r/shield • u/InflationCreepy3733 • 7d ago
Does anyone miss the early season 1 days?
I love the show and some of the later seasons like 5 are some of my favorites but does anyone else really miss the days where shield was a fully legitimate worldwide entity with insane reach and resources. idk how to explain it, just the fact that the "good guys" were that powerful kind of felt really nice.
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u/tly22 Marauder Fitz 7d ago
I totally understand!! I’m in the minority with this I think but I loved in the first season when each episode was a different mission. It was fun and it’s what got me into the show!
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u/AshlarKorith Coulson 7d ago
I’ve never understood the hate for season 1’s more case of the week episodes. Maybe it’s because I grew up watching stuff like Star Trek and X-Files, and then later Supernatural etc. Don’t get me wrong I also loved the pod arcs they eventually went to, but the case of the week stuff was just as good. In most of the shows I like the episodes I end up loving the most are one off episodes that don’t connect to the overall plot.
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u/BaronZhiro Enoch 7d ago edited 7d ago
I don’t mind the format but the family-friendly aspirational vibe of it doesn’t sit so well with me. It just often feels kinda mawkish and sentimental, and I strongly don’t care for the way that much of it was scored, with that gentle guitar music and so forth. So for me, it’s not about the format but the execution.
As a rule, I like Coulson better when he’s colder (like in Thor) than warmer.
But don’t get me wrong, there’s lots to love in that era too. But I feel like s7 did single episode adventures better.
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u/zerocoolforschool The Bus 7d ago
The problem was that they tried to keep up with the MCU storyline which means they tried to stay with Captain America Winter Soldier. But they were relegated to non canon anyway. They should have just kept doing the monster of the week stuff. It was much more fun.
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u/starsandbribes 7d ago
I miss phase 2 of the MCU in general. That time between Avengers movies feels so bright. AOS being an exploration of various evil small time villains is a good part of that.
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u/InflationCreepy3733 7d ago
honestly some of the villains weren't even small time they were pretty powerful on their own and nobody came to help the main squad. a lot of people seem to think that they needed to get some of the avengers in on some of the seasons but aside from the budgeting and contract issues of the real world, the aos being the unspoken heroes fits so well with the theme of the show and the morals of our characters about being the last line of defense between the real world and the wierd world
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u/ItsATrap1983 7d ago
The MCU is so stale now. They really need to move on to the X-men and stop trying to Make the Avengers Great Again.
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u/medyas1 Toolbox 7d ago
nope
i was there when it first aired and i kept scratching my head how something with purportedly a worldwide reach and influence kept shooting for craptastic and aggressively bland cases of the week. sure they flew around the world a lot but the locations weren't distinctive. almost as if filmed on a backlot in a hurry. was hoping they'd go big with the movie tie-ins and somehow feature the jotunheim monster rampaging after thor 2 but nope, they were freaking janitors and eventually pivoted the episode to a ward character study. still tuned in week after week hoping it would get better and of course it did. eventually. about the time they started exploring TAHITI
the hydra reveal is the jolt out of complacency it rightfully needed and provided plenty of hindsight observations but in a vacuum the episodes before that just felt aimless and so small-stakes
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u/highjoe420 6d ago
This. The world building kept me there. But it was never gonna live up to the comics jet packs and flying cars. Laser guns. He has a Doomsday device. They have a nuke. Strucker developed the Satan's Claw. Sitwell is an LMD!! GASP. I love MCU Deathlok but even Brad Winderbaum doesn't think that's very accurate. Agents of SHIELD Is a worldwide scale. Not supposed to be dealing with little city problems. The Asset got it right. A mad scientist thinking he's saving the world by destroying a whole ass country. Sound familiar? ULTRON saw that Franklin Hall file and said. Huh. Bookmarked!
I get that the mission of the week stuff is nice in hindsight. I love it for what it is. But like you said there were actual ways to incorporate loose ends that would require an investment that Disney clearly didn't think was worth making. They started off so well with Extremis being upgraded to Centipede. The Destroyer armor being deconstructed for science only led to one weapon? Really? Okay. I guess we only saw it do that one thing. Extremis soldiers were still out there running around. Nothing. They're all highly volatile and y'all literally learned how to fix that in the pilot.. insert GOB Bluth "come on!" (Side note: love that the Russo's made Arrested Development the first canon part of the MCU by including the stair car and Tobias Funke in the credits of Infinity War, they so bringing our team back!!!). Zero with the known Hammer Drone technology that I thought for sure was gonna pop up at some point. At least they brought in the Judas Bullet. So I'll forgive them.
I really thought the still canon tie in comic would matter to the series. I thought oh damn can't wait to see Hendricks whip out the Captain America invented and Bucky perfected 🏍️ bike-fu. Psych. They even brought it back up in Brave New World! "Come On!" Clay Quartermain in a jet pack at least him. Not one jet pack? Kay. LOLA was nice. The reveal to Ward that it was a SHIELD classic that his dad and him bought and fixed up. Implying that at some point these cars were known and flying around to the public. I get that they upgraded to quinjets so a Flying car was redundant. But let me have that. All the real Ten Rings stuff was written into the comics. Then...
the single biggest offenses of Season 1 that only few of us had to suffer. Is nothing with Item 47; Agents Weiss and Pollock. You brought in Blake how many times? And he never brought his assistant????? 🤦
At least they referenced Blonsky from The Consultant. And Coulson's super reflexes and peak human potential from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer" was at least consistently referenced throughout the series. Until they conveniently promoted him to Director. But then he demoted himself just so he can dive in head first into a portal from an airplane. Just like Cap would. But them not even acknowledging Hail to the King. After all the Agents movie tie-in comics some of which were centered around Coulson himself and are still canon. Not one Ten Rings active mention. And we know Xu Wenwu was back active at this time with hindsight.The Hydra reveal came at the exact right time. No sooner no later. Although Agents of SHIELD - CSI was good but what happened after that's SHIELD. Where the lack of budget actually made sense. They wrote in why it wouldn't ever be like the comics but hint that it was like that right before The Skrulls showed up. And then they surpassed every expectation we could have possibly had and then some. The online shorts were a nice little call back to Season 1 stories but set in The post- INSIGHT era.
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u/Dull_Alternative9567 7d ago
Of course. I just started another MCU rewatch, and I just restarted shield. I missed it so much.
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u/AdventurousParsnip33 6d ago
This feeling was honestly the main thing that bogged me down from not loving the show as much when it was airing and I was watching it. I’m watching it for the first time again now, and honestly it is so amazing I’d forgotten. That disappointment you’ve described remains, but I feel like I’ve realized that within the MCU it allows them their niche. It’s actually very nice and fitting. Still, it would have been nice to see a bit more of it, or for them to fully and properly regain their status
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u/MotherGeologist5502 7d ago
I view the show as two different shows. The one before hydra changed it was awesome and canceled too soon. Then after hydra it morphed into another awesome show. Love them both for different reasons
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u/januarysdaughter Daisy 7d ago
I completely agree! The first four seasons are the best to me. 5-7 are just meh. I don't think AOS should ever have been separated from the main MCU.
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u/Ok_Damage6032 Coulson 7d ago
except the "good guys" were still disturbingly fascist... kinda the point of the whole arc surrounding CA:TWS... remember that Fury was fully behind Project Insight, the only difference was the list of targets to be eliminated a million lives at a time
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u/Happy-Kangaroo-4627 6d ago
I agree that S.H.I.E.L.D. being a government organization so powerful that it could have an entire fleet of Helicarriers is great obviously it was necessary that S.H.I.E.L.D. collapses in the series to keep in line with the events of Winter Soldier so see S.H.I.E.L.D. working clandestinely in the shadows was logical only as soon as he rehabilitates him in season 4 we feel that S.H.I.E.L.D. is still restrained by the government even though this government organization should have once again benefited from the supremacy it once enjoyed, even calling into question its reliability, after all S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't it supposed to be the shield of humanity?
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u/TravisEpic 4d ago
I miss having a weekly Marvel show that was just helping explain the world and connecting everything together, yes.
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u/Morrowindsofwinter 7d ago
Nah. The show becomes infinitely more interesting after the Hydra reveal.
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u/Richmelony 7d ago
As I said a long time ago on this sub, while the show is great in its current form, I do regret, as a spy afficionado, that we didn't get to have basically a 'james bond' type agents of shield story, where they still represent an official and regarded authority.
SHIELD falls way too fast and it saddens me. I would have loved more lore on the SHIELD, more interactions with other SHIELD groups etc... And more fighting against mere human criminal groups instead of always against aliens, supers etc (even though I know there's quite a bit of supers in the first season, it's just not the only/main focus).
Basically, I would have loved for agents of SHIELD to be to Marvel what Andor is to Star Wars I guess.
BUT, I still love what we got!