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Agents of SHIELD has gotten much better since the show decided it didn't have to behold to the movies.

Never met anyone.  But I've never really pursued it.  The only genre celebrity I've ever had any real interaction with is Jason David Frank.

New topic: Infinity War in relation to the TV shows:

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Season 1 of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD tried to be a close tie-in to the movies.  There were cameos (Nick Fury), full guest appearances (Sif), and direct connections (a cleanup from Thor: The Dark World and a huge tie-in with Captain America: the Winter Soldier).

After that....not so much.  There were loose tie-ins to Avengers: Age of Ultron, a few asides to people like Hulk and Captain America, and references to the Sokovia Accords.  But that's about it.  As ireactions has talked about at length, there's a weak connection between Marvel TV and Marvel Films, and it only goes one way.  The TV shows reference the movies, but the movies don't reference the TV shows.

It's even weaker on the Netflix shows.  There are references to the Battle of New York, but they're very vague about it.  I'm not sure about other shows like Cloak & Dagger and the Runaways.

At the end of the day, it's no big deal.  These shows are doing their own thing, and that's fine.  Not everything needs to be connected, and even when they're dealing with huge disasters, there's usually not any real reason why the Avengers would show up in the Netflix shows or vice versa.  Even when they're in New York in the movies (like Dr. Strange or in Infinity War), they'd have to be in Hell's Kitchen for any of the Defenders to show up.  So while a cameo like that would be cool, it would be more coincidence than fate.

But Infinity War ends with half the humans on the planet being turned to dust.  That's not something these shows can just turn a blind eye to.  Even if all the Defenders/Agents of SHIELD/Runaways/Cloak & Dagger all happen to escape Thanos' wrath....this is an insanely big development in what's supposed to be a shared universe.  And it won't be resolved for a year.

I don't watch Runaways or Cloak and Dagger.  Maybe they all take place before Infinity War and won't ever reach that point in MCU.  Same could be said of the Netflix shows....which could hypothetically take place at any time between Avengers and Infinity War without many mile markers to tell us when things happened (no one has mentioned Spider-Man, for example, so we can assume that he hasn't made an appearance yet).

But Agents of SHIELD has always been the one to tie in the most (aside from the sidequel series Agent Carter).  And while the show has shied away from too many connections in recent seasons, they did mention that something was happening in New York on the most recent episode (airing concurrently with Infinity War).

Half the human population can't disappear and that not affect Agents of SHIELD.  It just can't.

The one way out would be if, 1) the show gets cancelled and 2) the show wraps up its current storyline quickly.  People have analyzed it a bit - the fight between Iron Man/Strange/Spider-Man and Thanos' generals takes place during daylight.  A later scene takes place at night in Great Britain, and another scene takes place during the day in New York.  Then, the final scene takes place in Africa (during the day) and America (during the day).

It seems like Infinity War takes place over the course of a single day.  Maaaaaaaayyyyyybbee two.  Either way, New York is referenced on SHIELD at night (in America), meaning that Stark/Spider-Man/Strange are, at the very least, on their way to Titan.  Vision and Scarlett Witch are, at the very least, with Cap and his team.

So the remainder of SHIELD has to take place in the remainder of the movie or it has to be referenced.  And, to be fair to the universe, some of the primary agents are going to have to disappear.

Will they?  Or will this finally be the moment when Marvel TV and Marvel Films decide to go their own way?

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I think that makes sense.  The movie does seem to strongly imply that Strange is pretty cool with what was happening.  Thanos even remarks that they didn't use the time stone when they could've.  Strange didn't because he was okay losing.

Well, I don't know if you're going to like it.  If you're not invested in the universe, it might just be a lot of noise.

I'd just ask that you try and appreciate what they were able to accomplish.  Whether or not you like what they've done, they've done something that has never been done before.  And they turned it into a movie that is both, somehow, entertaining and makes sense.

HOLY CRAP.  Spoilers.  Spoilers forever.....

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I don't know if this movie is good.  I don't know if it's too much or too many characters or if they went in such a strong direction that it doesn't work for people.  I thought it was an amazing achievement to get all these characters together and give them stuff to do.  Every character, I'm fairly certain, gets a moment to shine or a little character piece.  The movie is long but it takes time to breathe.  There are character moments...if not character arcs for a lot of them.

And the movie is brutal.  I feel, just watching it, like I've fought Thanos himself.  The movie more than makes up for all the teasing because this guy is a bad ass motherf*cker. 

I legitimately came out of the movie crushed.  So many people die, and even though I don't care about all of them, some of them were just gutting.  In particular, Peter....begging for his life. 

It's gonna get undone.  They can't wipe out all the new characters and only leave characters that make $50 billion.  They needed to sorta clear the decks so that they can give the originals (who are all still alive) a strong sendoff.  At this point, it almost seems like Thanos is going to have to have a change of heart for it to work out (I assumed that the Time Gem would get held onto, and that that's how they'd undo it). 

It's the most downer ending for a blockbuster like this that I've ever seen.  There's a glimmer of hope in the end credits, but even that's a downer.

Again, I don't know how to even grade it.  I don't even know if I want to see it again to give it a grade...I saw it last night and I'm still struggling with how I feel about it.  But I said it earlier that I'm grading it on a curve.  And on the curve, damn, it was an impressive achievement.

You're right, I was thinking of Matthew Kim (Melting Point), who was at STAR Labs and is presumably dead.  What we both forgot was Fallout (from "The Trial of the Flash"), who hasn't been captured yet.  Per the Arrowverse wiki, he's with Tracy Brand trying to find a cure.

The Weeper also hasn't technically been captured, but DeVoe is using his powers to drug his wife so he must have some access to him (if not already taken his powers).

SQ22 is my evil doppleganger

And I think there's a bit of difference there.  If an actor plays a character differently, those traits become part of the character.  This can be on purpose or accidentally.  When Matt LeBlanc accidentally hurt his arm on Friends, it had to be written into the show.  LeBlanc was hurt....so Joey became hurt.  Rob McElhenney purposefully put on a ton of weight for Always Sunny, and they had to write it into the show.

If Jerry O'Connell played Quinn as lethargic and careless....Quinn suddenly became those traits.

Chloe was a good person throughout the show.  She showed none of the "Allison" traits.  So I can separate the two.  Maybe it's a weird place to put a divider, but it works for me. 

Cosby's a little weird because I never really watched the show growing up, and there was an episode where he drugs a bunch of people.  And he jokes about it in his standup routine.  So maybe that's a bad example.  I was just thinking of a couple different prominent examples.  I don't think Kevin Spacey's horribleness will make me enjoy something like Usual Suspects or Seven any worse.  I have a soft spot for K-PAX.

He did make me stop watching House of Cards, but that's because that show SUCKS.

Well, they're three very different things and sad in their own ways.  And I only threw Young in there at all because it was a tragedy too. 

Either way, 2 of the 8 main cast in the 1st season has been to prison (it could've been 3 if Kristin stayed in).  That's no good.

This season of Arrow hasn't been great, but it's interesting to have them take Oliver all the way back to the beginning.  It's also pretty crazy to run with this idea (fairly) that Oliver has become a better man but a worse hero over the years.

And it's interesting about Flash.  They know exactly what to do with certain characters, but they struggle, at times, to understand how to get those characters from point A to point B.  Either that, or they don't want to bother with certain things so they just add development during hiatuses.

Fantastic Four should be really easy to write, and I don't know why it hasn't worked.  They're a family that get into wacky adventures.

Why they don't just hire Brad Bird and tell him to make a live-action Incredibles movie is beyond me.

No matter what they do, they need to get Johnny Storm and Peter Parker together.  Their friendship in the Ultimate universe was pretty fun.

Yeah, but that's one of the weird things about movies in general....the people who make the advertisements (trailers and TV spots) aren't usually the people making the movie.  Every once in a while, you see moviemakers complain that something was spoiled in a trailer or a TV spot - it happens on TV too...I can remember the LOST creators getting really mad at the ABC people for "Next week on..." stuff.

At the end of the day, they both have very different goals.  The people making the trailers want to get as many people into the theaters as possible, and the moviemakers want to make the best movie they can.

But if the movie is mostly about Thor and he's not been in most of the trailers....I sorta like that.  It's better than having a great deal of the movie spoiled for me.

Well I agree and disagree.  Regarding the size of the cast and character work...it's not necessarily crucial for a lot of this in that film.  It's probably not necessary for, say, Dr. Strange to learn a valuable lesson in this movie.  All these characters aren't going to need to change and/or grow for them to serve their purpose.  He might just need to be there to say some spells, open some portals, and show how powerful the villain is.  And, I think, that's okay.

There are obviously three levels of MCU heroes - there's the original Avengers who have had solo films (so just Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America), the next gen of solo-film heroes (your Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man, the Guardians, Black Panther), and everyone else (which would include secondary heroes like Falcon and even original Avengers like Black Widow).

This movie is doing to focus, character-wise, on the originals....since these next two movies are supposed to be a passing of the torch of sorts.  Robert Downey Jr. is going to be too expensive at some point, even if he's game.  Chris Evans has said he's done.   Hemsworth said that Ragnarok energized him, but he won't do this forever.  There's only so much for the Hulk to do since he can't have solo films.

So if this movie is about Tony finally coming to terms with all he's done....with Captain America finally making the ultimate sacrifice, with Banner getting the peace he's always wanted, and Thor growing as a hero....then I think it's fine if every other character just sorta shows up and says their catchphrase.  Because, soon, it'll be their time to step up and carry the emotional weight.

The Walking Dead / Fear the Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is the #1 show that I claim to "hate watch" - I watch it even though I'm never 100% sure why.  I always kinda dread it coming back because it means I have to add it to my watching schedule even though I sorta hate the premise and hate most of the characters.  But I've lasted longer than most and have put in so much time that I'd feel weird about just abandoning it.  I've become the walking dead....

So when Fear the Walking Dead was announced, I thought it was a good time to remind myself that I don't like this show.  But then they tricked me....it was going to be a prequel.  And since the time right before and right after a zombie apocalypse is the most interesting to me (because of how many things would have to go wrong for it to happen), I was interested.  So I watched.

And then the show did what all zombie media do....it flash forwarded.  Now Fear was just The Walking Dead on the west coast with characters I still didn't love.  I wasn't necessarily hate watching it yet, but I watched because I watched.  The show started to feel a little more fresh because it started to be a little more fast and loose with its premise.  Main characters were able to change and grow, and the show kept me on my toes.

There was talk since the beginning of crossing the two shows over.  The only problem....Fear was still technically a prequel.  It had time jumped, but it hadn't time jumped that much.  So when a crossover was announced, especially around the time that Fear was wrapping up its 3rd season (when the narrative pointed toward a move to Houston), it was assumed that a logical character to cross over would be Abraham Ford.  He was a character on seasons 4-7 of the Walking Dead who was a fan favorite, was dead on the main show, and had a history in Texas.  Adding him to Fear would make sense in the timeline and would add some juice to Fear.

But then they announced that it was...Morgan.  Morgan was certainly a fan favorite, and his past is a little murky.  So even up until the premiere of Fear, the new walking theory (pun included) was that it'd fill in some gaps in Morgan's storyline.  He'd been a bit of a wanderer, and some time spent in Texas might make sense.  Or, of course, having the Fear characters start in Texas and end closer to where Morgan might be could work.

Either way, it was thought that Morgan would die on the Walking Dead so he could live on Fear the Walking Dead.

And then they did something completely different....

He didn't die.  Then started the episode of Fear in the present day with some Walking Dead characters.  Maybe it'd frame his time in Texas as some sort of flashback?  Nope.  It stays in the present day of Walking Dead and has him travel to Texas.  The whole episode is basically a pilot for "The Morgan Show" with all new characters.  Only at the end do we understand what's happened.

Morgan didn't adapt to Fear the Walking Dead.  Fear the Walking Dead adapted for Morgan.  The whole show time-jumped in some weird backdoor pilot for a spinoff of itself. 

And you know what?  It was good!  Morgan makes sense as a character who would wander from one show to another, and now the two shows work hand in hand.  More crossovers are possible, not just from main characters but factions from one show could impact factions from the other show.  And, assuming they stay in their respective places, they're also far enough apart (and transportation slow enough) that they're not going to get lost in a fog of "connected universe problems" where "why didn't that happen?"

I don't know if Morgan was moved to bolster ratings for Fear or if it was done out of story necessity....but whatever they did, it worked. 

For now

Well, and these roles could've been filled by new characters that could flesh out the world.  Or returning characters that could be secretly working for Asmodeus - like Garth.  Or it could be another young hunter that Sam and Dean try to help out (maybe to fill in for the loss of Jack) that ends up betraying them.

For the witches....bring in a new character to be a powerful witch.

For the archangel, if you want to resurrect someone, use Raphael.  Or, you know, since you already have a Michael on the show...use a rehabilitated Michael.  They're already going with "tortured Gabriel" - they could've just as easily used Michael.

Hahah that's not what I was expecting.

Poor Informant.

Well, the crux of this post is about how there's spoilers (based on legit set footage, scanned scripts, etc) and crowdsourcing spoilers through theories.  In the late 90s, there wasn't reddit.  The Expert might've had legit spoilers, but everyone knew they were spoilers.  If you didn't want to be spoiled, you didn't have to look.

What's happening now is:

1. A lot of shows/movies are mystery-based.  Back with Sliders, you couldn't spoil yourself with a theory "I think they're going to do an episode where they find Rembrandt's Caddy!" because it wasn't serialized.  Now shows are serialized mystery boxes.

2. There are these massive communities that become spoiler-creating think tanks.  They're efficient enough, as I said, that they can figure out an entire season-long mystery in one night.  And these theories are indistinguishable from spoilers now.  And theories, of course, don't have to be labelled as a spoiler because it isn't concrete.  Not only that, the transfer of information now makes it spread even faster.

One guy can have a theory about the end of Westworld Season 1....it gets spread around Reddit, where tons of evidence supporting it is added....and then someone tweets the abridged version.  Then someone sees it on Twitter and tells a group of friends what they heard.  Now a person is being spoiled by both Reddit and Twitter despite not getting it from Reddit or Twitter.

Obviously there have been spoilers forever, but the way people are being spoiled is changing.  And the idea that the Westworld people had, even though it ended up being a joke, is a creative way to try and deal with that.

This is essentially the biggest point in my mind.  If Sliders was truly more popular than we think it is, or if it was doing really well on iTunes or DVDs or Hulu or reruns.....someone would take advantage of that.  Or would, at the very least, TRY to take advantage of that.

Take Battlestar Galactica.  This was a show, like Sliders, that was saved by a letter-writing campaign.  It has a small but cult-ish following.  The brand, for some, meant something.  Original star Richard Hatch tried for *years* to bring it back, only failing because Sci-Fi went with a reboot.  It didn't work, but Galactica had a champion.  There were novels and several attempts to bring the series back into the limelight.

With Sliders, we had a Funny or Die video.  That's basically it.  The show itself has popped back up, either on DVD or in reruns, but that's been just about it.  There's no one really championing the cause (outside of us - since there's been tons of original writing about the show - just nothing approaching mainstream).  We've heard that there were attempts here and there, but I don't know if those attempts went anywhere.  We've never heard of a script being written for this feature film that was rumored to be pitched.  People seem interested in it, but no one seems to be willing to do much about it.

Like I said before, I think Jerry might have the juice to get something done somewhere.  Maybe not a feature film but a TV miniseries?  A short run somewhere like Netflix or Hulu or Freeform or wherever?  But that would depend on who owns the rights and whether or not it'd be worth it for someone to get them.

So with no real champion, we're left with "the brand isn't popular enough to warrant a reboot" (yet).  Otherwise, someone would've done it.  I say "yet" because, eventually, everything will have been remade and Sliders will get its shot

Yeah but if Willa Holland is off the show, how could they pull off being married?  Would Willa come back for guest spots (like when Lyla shows up for Diggle scenes)?  Or would they be married but she never appears?

I do hope Thea gets a happy ending (you started it), but if the Season 7 big bad kills her, it could be a reason for Roy to rejoin the team.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/41458 … ular-arrow

This is an odd development considering what happened a couple episodes ago...

I still hate that Gabriel is back.

I finally saw Black Panther.  SPOILERS below:

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I liked it a lot.  I wasn't really aware of much of the character's history, but I really thought it sold him and his world.  It all felt very real, even though Wakanda has barely been mentioned in the previous MCU movies.  I thought just about everything about it (the acting, the worldbuilding, the costumes, the action, the character arcs) were above average for MCU.  For a first movie, it might be up there with the first Iron Man.

And the villain might be the best in the MCU altogether.  He's a guy who, while twisted, really makes some strong points about how Wakanda should work in the modern world.  And it's one of those rare movies where the villain essentially changes the path of the hero.

The racial stuff is pretty heavy-handed, but I think it's important for it to be heavy-handed at this point in our history.  I think it's important for black kids to have a hero like T'Challa right now, and I'm very glad that they're feeling empowered by him.  And I hope that they didn't make Killmonger's message *too* empathatic because it could, obviously be dangerous.

It was really fun and well-paced.  Considering how important the Black Panther characters are going to be in Infinity War, I'm glad that I saw it in time.

I think the Iris stuff makes a lot of sense.....but I don't think they handled it very well.  Yes, it's been constant, but I don't think it was organically sewn into the material.  I think it's a great fit, and I think they could've easily sold it.  But, instead, she was just the leader without any on-screen discussion of it.

It's all sorta strange to me because I think her story could be really strong.  She wants to be a reporter, but she also wants to be a part of the team.  She sees all these people around her getting powers and taking charge of their lives, and she's just stuck in this weird limbo.  She got a taste of running the team during Flashpoint, and she got more when Barry was gone.  It's good, but it doesn't feel earned.

I thought the fight between Oliver and Diggle was cruel, but I think that was the point.  Oliver and John were so angry at each other that they weren't trying to make good arguments - they were going for the lowest of low blows.  There's a pause before Oliver says the Andy line, and I think it's supposed to indicate that Oliver is thinking of the worst thing he can say (and then he does).

I think getting Oliver to a point where he's truly alone after building this strong family is a really cool idea, but it also doesn't really feel that earned.  I think all these grievances are petty (even the injury to Rene) and could easily be worked out if they just dropped their egos for a second and had a real conversation.

I agree that Sliders probably makes more sense as a fully recasted reboot than a sequel.  Sliders doesn't have name value, and it's hard to get buzz going about the Sliders name.  And while it's true that I don't like rebooting a series and overwriting all it's previous history, I don't think that's the primary reason why I like my idea....it's that it'd take someone like Jerry to get it off the table.  And in that case, I think Jerry would rather play Quinn again than be recast as someone like Arturo (although that would be interesting).

It'd be fun to see the gang back together again, but I'm cool bringing the show back while touching upon its history.  Maybe I went a bit too far in my mind experiment, but I figure that if Quinn ever got home, the FBI would constantly be on him from the moment he got back.  I think, sadly enough, the government would do whatever it takes to unlock the secret, and they'd need a "Smarter Quinn" like Quinn had.

So maybe he made it home, and Quinn's living under an assumed name.  Rembrandt and Wade could probably have gotten away with going back to their own lives since they don't have the tech knowledge to help the FBI.  I could see Arturo disappearing into retirement never to be seen again.  So maybe in the Pilot, Quinn isn't down on his luck....maybe he goes to them.  Or maybe he finally gets caught.

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Unfortunately, I think, at the end of the day, rebooting Sliders in any form doesn't really make sense.  The brand is old and not that beloved.  Outside of a "hey don't you remember that show?!?" references on the occasional genre production, the brand itself doesn't have a ton of value.  If you're going to do a show going from parallel universe to parallel universe, there's no need for the name because it doesn't add much.  Especially since the name costs money and just calling it "Vortexers" (titles are hard) is free.

Well, the CW is expanding their original content to six nights (I believe) so they also need to have enough content for an additional night 52 weeks a year.

All of the shows have dipped in quality, with (surprisingly) Legends as the only one that's willing to evolve and change.  I still think, as long as they're going to keep all these shows going, they need to start doing more fun stuff to keep it fresh.  I've talked ad nauseam about the need to change up the status quo and stir up lineups.  This would, ironically, be a great time to do a legit Flashpoint where we stick with the changes for a while.

But I don't think anything like that would happen, and the shows are gonna continue to feel stale.

All four Arrowverse shows were renewed today.  Black Lightning too.

I like some of y'all's ideas for a continuation.  I think I might like Info's "Scully was dead the whole time" idea the best.

If it were me, I think I like "X-Files: the Next Generation" the best.  In the same way that I like a Sliders sequel to be Quinn, home on Earth Prime, sending out Sliders for various missions (an idea I toyed around with and outlined as an E214 sequel series).

I think you either use Mulder or Skinner or some other character connected to the series.  Heck, what if it's Kersch, who has some sort of weird supernatural episode and derails his own career to re-start the X-Files and investigate what happened to him.  He (any of the he's or any she) recruits two agents.  And in true Batman Beyond fashion, he recruits the same formula that worked in the past - a believer and a skeptic.  Gender-swap them if you want.  If it's Mulder, let him do most of his work on the phone or via television.  He's with Scully wherever they are.  If it's anyone else, have Mulder and Scully be retired.  Mention them but leave them be.  Maybe Mulder can show up in big Sweeps episodes to lend a hand.

But like TNG, let it be it's own thing.  That's how I'd handle it.

I started watching the finale and had to stop with about 15 minutes remaining (including commercials).

NOTHING HAD HAPPENED YET.  Like, literally, nothing.