape from Deathlok on the Bus from high altitude. The way she was smoking when she landed, I assume she burned out all of her anti-grav units. I can't imagine that replacement parts are easy to find.
They built a supposed unique single model of the world's largest airplane. More likely Director Coulson stopped before using Fury's resources for his toy.
 
Pretty sure the reason Lola's flight capabilities haven't been restored is simply because Coulson hasn't had the time to work on her. Indeed, it seems the only downtime he's really had since TAHITI was just recently with Mac and he can hardly clutter up Zepher One's loading bay with a partially disassembled Lola.
 
I love how Mack lovingly checked out the charger after the collision and said "Not a scratch" with a bit of wonder in his voice.

I really like Coulson out in the field instead of behind a desk.

Tired of the Watchdogs now- they remind me of low budget Stormtroopers with identical masks and bad aim.

With Daisy/Quake back on the team I hope she starts wearing the gauntlets (or an even cooler looking set) and we can stop the thing about how her powers are shattering her arms. Having a necessary device to help with one's powers is fine (Cyclops).
 
As I recall, he didn't say "I'm Fuse" -- he was making an analogy about fireworks and saying "I'm the fuse." It was a metaphor, not a code name.

Don't know if I'm remembering correctly, but I seem to recall him repeating the name afterwards, also. Like I say, maybe it was nothing. Probably it was nothing, even. But the confusion is understandable.
 
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