How does ‘Agents of Shield’ do it?

Unlike many I enjoyed the first season of Agents of Shield mainly because it gave life to the great character that is Phil Coulson. I liked the nobility and humour of the character and his supporting role was one I could particularly identify with. I am always at my best supporting others and Coulson epitomised this in the Marvel Movie Universe. I was delighted they resurrected him from his death at the hand of Loki and given him his own show.

SHIELD has always intrigued me. Those men and women who try to regulate and monitor the superheroes who in many ways are just as heroic without superpowers. They show evolved nicely and the Season 1 twist led well into Season 2. The programme built well but Season 5 very much felt like a finale. This maybe because the writers felt it was. The show against many expectations keeps being renewed.

It was at this point then that I reached the start of Season 6. Coulson was gone. SHIELD re-established with Mack in command. There’s a sub plot about finding Fitz, Daisy has embraced her powers as Quake and May and the others are back to the day job. The time travel, sacrifices and world saving exploits of last season seem hard to top. It was with actually a sense of duty rather than enthusiasm that I watched the first episode. In my mind I was fed up with Agents of Shield it had done its job and successfully pulled itself out of the fire several times before.

The first episode was very much an establishing episode, where was everyone a year after the events of season 5. What were they doing and why? Slowly the new big bad was introduced, soldiers emerging from some kind of rift. Slowly I found myself drawn back into the narrative. I cared little for the ‘Search for Fitz’ plot but gravitated more to the exploration of SHIELD as an organisation which I felt was always at its best working within and alongside the law.

As the show progressed my interest piqued, the portal was some kind travel mechanism, and the guy getting trapped means it must be dimensional, perhaps alternate universe? The science fiction fan in me began running through permutation.

A standard action sequence began at the end with as usual great effects and people blowing up everywhere and then the final moments. Boots jump down from a truck and I knew. I knew then who it was and I was hooked again. I m not saying this will survive the whole season I do seem to have a case of SHIELD fatigue, but I m waiting for the next episode and that’s all a TV producer needs. Its not the high drama of Game of Thrones or the thought provoking morality of Star Trek or even the humour of the Good Place but somehow every time even against my best attempts Agents of Shield draws me back in for another slice of goofy action.