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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6288864" data-attributes="member: 37579">Which is the Catch-22: either they tease that they’re an established group and risk spoiling a blockbuster movie (and causing Nerd Rage) or they keep that subtle and hidden and make them seem unconnected (and causing Nerd Rage).I think the show took the position of trusting the audience would stick around long enough for the reveal. A ballsy move.It went from being record breaking to merely the #3 show. Last week was too soon for there to be a bump. Word-of-mouth takes some time.Really, Neilsen ratings mean little now, as does time slot. That’s a problem for shows from 1994 not 2014. The shakiness of the first season and rating drop likely meant people just moved it from “must-watch-right-now” to “I’ll DVR and watch in a couple days”. DVRs are fifteen years old now. The success of the show will also be measured in DVD sales and how it does on streaming, as well as the buzz the next coming days. ABC had to know going in that the first season was going to be a struggle, that things were going to be weird until the paradigm shift. Getting characters is likely an issue, what with even B-list characters being “dibbed”. We’re getting Iron Fist as a TV show and a Doctor Strange movie. Time is likely as much of an issue that budget. Special FX take time as well as money, and extravagant CGI takes a long time to look good. But they don’t have that much more time to make an SFX heavy episode than a regular episode. Sorry, no. Triplett is original as far as I know. Likely created to be the “obvious” Hydra agent. I assume you mean Ward. Unless there’s a “Wade” I’m missing.We don’t need a replacement for Ward. Ward had a role in the show as “the muscle” when May was “the pilot”. Once she returned to Action Girl status, Ward became superfluous. I was expecting him to die, causing drama with May and Skye. During the speech between him and Skye in the closet I was taking bets with my wife regarding his fate. Going eeeeevil works as well. Ward being villain would explain why they didn’t make him too likable. You don’t want everyone’s favourite character becoming a evil. Making him the fan favourite would just add pressure to have him redeemed, like Faith in Buffy. This also deflates some of the “Ward is bland” criticisms of the show. Skye is the character most people want to see replaced. I think I’d still rather have her planned story arc completed rather than see her unceremoniously written out, just so the time with her served a purpose and wasn’t wasted. Sunk cost fallacy and all. I think the problem is the Mary Sue quality of the character, which wouldn’t be a problem with a solid actress. Chloe Bennet just isn’t convincing at doing what the writers/producers want the character to do. That will likely get better as the writers get a feel for the actress’ range.  The first season has a few established characters. In the 17 episodes we have Graviton, Blizzard, Lorelei, Agents John Garrett, Deathlok, and Victoria Hand. Plus Fury, Jasper Sitwell, and Maria Hill from the movies. But two of those are more origins than full villain appearances. I also think they wanted to establish the dynamic between the characters and explore their backgrounds. Establish the characters before things get crazy. Looking back, there are no real “wasted” episodes. Like Dollhouse, every episode seemed to serve some purpose in retrospect. This season is really the origin story of the show, the set-up for craziness to follow. But, unfortunately, a few episodes longer than desired. Pulling the rug-out at mid-season would have been better, but they were anchored to the date of Cap, set years in advance. I’d would ike to see more B-villains and threats, but I can see why they avoided that, wanting to establish the SHIELD status quo as much as possible before taking that away. They have seasons to deal with villains-of-the-week but only a few months to set-up how far SHIELD could fall, all that they’re losing.I agree that it would be nice to have someone with powers on the team. They do need the token super hero to remind everyone that it’s taking place in a fantasy world. A redeemed Deathlok would be the obvious choice, and create the most interesting tension between characters. I’m sure there’s a few others they could think of: Marvel has no shortage of B and C-list characters they need to use to avoid trademark lapses. Still, I'm always amused by people's definition of "suck". SHIELD isn't amazing, and arguably isn't good, but there's sooooo many worse shows out there. If Smallville (aka character continuity, what continuity??) can go ten seasons, SHIELD can go more.</blockquote>

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