Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. season one

Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has unsurprisingly been confirmed for season two (with a miniseries for Agent Carter as well) so the foreshadowing in Beginning Of The End will pay off. Yay!

Very much a season of two halves - pretty neatly divided by those towards the end that got comic cover style posters and those that didn’t, although I’d include the Joss Whedon pilot, T.A.H.I.T.I. and some others among the essentials.

For those who drifted and might consider looking back now it’s all out there, all kinds of spoilers below...

For starters, taking a look at my predictions for the season:

What’s up with Coulson not being dead was a safe bet. May still has some mystery, but Ward has largely been explained. I was nearly right about Centipede, just went for the wrong superscience conspiracy.

Invisible spies didn’t happen but the possibility was raised early: “Invisible? Cool! ... But terrible.”
Previous aliens, check, twice. Neither were classic “Grey” styles... although “Nordic” might fit Asgardians.
No evil A.I. - between Zola and Ultron, kinda covered. No robots, but cyborgs. And some drones.
No zombies. Give it time. A dimension-hopping “ghost” played for scares, and Blackout was a vampire in the comics and here is sort of a living pseudoscience Lasombra.
No time travel. Give it time. Ha ha.
No out-of-genre standalone episode, but that may be more a season two and later thing. And the whole show shifts genre and format towards the end.
No holiday special. Next time, guys?

So plenty of room for most of my ideas to happen.

So what did we get?

We got a pretty fun weird-thing-of-the-week show - which then cranked up the crazy after Captain America: The Winter Soldier crashed three Helicarriers into its original premise.

We got a more interesting motivation for Graviton than the comics ever gave him - although he hasn’t come back yet, I look forward to it.

We got this up to the mid-season break, and then a refreshed show out of the gate, boosted greatly by the format change.

We got a much better Wonder Woman TV show than DC’s last pilot.

We got the bit where Coulson and Skye have to escape from Deathlok at five thousand feet in a broken flying car. Surely that alone makes this show worthwhile.

We got a finale absolutely full of well-earned smackdowns, great gags, heartstring-tugging, punch-the-air moments and minor season two setups.

And we got Philip Coulson, Director Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

See you in the autumn!