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Actually, I found a spin!!

Pod 8 - Season 4, Episodes 9 - 15 - "LMD"
With the LMD arc, AGENTS OF SHIELD was in many ways invited to contemplate the value of its own concept. In a world of superhumans and the potential for Life Model Decoy androids to replace SHIELD agents in every task, what was the point of having Agents of SHIELD?

As the cast of SHIELD were replaced with LMDs and neither the characters nor the audience knew who to trust, the writers made a fascinating choice to grant the LMD replacements for Coulson and May different degrees of self-awareness. The android May was shocked to discover she was a simulacrum of the real person with all of the real May's emotions and memories while the android Coulson had been aware of his true nature the entire time.

In a strange moment of insight, the android Coulson declared that there was no distinction between the real Coulson, who was currently living in a virtual reality, and the LMD Coulson who was inhabiting the real world.

"My programming is different than yours," the LMD Coulson tells the LMD May. "You had to discover that your body had been replaced -- whereas I still have my mind but know exactly what I am, and more importantly, I understand a basic truth that you don't realize yet. That our bodies don't matter." The LMD Coulson later remarked of his prosthetic hand, "My phantom limb used to ache in cold weather. But now I don't feel that pain. I haven't felt this good in years."

The LMD Coulson was arguing that the question of whether he was less real than the biological Coulson was irrelevant as both were existing as simulations, one as a digital intelligence in a physical reality while the other as a physical body whose consciousness now resided in a digital reality.

To the LMD Coulson, the experience of existence regardless of its nature, whether programmed or biological-- or whether in a Marvel feature film or a Marvel television series -- made no difference because the experiences themselves had left impact, memory and meaning. And the LMD May would come to turn on the LMD Coulson while expressing precisely the same opinion.

"I know I'm not real," says the LMD May who has at this writing never been mentioned or shown in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. "I'm all phantom limbs," she says, accepting that she is not a real person while metatextually highlighting that Melinda May is no more real than Tony Stark or Steve Rogers regardless of the medium they inhabit. "That doesn't make the pain less real," says May, going on to add, "That pain, that regret that's what made you a person a person I love." Her sentiment is meant for the real Coulson as the simulated May does not consider May's feelings a simulation and she sacrifices herself to help Coulson's team enter the VR simulation to rescue him.

Pod 10 - Season 5, Episodes 1 - 10 - "Quaked Apart"
During its fifth season, AGENTS OF SHIELD had a conflicted situation between Marvel Film and Marvel TV. The film division was moving forward with GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY II, BLACK PANTHER and INFINITY WAR, but with no interest in creating tie-ins and crossovers with AGENTS OF SHIELD.

But Marvel TV was advancing as well, launching DAREDEVIL, JESSICA JONES, LUKE CAGE and IRON FIST on Netflix. The Netflix shows, unlike the "Fan Fiction" era of AGENTS OF SHIELD, weren't spinning out of a feature film but defining themselves as street level superheroics. Marvel Films made it plain that the AGENTS OF SHIELD and Netflix characters would never be featured in any AVENGERS films.

In response, Marvel TV worked around Marvel Films. The crime and underworld drama of the Netflix shows was so distant from the widescreen heroics of the AVENGERS films that Netflix shows could function, like AGENTS OF SHIELD, in their own corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe sandbox. There were unlikely to be world-changing events in Daredevil's battles with crimelords and corrupt cops.

But AGENTS OF SHIELD didn't have that advantage. AOS had changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe significantly: SHIELD had been sustained as a rogue organization that eventually regained government status, the events of Season 2 had awakened Inhuman powers in random people around the globe. But with no acknowledgement from the AVENGERS films, AGENTS OF SHIELD would perpetually need consider how to depict significant events that wouldn't ever be mentioned by Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Ant Man, Black Panther and Spider-Man.

For this pod, AGENTS OF SHIELD destroyed the Earth -- which is to say the cast were transported to a future time period where the Earth had been destroyed due to Daisy Johnson's powers going out of control. But this was pointedly not the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Like the Framework, this future scenario was presented as a possible future that SHIELD would avert in order to avoid contradicting INFINITY WAR and any subsequent Marvel movies.

Like the Framework, this pod ultimately declared that victory would mean erasing itself from reality, a moral and emotional conflict that was left unresolved and carried over to the next pod. It was an uncomfortable situation shared by the AGENTS OF SHIELD TV show where it needed contribute to the MCU but only in ways that could be safely forgotten by the films.

Pod 11 - Season 5, Episodes 11 - 22 - "Destroyer of Worlds"
With the final pod of Season 5, the cast were returned to the present to prevent the future they saw. This run of episodes saw AGENTS OF SHIELD suffering from its greatest threat which was not Loki or HYDRA or LMDs or the Kree but instead, the severity of ABC's budget cuts.

The show had barely won a fifth season and made it by slashing the licensing fee which meant fewer resources. The previous pod had dodged the difficulties by setting the show in a post-apocalyptic human settlement of poor living conditions with a few special effects sequences to establish the outer space setting.

This pod, however, was using the same sets as the one before but redressed to be new and clean. Set in the present, it was hard to ignore how the lavish location filming and numerous extras of Seasons 1 - 4 were now missing. Coulson and his team spent most of this pod walking slowly through empty hallways confronting masked thugs (whose masks allowed the same three actors to be reused as different henchmen).

There was also the looming AVENGERS III. This movie, INFINITY WAR, saw Thanos attacking Earth and erasing 50 per cent of all living beings from existence. This threat, if carried into AGENTS OF SHIELD, would necessitate that the show lose a random number of its contracted cast members due to a conflict in which they'd had no involvement.

The polite co-existence shown in referring to CIVIL WAR and thematic tie-ins to DR. STRANGE and GUARDIANS was not an option. But if AGENTS OF SHIELD wasn't going to react to INFINITY WAR's cataclysm upon the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, how could it claim to be part of the same shared reality?

During this run, the show had a dimensional rift presenting manifestations of the characters' worst fears. Agent Coulson was assailed by a phantom of Mike Peterson, the first person he'd ever saved in the show.

This spectre of Mike asked Coulson to consider his deepest terror -- that AGENTS OF SHIELD might be apocryphal to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

MIKE: "Hello, Agent Coulson. It’s time I told you what’s really going on here."

COULSON: "You’re not here to hurt me? You’re going to let me pass?"

MIKE: "Do whatever you want. Shoot me if you like. After all, you’re the one that’s making this up. But you know there’s something deeper. And you’re here to face it."

COULSON: "Face my fear?"

MIKE: "How am I your fear, Phil? No, I mean face facts."

COULSON: "What facts?"

MIKE: "That this is all in your head."

COULSON: "Are you telling me that that I’m still in TAHITI?"

MIKE: "No, Coulson. I’m telling you that you’ve never been to TAHITI. Or Malta. Or Puerto Rico or outer space or the Framework or the future. You’re on the table, Coulson, code blue."

COULSON: "Okay, Phil, back to work. Don’t pay attention. This makes no sense."

MIKE: "What makes more sense? That you were brought back from the dead after many days? Your mind programmed with false memories? A world with alternate realities and rocks that tear holes in spacetime? Or is your brain is being stimulated with electricity to revive it, and your consciousness is trying to make sense of random synapses firing off in your brain?"

COULSON: "That’s not true."

MIKE: "You know it’s true. Loki ran a scepter through your heart, and we are desperately trying to bring you back. But isn’t working."

COULSON: "No, no, no, no. No, I’ve been through too much. I’m not going to let this nightmare get to me."

At no point is this scenario presented as a narrative possibility. The moment the phantom Mike tells Coulson that the entire show has been a hallucination, we cut to the rest of his team observing the situation on video monitors.

But the fear manifestation's argument is easily read as a comment on AGENTS OF SHIELD's relationship with the feature films. The existence-threatening stakes of INFINITY WAR dwarf AGENTS OF SHIELD, making the battle to save one planet trivial.

MIKE: "This whole thing has been a dream. You really think your skull caught on fire, Phil? Or does it hurt to have electrodes on your scalp for this long? You think there was an alternate reality where you were a history teacher? Or were you remembering your father who was a history teacher? You’re reliving mementos of your life mixed with the dreams you wish had come true.

COULSON: "No, Mike. This is fear. I thought I’d come to terms with death, but this is my fear of it manifesting, because it’s harder to let go of than I thought it would be."

MIKE: "And that’s why your mind created this story where you spent years doing all the things you never got a chance to do. To vacation on a white beach with blue water. To travel to the stars. To own your own plane, a car that flies, your own team. To have a family. The brilliant students you never got a chance to mentor. The daughter you never had. And above all, a chance to be a hero."

COULSON: "No, I’m not trying to be a hero. I’m just here to see that SHIELD continues."

MIKE: "There is no SHIELD. Even now, your mind is rejecting the fact that I’m just an EMT standing over you. It’s trying to make me into something else. It’s trying to find a way out."

COULSON: "You don’t know what those people mean to me. Don’t say they’re nothing. Don’t say that."

The sequence ends with the real Mike Peterson coming to Coulson's rescue, validating AGENTS OF SHIELD and Coulson's experiences. The final episodes in this pod took place at the same time as INFINITY WAR -- but decisively ended the season before INFINITY WAR's cliffhanger, sparing the SHIELD characters any onscreen involvement.

The pod concluded with Coulson setting out to enjoy his retirement while the remaining SHIELD team flew off to new adventures. On one level, there was an awkward sense that this happy ending would be eradicated with INFINITY WAR's conclusion, but on another, AGENTS OF SHIELD had argued that relationships, emotional bonds and meaningful moments had weight and value even if they were to be wiped out of existence by the Framework simulation shutting down or a future timeline being averted or a supervillain wielding an Infinity Gauntlet.

The Legacy of Spies
AGENTS OF SHIELD is likely to be the most irrelevant Marvel Cinematic Universe production among all of them, averaging 1.8 to 2 million viewers by its final season and never acknowledged by the feature films. Its lack of impact has been bemoaned by star Chloe Bennett and addressed diplomatically by showrunner Jed Whedon. The short ONE SHOT films on the Blu-rays likely had a larger audience.

But AGENTS OF SHIELD is, despite being situated in a superhero universe, a series about characters in espionage. Its lesser status brings to mind the old adage that spies have been honoured and spies have been hanged, but for the most part, spies have been ignored.

Over the weekend, I wanted to write the book on AGENTS OF SHIELD. Didn't get far, but it was interesting to note: AGENTS OF SHIELD, since Season 4, has been dividing its storylines into what the producers called "pods" where each season was actually 2 - 3 short and separate seasons within 22 episodes. But every season of AGENTS OF SHIELD seems to have had its own pods:

Pod 1: Season 1, Episodes 1 - 12 - "Fan Fiction"
The first 12 episodes of AGENTS OF SHIELD are an extremely simplistic children's show. SHIELD agents are all uniformly good, all others are bad. AGENTS OF SHIELD is presented as an extension of the AVENGERS film, but it seems more like a Disney children's cartoon that accidentally got filmed in live action.

Skye, Fitz and Simmons are constantly played for easy jokes and face lightweight threats. They feel more like characters in a children's half-hour sitcom than the cast of a Marvel Cinematic Universe production. The overlit look gives the impression of an student production. Namedropping "Romanov," "Banner" and "Stark" when those characters don't appear onscreen seems desperate.

Worse, the cameos from Nick Fury and Maria Hill have no impact on the plot and feel like deleted scenes ripped off a blu-ray and plugged into a fan film. The use of the term "Gifted" to avoid calling superpowered people "mutants" is an awkward way to address lacking the X-MEN rights. The tie-in to THOR: THE DARK WORLD is carefully designed to avoid any impact on the film series. The show feels like a STAR TREK novel: disposable, making no waves in the universe it supposedly inhabits and designed to be ignored by the actual MCU productions.

There are any number of reasons for this. The production was forbidden to offer any buildup to WINTER SOLDIER revealing that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD to the point where AGENTS OF SHIELD had to use "Centipede" to refer to its central evil organization. The show was barred from making any hints that SHIELD might be anything other than an organization of white knights lest the surprise be ruined.

There was the initial sense that a TV extension of AVENGERS needed to skew to a younger audience. The production difference and distance between TV and film made it hard for TV to write stories that films could respond to as films were made over years while TV was made in weeks.

But the result: AGENTS OF SHIELD didn't seem to be a genuine extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe laid out in the AVENGERS movies and had a painful air of illegitimacy.

Pod 2 - Season 1, Episodes 13 - 22 - "Agents of Nothing"
Which is why it's so interesting that the "Agents of Nothing" era determinedly turns into the spin by taking that accidental illegitimacy and making it text within the show.

Despite the tie in to WINTER SOLIDER being from Episode 18 onward, the real shift in tone actually begins with episode 13, "TRACKS." Although there's a goofy sequence of Simmons shrieking at Coulson in public (with a Stan Lee cameo), the show is more brutal as May encourages a villain to stab her in the shoulder so she can cut the ropes binding her and the episode ends with Skye shot twice in the stomach. There's something shocking about seeing bloodshed in a show that seemed more like GIRL MEETS WORLD or LIV AND MADDIE than it did AVENGERS.

We're truly in different territory as "End of the Beginning" and "Turn Turn Turn" tie into the WINTER SOLDIER feature film in which HYDRA has infiltrated SHIELD since its beginnings to the point where Captain America is forced to dismantle the organization entirely.

Coulson, Fitz, Simmons, Skye, May and Ward never felt like they represented SHIELD; now they truly aren't SHIELD at all. They have been reduced to a malfunctioning plane, scant weapons, Ward is a traitor and Coulson has driven May off the team. Maria Hill shows up to make a full appearance only to establish that the team's textual illegitimacy means they no longer have resources, backups, bases or support outside themselves.

There's a sincerity and a genuine sense of threat here; we've seen how Skye, Fitz and Simmons can only win in a Disney world of easy answers, weak villains and immediate solutions. An episode ending with Ward and Garrett flying the SHIELD jet and the rest of the team sitting nervously around a pool is terrifying.

The "Agents of Nothing" have Coulson attempting to contain a monster of the week and stop Garrett and Ward from finishing their supersoldier program and they face defeat on all sides. Stopping one superpowered villain used to be easy with all of SHIELD; now they're reduced to using spotlights. Fitz and Simmons are sunken to the bottom of the ocean. Garrett is unstoppable: he has Deathlok. He has Ward. He has the SHIELD data. He has a superhuman body.

Most tellingly, Garrett has what the Agents of Nothing have always lacked: he has legitimacy; he can present HYDRA to the US Government as a genuine, above board arms manufacturer through the guise of Cybertek. The Agents of Nothing are outmatched and doomed.

But then Fitz and Simmons find a way to escape the ocean. Skye realizes Garrett is threatening Deathlok's son to secure his compliance and wins Deathlok's aid by saving the boy. And Nick Fury returns.

Samuel L. Jackson had revealed early on that he'd be appearing in the season finale, but even then, AGENTS OF SHIELD manages to make him feel like a surprise. When Fury appears to pull Gemma and Fitz into a helicopter, the downbeat terror of the last four episodes suddenly turns around. Jackson has an instant charisma and he inspires confidence and trust with his effortless appeal.

Jackson's screentime, despite being significant, is clearly designed to excuse the Nick Fury character from any further involvement in the show. He calls Coulson the reason SHIELD works, promotes Coulson to director, gives him the last of SHIELD's resources and leaves the TV show and SHIELD's legacy entirely in Coulson's hands.

It's a shift that finally moves AGENTS OF SHIELD away from being an awkward sequel to AVENGERS that lacks any actual Avengers. Jackson's role serves to hand the torch to Coulson and company and free them to define their own show.

Pod 3 - Season 2, Episodes 1 - 10 - "SHIELD Underground"
In terms of tone, this pod is similar to the Agents of Nothing run. The gang are still underground fugitives, but Fury's resources have allowed them to recruit some new teammates. This smaller scale suits the showrunners' preference for a cast of awkward misfits rather than purely militaristic professionals.

SHIELD's limited resources are played effectively: their military might is an empty show, they win through cleverness and perseverance and while they're fighting HYDRA, the world at large considers any SHIELD agent to be indistinguishable from HYDRA.

For this pod and the next four, SHIELD is not considered a legitimate peacekeeping force or law enforcement agency; they are viewed as criminals -- a great way of deepening the sense that AGENTS OF SHIELD never felt like a genuine extension of the feature films and turning it to the show's advantage. It's a take far more suited to Marvel, a publishing house that's always been more about the underdogs and the rebels than it has about the establishment.

The main focus is on fighting HYDRA, but a larger myth-arc is present as the show presents HYDRA as merely one faction in a long-running conflict involving alien interference in humanity from the dawn of its existence.

Where Season 1 awkwardly attempted impact-free sequels to feature films, Season 2 begins delving into a secret history to the MCU that AGENTS OF SHIELD can explore on its own terms and this pod ends with Skye being revealed to be a comic book character named Daisy Johnson and also to be Gifted.

Pod 4 - Season 2, Episodes 11 - 22 - "Inhumans"
As a whole, the Marvel Cinematic Universe struggled with illegitimacy but to a lesser degree than SHIELD. Despite claiming to be the cinematic representation of Marvel Comics, the MCU didn't have Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, the X-Men or any other characters whose film and TV rights were carelessly sold to FOX and Sony.

The absence of the X-Men left a hole in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As a concept, mutants served as a catch-all explanation for how people could have superpowers without needing screentime for origin stories.

SHIELD tried calling mutants "Gifted," but without access to the X-MEN explanation that mutants are the next stage of human evolution, the Gifted concept was a fractured facsimile of the original idea. Jealous of FOX's success with X-MEN, Marvel executive Ike Perlmutter proposed that the INHUMANS concept, featuring a superpowered civilization living on the moon, could compete with the X-MEN cinematically.

It was ridiculous. But AGENTS OF SHIELD, ordered to present the Inhumans concept in their show, rolled with it beautifully: Pod 4 focused on how the Kree alien race had experimented on humans thousands of years ago, resulting a percentage of the human race having the potential to have their Inhuman abilities awakened. Rather than being an awkward photocopy of X-MEN's mutants, Inhumans were now the core mythology for AGENTS OF SHIELD and a legitimate concept for the TV series.

The question of legitimacy was further explored the show revealed that there was a separate faction of SHIELD survivors, apart from Coulson, who considered themselves the real SHIELD and Coulson's team to be impostors using a name and legacy to which they had no genuine claim with Coulson supposedly manipulating everyone to gain a secret weapon.

This ended in a very nice tie-in to AGE OF ULTRON where Coulson's secret weapon turned out to be the airship used to evacuate civilians in the film and the two SHIELD factions united. With a united (but rogue) SHIELD, the Inhumans and HYDRA, the show now felt like a meaningful exploration of its own corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than the timid tie-in it had been before.

Pod 5 - Season 3, Epsiodes 1 - 10 - "Age of Ward"
This pod introduced the Secret Warriors and presented Ward as the primary villain of the series, but for the most part continued with the SHIELD Underground concept even as Inhumans took a larger role.

Interestingly, it's at this point that the fracture between Marvel Films and Marvel TV took place; AGE OF ULTRON's aftermath had led to a break between the two divisions and the CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR screenwriters confessed in interviews that they'd not watched AGENTS OF SHIELD and were unaware of the Inhumans concept.

AGENTS OF SHIELD most determinedly did not need CIVIL WAR to give it direction; it had its own concepts to explore and had plenty to do with Ward becoming the main threat. However, the threat of AGENTS OF SHIELD not being a true part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was again a potential issue. CIVIL WAR was the most significant depiction of the MCU since AGE OF ULTRON and CIVIL WAR didn't have a single line of dialogue acknowledging the rising superhuman population with the Inhumans.
 
Could AGENTS OF SHIELD truly be considered part of the MCU when the main forces of the MCU weren't addressing it?

Pod 6 - Season 3, Episodes 11 - 22 - "Hive"
Despite a brief reference to SHIELD seeking to register its Inhumans cast under CIVIL WAR's superhuman registration act, the "Hive" era, like the "Age of Ward" episodes, didn't tie into the feature films at all. Within the show, SHIELD made one brief bid for reintegration with the US Government only to be dismissed, almost as though the show itself couldn't imagine itself rejoining the AVENGERS and the original presentation of SHIELD as a government organization. SHIELD was more an NGO on the fringes. At one point, the MCH President of the United States appeared to advise Coulson continue SHIELD unofficially. "We'll keep doing what we do," Coulson remarked, "and you'll keep pretending we don't exist." He might as well have been addressing the Marvel film division.

With no direct integration with the new CAPTAIN AMERICA film, this pod had Ward being written out of the show but the actor remaining, Ward's body possessed by the ancient being of power that HYDRA had worshipped and sought to revive.

AGENTS OF SHIELD in the "Fan Fiction" era had felt like an abandoned stepchild of the MCU. Season 2 attempted to make it a neighbour to the AVENGERS films in the MCU neighbourhood. By Season 3, AGENTS OF SHIELD seemed to have genuinely outgrown the AVENGERS films: the Hive storyline had no need for CIVIL WAR at all. What's more, AGENTS OF SHIELD seemed to be on the verge of expanding. Season 2's new cast members, Bobbi and Hunter, had become so popular that Marvel was seeking to launch MARVEL'S MOST WANTED, a spin-off show with them as leads.

It was an excellent pod, marred only by outside issues. AGENT CARTER was tragically cancelled on a cliffhanger and ABC declined to launch MARVEL'S MOST WANTED meaning Bobbi and Hunter had been written out of the show for no good reason.

Pod 7 - Season 4, Episodes 1 - 8 - "Ghost Rider"
It's at this point that analysis seems unnecessary as showrunner Jed Whedon explained his approach to integrating AGENTS OF SHIELD into the MCU. While not addressing rumours that the AOS writers were now relying on trailers and press releases to know what Marvel Film was doing, Whedon described his approach of "thematic" links. The DR. STRANGE film had introduced magic, so AOS could now delve into similar material by exploring the Ghost Rider mythology and the Darkhold book.

Despite the lack of direct continuity references and tie-ins, the "Ghost Rider" pod was a highly successful run of episodes that saw the procedural, systematic approach of the SHIELD cast confronting the ambiguities of mysticism. AGENTS OF SHIELD had been working in its own section of the MCU, but now it felt like it was part of the same world presented in the DR. STRANGE feature film.

Tellingly, this was also the pod in which SHIELD was reintegrated into the US Government, having earned the legitimacy it hadn't back in the first pod, although this wasn't to last for long.

It was in this season that the idea of separate 'pods' within seasons was discussed in showrunner interviews, although Jed Whedon remarked in interviews that Ghost Rider's special effects were so costly that the show could only sustain the character for a brief run.

Pod 8 - Season 4, Episodes 9 - 15 - "LMD"
With the LMD arc, AGENTS OF SHIELD was in many ways invited to contemplate the value of its own concept. In a world of superhumans and the potential for Life Model Decoy androids to replace SHIELD agents in every task, what was the point of having Agents of SHIELD?

As the cast of SHIELD were replaced with LMDs and neither the characters nor the audience knew who to trust, the writers made a fascinating choice to grant the LMD replacements for Coulson and May different degrees of self-awareness. The android May was shocked to discover she was a simulacrum of the real person with all of the real May's emotions and memories while the android Coulson had been aware of his true nature the entire time.

In a strange moment of insight, the android Coulson declared that there was no distinction between the real Coulson, who was currently living in a virtual reality, and the LMD Coulson who was inhabiting the real world.

"My programming is different than yours," the LMD Coulson tells the LMD May. "You had to discover that your body had been replaced -- whereas I still have my mind but know exactly what I am, and more importantly, I understand a basic truth that you don't realize yet. That our bodies don't matter." The LMD Coulson later remarked of his prosthetic hand, "My phantom limb used to ache in cold weather. But now I don't feel that pain. I haven't felt this good in years."

The LMD Coulson was arguing that the question of whether he was less real than the biological Coulson was irrelevant as both were existing as simulations, one as a digital intelligence in a physical reality while the other as a physical body whose consciousness now resided in a digital reality.

To the LMD Coulson, the experience of existence regardless of its nature, whether programmed or biological-- or whether in a Marvel feature film or a Marvel television series -- made no difference because the experiences themselves had left impact, memory and meaning. And the LMD May would come to turn on the LMD Coulson while expressing precisely the same opinion.

"I know I'm not real," says the LMD May who has at this writing never been mentioned or shown in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. "I'm all phantom limbs," she says, accepting that she is not a real person while metatextually highlighting that Melinda May is no more real than Tony Stark or Steve Rogers regardless of the medium they inhabit. "That doesn't make the pain less real," says May, going on to add, "That pain, that regret that's what made you a person a person I love." Her sentiment is meant for the real Coulson as the simulated May does not consider May's feelings a simulation and she sacrifices herself to help Coulson's team enter the VR simulation to rescue him.

Pod 9 - Season 4, Episodes 16 - 22 - "Agents of HYDRA"
The majority of this pod are sent inside a virtual reality simulation which presents a timeline where HYDRA had defeated SHIELD and Coulson and his team live the lives they would have had if HYDRA and triumphed. As we delve into this alternate timeline and we see characters gradually regain their memories, we're invited to consider: does the Framework reality or any events inside it actually matter? What meaning, value or purpose can these situations or people have if they are merely simulations?

It's a question AGENTS OF SHIELD might not benefit from raising because it leads to asking: what value do Seasons 3 - 4 have if they are completely ignored by the feature films? If CIVIL WAR didn't mention the rogue SHIELD operation, if ANT MAN made no reference to the Inhumans, if DR. STRANGE didn't have Coulson show up for a consult, then how can AGENTS OF SHIELD actually matter at all?

It's a question AGENTS OF SHIELD doesn't shy away from at all. At one point, we spend some time getting to know Grant Ward in this alternate timeline where he was recruited by SHIELD instead of HYDRA. With his loyalty to heroes, he never became a villain. It's a beautiful insight into a once irredeemable antagonist and despite this Ward being a simulation, this perspective into his character is not easily forgotten. The Framework situation closes out with Mac pleading to stay in the Framework because a simulation of his deceased daughter exists in the VR. Mac protests that even if his daughter is a simulacrum, she matters to him: she laughs at his jokes, she cries when he does, he feels her warmth and he believes that she's alive.

To be concluded with Pods 10 - 11.

Edited to add commentary to the LMD arc.

I was rewatching some Season 1 episodes of AGENTS OF SHIELD and the show is a shockingly poor failure in so many areas. The pilot episode is adequate with Chloe Bennet giving Skye a spunky, irreverent energy that contrasts well with the buttoned down Coulson.

But immediately with the subsequent episodes, problems come up. The lighting is entirely too bright for a show about espionage and it makes everything onscreen look like an overlit toy commercial. The depiction of SHIELD is entirely too clean: it's a covert spy operation that drives around with its insignia on its SUVs; its surveillance is entirely benign, its methods are largely bloodless. It's a child's vision of what spies do.

Another problem: the SHIELD team we see the most of is composed of a hacktivist with no security status, two scientists with no combat training, a pilot who doesn't want to fight, a stone cold killer who isn't a team player led by a man who is officially dead. They come off as a ragtag group of misfits and yet, we're constantly told they're part of a large, highly equipped and completely professional organization even though the lead team we see the most of is a gang of awkward amateurs.

This is a version of SHIELD that is totally disconnected from the glimpses we got in the AVENGERS films, totally at odds with the sprawling, global, professional SHIELD that the characters describe onscreen, and it's impossible to imagine Nick Fury signing off on this team.

There's also a high level of humour that doesn't deepen the situations but instead makes the show seem goofier and the threats less serious. Fitz whining about a sandwich on an operation is distracting and silly; Jemma getting too deep into her role as Coulson's daughter on an undercover mission undermines the danger. The jokes don't fit the show; the characters don't fit the SHIELD concept -- it's all these disparate and mismatched pieces.

And it's strange how WINTER SOLDIER destroying SHIELD actually helped the AGENTS OF SHIELD TV show get into place. The Agents of Nothing phase is when the show starts to figure things out: the cast is a gang of misfits, so having them become an underground operation makes a lot more sense for these characters. These characters are not fit to represent the entire SHIELD organization, so having SHIELD reduced to them and only them is a far better fit. And when SHIELD is down to Coulson's team, the jokes take on a bleaker, darker tone that actually deepens the sense of danger and paranoia.

I did note, however, that even in Season 1 when the budget was high, there was a lot of walking through dark and empty hallways.

I think AGENTS OF SHIELD was in a difficult place. INFINITY WAR’s release date was close to AGENTS OF SHIELD’s finale, but there were strong signs that this would be the final season. If they tied into INFINITY WAR, they’d be ending on a cliffhanger and while the situation would be resolved in AVENGERS IV, there wouldn’t be any closure for the SHIELD cast. So they elected to do a series finale with a happy ending — that is likely to be negated anywhere from five seconds to five minutes after credits when Thanos erases at least half the cast from reality.

Anyway. The numerous bottle episodes in the second half of the season were clearly to permit the location filming and the effects for the Quake/Graviton fight scene in the streets of Chicago.

It's pretty sad that Chris Carter had a feature film and SIXTEEN EPISODES and a high flying FOX budget and the all original actors and Vancouver and he STILL couldn't wrap up his show.

"By Odin's beard, you shall not cut my hair, lest you feel the wrath of the mighty Thor!" [pause] "Please, kind sir, do not cut my hair. NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"That looks painful. Dear brother, you're becoming predictable. I trust you, you betray me, round and round in circles we go. See Loki, life is about... It's about growth, it's about change, but you seem to just want to stay the same. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you'll always be the god of mischief, but you could be more. I'll just put this over here for you."

"The damage is not too bad. As long as the foundations are still strong, we can rebuild this place. It will become a haven for all peoples and aliens of the universe." [Asgard explodes] "Oof. Now those foundations are gone. Sorry."

Translation: "These movies and shows aren't made to serve MY personal interests and specific desires for film and TV, therefore they are objectively bad and people who like things I don't are wrong." Didn't you learn anything from your nervous breakdown in the DCEU thread?

INFINITY WAR was okay. I didn't hate it, I thought it was a good superhero epic -- it's just, I'm not really that into epics. I don't like seeing giant battlefields with hundreds of thousands of people charging forward; I prefer the three-person battles of CIVIL WAR or, despite reservations, Daisy and Coulson walking through a dimly lit hallway. It bothered me that INFINITY WAR trampled over RAGNAROK's ending by immediately slaughtering "half" of the survivors of Asgard and gave Thor his eye back.

I don't really have any strong opinions about INFINITY WAR except to say it's not really for me; I'd rather see superheroes more on the scale of Oliver and Felicity eating breakfast for dinner or Barry making his wedding plans or Kara and Lena eating Chinese food, if that makes any sense.

I found the scale of INFINITY WAR really difficult to relate to and, to be honest, the only reason I went to see it in theatres was so that I could watch this week's AGENTS OF SHIELD (which I will go watch now at the gym).

It's also gotten kind of cheap. This whole season looks like it was filmed in someone's basement and they clearly don't have the money for the extras and location filming that they once had. Excellent character-oriented writing and the stories are as strong as ever, but every episode feels like a bottle episode with only a few exceptions this year. I love the scripts, but the visual quality of the show has gotten frustratingly claustrophobic with the team constantly advancing down dimly lit hallways to get to more dimly lit hallways.

I don’t think I approve of you, Transmodiar, hoarding away a trinket of anecdotal SLIDERS trivia and refusing to divulge it on the grounds that your friends mock you for it when that only indicates how urgently you must divulge it.

I didn't know you'd met Jerry. What happened there? I knew Jerry had met your wife and hit on her unsuccessfully when she was interning at MTV before your marriage and while you were both taking a break. You blogged, rather grimly, "It's heartening to know Jerry wants my ex." And you met Charlie O'Connell at a bowling alley, didn't you?

While clothiers separate suits into classic, modern and slim fit, no two manufacturers ever have the same measurements in the same divisions. I’m not sure what you mean by trouser legs being too short as most ready to wear trousers are deliberately too long — so the customer can have them hemmed for their height.

Slim fit generally refers to clothes hanging close to the body in contrast to a more loosely fitted design. If you watch FRASER or a Sean Connery Bond film, jackets and trousers were large and wide whereas on SMALLVILLE, Clark’s suits were very fitted to his figure. The latter is how most modern suits are cut for average sized men. Some manufacturers call it slim fit.

https://ezrapaul.com/blogs/news/are-you … -too-tight

There is no redemption for a human trafficker, for procuring children to hand over to a pedophile, for enslaving and torturing women into forced labour. I have no concern whatsoever for Allison Mack's recovery or well-being and I'd suggest we save our concern for the victims and not the perpetrator.

You have no idea how weird it is for me to see Slider_Quinn22 saying we should separate the art from the artist when he insists on Quinn in Season 4 indicating Quinn's sociopathy rather than Jerry being half assed and hungover and not bothering to learn his lines or read the entire script.

But Chloe shouldn't be a villain just because Allison is one; we shouldn't confuse the actor with the character.

At this point, I would digitally replace Allison with Ann Coulter or Tomi Lahren if it would get Allison's sorry ass out of the show.

We both agreed that Allison Mack was a cultist, abuser, human trafficker and sexual slaver long before it was fashionable to do so. We both enjoyed the JUSTICE LEAGUE movie which the world at large considers a crime against humanity. Many friendships were founded on far less.

**

There is an open source technology recently popularized for its low system requirements which allows a user to digitally replace a person's face with another in pre-existing video footage. It was (of course) first employed to graft the faces of Hollywood actresses onto female pornography performers engaging in performative sex acts.

I propose that we assemble a bank of (used) Playstation 3s to form a makeshift rendering farm, map Kristen Bell's face using box sets of the three seasons of VERONICA MARS, and begin digitally replacing Allison Mack in SMALLVILLE with Kristen Bell instead and hire noted impressionist Robert Floyd (Mallory on SLIDERS) to re-record all of Mack's dialogue in Bell's voice. I propose we use the magic of CGI to remove Allison Mack from every single hour of television she ever performed, expunge her from every single frame of film and leave her with nothing but her crimes.

But to be realistic, anyone wanting to use Chloe before would probably just use Felicity Smoak instead and right now, who could blame them?

**

I just had this weird daydream of Justin Hartley's Oliver Queen confronting Allison (not Chloe) and yelling, "YOU HAVE FAILED THIS CITY!"

It's also surreal to me that it's one of only two things Informant and I ever agreed upon.

I believe the standard arrangement is that the creators would own 10 per cent of the franchise. Such as it is. Anyone developing TV would be better off calling their parallel show by a different title and they'd have more freedom, recognition, ownership and profit.

LOST IN SPACE is a known and recognizable brand for the general audience.

I'm really enjoying all the shows this season. SUPERGIRL's been a delight with Kryptonian sleeper warriors, Alex dealing with her breakup and the crossover was amazing. THE FLASH has been terrific in giving our heroes a villain who can outthink them at every turn. LEGENDS has been a revelation and done the impossible by making Wally West a viable character and finding a way to humanize Damien Darhk to the point where he regrets Season 4 of ARROW as much as Stephen Amell and Informant.

ARROW has continued with its return to street-level action and had Oliver progress while still having the same flaws.

I thought the argument between Oliver and John this week in "Brothers in Arms" was incredible. Both make completely valid criticisms of each other's leadership, but both refuse to acknowledge their own flaws. Oliver dismisses John's point that his leadership style is fundamentally alienating while John ignores how he hid his medical problems from the team and endangered all of them. But John presents Oliver's human resource failures as tactical disasters when they weren't. Oliver portrays John's secrets as facilitating a criminal takeover of the city rather than the moral failures they actually were.

Oliver calling out John for killing Andy was truly cruel when Andy was declaring his intention to murder John's wife and child when John shot him. John was out of line to say that Diaz had won the city because of how Oliver had handled the recruits. In the end, neither are happy with themselves for how they've steered their teams but direct their frustration at each other rather than inwardly.

I also really like how, on THE FLASH, Iris has remained in charge at STAR Labs, something that I didn't entirely notice until Ralph snapped at Iris that she contributes nothing and she replied that she is the leader of the team. Candice Patton has such a gentle screen presence that it was only then that I realized she's been giving orders since the Season 4 premiere; it always felt like her instructions were suggestions that the others found so instantly clear in their logic and purpose that they would follow them.

On one level, it's trying to hammer the female lead into a meaningful role outside being the damsel in distress of Season 1. On another, this decision really works; Iris isn't a scientist or a fighter, but she is an excellent human resources person who grasps each team member's abilities and can distribute and direct them well, giving them the right attitude and direction for their skills and body of knowledge and allowing their specialities to inform her choices. And it really puts Oliver and John's leadership to shame. Slider_Quinn21 is constantly wondering why Team Arrow doesn't call Barry; I wonder why they don't call Iris.

I think the most likely route to a reboot happen is NBCUniversal having some sort of development deal with a producer who is a huge fan of SLIDERS and pushes for NBCUniversal to take the property off the shelf. It's not terribly likely at all, but it happened with DOCTOR WHO. BBC had no desire to revive the series because they'd done it very cheaply in the past, saw no way to revive it inexpensively, knew science fiction in 2005 was pricey -- but they wanted to work with Russell T. Davies after the success of QUEER AS FOLK and THE SECOND COMING. And Davies didn't want to do anything but DOCTOR WHO. Once that starts, Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo whether played by the originals or new actors, have a lot of obvious marketing avenues to become icons to a new generation of viewers.

I do think Slider_Quinn21 went way too far, way, way too far -- but the ideas themselves were pretty solid even if I objected to torturing and imprisoning the original cast. If you forced me to go with his next generation approach...

SLIDERS - SECOND GENERATION
Sarah Nyugen is a tech support worker who failed out of her physics program in grad school. Kai Geoffrey is a YouTube star who failed to hang on to his 15 minutes of fame after an ill-advised stunt at a suicide scene. John Galen is a politician who failed to retain office after a scandal involving a blimp, some helium tanks and a hot dog stand.

Geoffrey, in a desperate attempt to revive his career, attempts a video at the supposedly haunted Mallory house only to experience computer problems that send Sarah to his aid.

Sarah, fascinated by the remnants of Quinn's technology, accidentally triggers a vortex that ensnares her, Kai and John (who just happens to be driving by). They are sent to an Earth where Galen is the wealthiest man in America and he lives it up -- until it turns out identity theft is a capital crime and Galen is marked as an impostor. On the run, the three are aided in surviving this parallel Earth by a mysterious stranger who reveals himself to be Dr. Quinn Mallory.

Sarah triggering his tech drew his attention. Quinn slid to this Earth to investigate. But in helping these new sliders, Quinn accidentally damages his own system and now the four find themselves sliding randomly through the interdimension in a search for home with Quinn serving as an experienced slider who is hiding a secret of his own, a dark past from which he's running, a terrible reason for why he can never go home again...

I think it'd also be neat to have one episode of PHASE II in which Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo are called in to investigate the new sliders' disappearances and reassure us that our old friends are indeed alive and well and not... like, in jail or something. *casts a curious look at Slider_Quinn21*

But written all this, I think you'd be better off just starting over again with Quinn opening the vortex for the first time whether he's played by Jerry O'Connell or Lucas Till.

I once asked Temporal Flux how a new SLIDERS could start over again without all the baggage of the past. Could we reboot without losing what makes SLIDERS special? TF replied that he would love to see a reboot with the original cast, and he gave me his idea, which I updated for today with some ideas from Transmodiar:

• In 2019, Wade Welles is a fortysomething tech journalist who failed to build a life beyond reviewing smartphones and laptops.

• Rembrandt Brown is a coffee bar owner in his sixties who failed to hang onto his 15 minutes of fame.

• Professor Arturo is a genius in his seventies who failed to find a career outside of writing high school study guides for science students.

• Quinn Mallory is a fortysomething tax accountant who lost his passion for science after failing to create anti-gravity -- but 25 years after giving up, he realizes that he discovered something else instead.

• Quinn has not spoken to Wade Welles or the Professor since a strange day in 1994 when they accused him of strange behaviour he didn't recall and ended their respective associations with him.

• Quinn has never been able to explain why the Professor recalls him being rude and abusive in class or why Wade remembers Quinn kissing her.

• In fact, those hours of his memory are missing, which he attributes to sleep deprivation over his failed science project.

• When Amanda Mallory dies, Quinn goes back to his old house to clear it out and sell it. He uncovers his old anti-gravity machine and his video cassettes. Watching one of them, one he doesn't remember making, he is struck by inspiration.

• He restarts the machine with some adjustments and opens a new vortex.

• After an initial slide, he eagerly invites the Professor and Wade, finally realizing what happened in 1994.

• They open a gateway to explore once again, accidentally drawing in a passing Rembrandt -- and the adventure begins again.

• SLIDERS: A journey through what could be and might have been. Sometimes, getting lost is the best way to be found.

Here's how I think the plot could unfold:

• Opening scene: same footage from the Pilot where Quinn knocked out the power in 1994.

• Cut to 2019.

• Quinn, a tax accountant, has been assigned to income tax duty.

• Wade and Arturo are sent to his desk, where, as he does their taxes, they rant at him for various sins (giving up on science, ridiculing Arturo in his class, abandoning his life's passion, kissing Wade and pretending it never happened).

• Quinn tells them he has no idea what the hell they're talking about and he's done fine for himself. He failed in his ambitions for science -- he moved on. Wade leaves in disgust. Arturo tells Quinn he should be ashamed of himself.

• ARTURO: "You abandoned your gift! You could have changed the world with your intellect and body of knowledge, but what have you done with it instead? Learned how to fill out forms and reduced yourself to a calculator on legs!"

• The phone rings. Quinn picks it up. Then he hangs up. He looks blank and lost.

• ARTURO: "What the devil is wrong with you now?"

• QUINN: "My mom had a heart attack. She's dead."

• ARTURO: " ........................... but on balance, Mr. Mallory, perhaps you shouldn't be too hard on yourself."

• A blur of funeral arrangements, farewells, followed by Quinn going to his old house.

• He explores his basement, which he has not visited in years.

• He finds a video cassette on the floor, one of several. Pops one of these into a VHS player and TV.

• He sees his younger self (Jerry in young-age makeup, obscured by low VHS quality video) talking about adjustments to make to the anti-gravity machine.

• Quinn can't remember making this video or these adjustments -- but now he makes them. He triggers the machine. It doesn't work. But these adjustments inspire him to try a subsequent configuration. He triggers it again.

• A vortex opens and sucks Quinn in.

• He ends up in a parallel universe, explores it, and then the sliding machine back home re-opens a tunnel to bring him home.

• (Some explanation about how Quinn set up a double-entry gateway, purely by accident.)

• Quinn returns to his basement, excited. Starts playing more of the VHS cassettes -- and urgently calls the Professor and Wade to his house.

• He plays them the videos, saying that his alternate universe double must have left him these tapes all those years ago -- probably as an apology for screwing up his life.

• They review the footage, although some is missing due to some tapes having been broken over the years. They construct a timer while various segments of VHS-Quinn play.

• VHS-Quinn speaks in reverent, eager tones about what must be out there in the multiverse, how excited he is to explore.

• (Presumably, Quinn recorded these entries in 1994 between speaking to Smarter-Quinn and welcoming Wade and Arturo into the basement.)

• Quinn, Wade and Arturo slide out, accidentally ensnaring a passing Rembrandt as they do, who happens to be driving past the Mallory house for reasons too terrible and complex to explain here (read: I haven't thought of any yet).

• They have another adventure, but triggering the timer early causes them to be lost in the multiverse.

• All the video journals are left behind on Earth Prime except for fragments here and there that Wade finished converting to keep on her smartphone (as a convenient aid for future episodes if the writer gets stuck for a plot device).

And then, on the website! We have some exclusive web content. We have:

• Clips of VHS-Quinn talking. It's established that he's recording these segments in 2001. We have him recap individual episodes of the 1995 series from his perspective along with worlds we never saw.

• We have clips of Quinn explaining the function and properties of sliding.

• We have clips of Quinn talking about his childhood, which is precisely the same as "The Guardian."

• And then a final clip.

• It's Quinn in 2001, saying that terrible things have happened.

• His friends are all dead.

• His world is gone.

• The only reason he's alive now is because a fellow slider sacrificed himself to bring Quinn back from quantum limbo.

• Quinn has been forced to make a terrible choice.

• He has commandeered a Kromagg weapon.

• It is a reality warping weapon. He has modified it. He has reprogrammed it.

• He can alter reality. He can change the past. He can make it so that no one has ever created sliding, not himself, not his doubles, not the Kromaggs.

• Everyone will live the lives they'd have had if sliding had never been created.

• But this is only a delay; he knows his amnesiac self will reconstruct some variant on the technology eventually. So he's left him these tapes to guide him.

• He hopes his amnesiac self has the wisdom and perspective in the future that Quinn lacked in 1994 and wishes his future self luck in his adventures, speaking of the infinity and wonder of the multiverse and everything that awaits him once again.

There is a sad irony in watching Season 11 and noticing that SUPERNATURAL started out as a cheap X-FILES clone, but over the course of five seasons, SUPERNATURAL has corrected most of THE X-FILE's flaws, improved on almost all of its strengths and Season 11 seemed like an inept and overbudgeted clone of SUPERNATURAL.

THE X-FILES is a terribly incoherent show because of the freedom accorded to each episode's writer and the lack of concern for linking each episode even when they're meant to be sequels to each other.

This freedom is often cited as a strength of THE X-FILES where the blockbuster BOURNE movie heroics of "My Struggle IV" exist alongside a surreal comedy like "Forehead Sweat" and the buddy cop drama of "This" and the sci-fi lunacy of "Familiar." But SUPERNATURAL has shown that it can easily integrate a variety of tones and styles -- horror, action, comedy, metatextual commentary, theology, hopeful stories and bleak tales -- into a collective whole by making sure the lead characters have ongoing arcs and consistent voices even if the story around them this week has a different tone and genre from last week and next week.

THE X-FILES has also been applauded for isolating the myth-arc episodes from the monster of the week episodes, allowing standalone adventures that any audience member can tune into at any point with even myth-arc episodes being somewhat accessible. As Slider_Quinn21 notes, his inability to remember the details of the myth-arc actually helps him avoid confusion because he doesn't notice contradictions.

But SUPERNATURAL handles this so much better too. There are myth-arc episodes and there are monsters of the week, but SUPERNATURAL capably builds the myth-arc into the ongoing characterization and personal arcs, allowing standalone episodes to be thematically relevant to the myth-arc even if they aren't significant to the plot.

Sometimes, the monster of the week stories offer small pieces of information or equipment that may be useful in a myth-arc episode, but SUPERNATURAL is generally successful in making sure that each episode has a beginning and an end while serving as a chapter in a larger story. In addition, SUPERNATURAL is aware that it exists in an era of box sets and streaming whereas THE X-FILES seems terrified to let elements progress between episodes.

Both SUPERNATURAL and THE X-FILES are dealing with a complex mythology that can often be confusing. But THE X-FILES frequently denies its own history through blatant retconning and rewriting and refuses to acknowledge its own revisions. Mulder confronts the Smoking Man but the change from Colonization to the Spartan Virus isn't even mentioned; he later visits Deep Throat's grave and doesn't observe that Deep Throat seemed to be involved in a completely different conspiracy than what was unveiled in Season 10.

In contrast, SUPERNATURAL has wisely given its myth-arc separate chapters, closing one off before starting another. The apocalypse gave way to a civil war between angels which transitioned into the Leviathans and battling for control of Hell and moved into the Mark of Cain and shifted into the Darkness and then moved towards the Men of Letters and so forth.

You don't get SUPERNATURAL without THE X-FILES, but I think it's safe to say that SUPERNATURAL has surpassed its predecessor and is an improvement in nearly every area except budget and women and even that last one might change soon.

I think Slider_Quinn21 raises a good point that a reboot could alienate old fans. And admittedly, when Chris Carter killed off Mr. Y, Erika Price and the Smoking Man, he freed the show from ever having to address the myth-arc again. There is no need to delve into Colonization or the Conspiracy of Men or the Spartan Virus any further. A reboot creates a clean slate, but we already have one.

So, here is my soft reboot proposal (without Gillian Anderson):

FBI Agent Tamlin Rivers (obviously played by Summer Glau) is in disgrace after a botched meth lab raid blew up in her face and killed 12 agents. She has scarring that's only partially hidden by her hair. She is reassigned to the most dead-end division in the bureau, the X-Files. She is briefed by Skinner (who is in a wheelchair after his injury).

Skinner says that the X-Files was shuttered by Kersh but then reopened under classified directive and he can't tell her too much about the past except that Rivers will be joining Agent Scully who has a wealth of knowledge and experience in paranormal investigations.

Rivers, a skeptic, heads down to the basement and is greeted by Agent William Scully (Miles Robbins). Glau protests that William is too young to be in the FBI; he's 18, the average recruit is 30. William dismisses all this with a smile and paperwork indicating he's a genuine FBI agent. He drags Rivers into their next case.

At one point in the premiere, William calls Mulder on the phone to ask for advice. We see Mulder in his house, holding a bag of breast milk by the fridge. William says he's not sure he can pull this off. Mulder assures William that he'll be great but reminds William that he's no longer immortal or telepathic and needs to not take crazy risks.

The conversation is interrupted by the sound of Scully screaming for Mulder off camera (using reused audio from Season 8's "Without" of Anderson screaming for Mulder in the desert) and a crying baby in the background (stock). Mulder apologizes and hangs up.

As Season 12 progresses, Rivers researches Scully and guesses that Scully is some sort of outside operative from deep in the Department of Defense somehow planted in the FBI with a false paper trail; this is thrown off by multiple colleagues at the FBI claiming to have known Scully for years.

Rivers has also heard of Agents Mulder and Scully, but when she tries to look up their records, their personnel files have been classified and their names and details have been redacted from the casefiles. As the season unfolds, Rivers finds William's peculiar ignorance of procedure and protocol to be frustrating and disturbing. He barely seems to consider the FBI a job. He sleeps on a sofa in the office.

At one point, Rivers discovers that William doesn't even get paid: payroll's never heard of him and he's been living off lottery ticket winnings (which are running out).

He's immature and juvenile, an obnoxious quality for Rivers who is a professional, precise and highly experienced agent. However, he is loyal and self-sacrificing and completely trustworthy despite being an unknown quantity, and William and Rivers develop a heated rapport of respectful teamwork.

After several standalones, we get a William focused episode and a revelation: William, losing control of his powers, broke into the defunct X-Files office to try to find answers. Reading the casefiles made him feel connected to Mulder (whom he considers his father even though they're brothers) and Scully, whom he considers his mother. The basement felt like home.

In a final burst of telepathic and psychokinetic energy, William rewrote the memories of everyone in the building to think of him as Agent William Scully and assigned to the X-Files (and had them fake the records). This burnt out his abilities, leaving him only human but having found a place where he belonged.

William called Mulder and Scully who were relieved to hear he was alive and encouraged him to take the X-Files Division forward. After more standalones, the Season 12 finale could have Duchovny (and maybe Anderson) guest-star to officially hand over the show to Rivers and William.

I can't see Chris Carter accepting this. Despite all the ridiculousness that Carter has written into his series and scripts -- Carter would balk at an 18-year-old boy being presented as an FBI agent.

I think Season 6 was pretty definitive: even without being assigned to the FBI's X-Files division, Mulder and Scully still investigate weirdness the way other couples go bowling. Going private allows them to bring their trainee, William, on cases. I think it's fine for them to be outside consultants to the bureau, but I don't think the show needs a myth-arc. It's never really had one, just a scattered number of episodes that are (mismatched) sequels to each other. Even the four "My Struggle" episodes were detached. Colonization had nothing to do with Sveta's story which had nothing to do with the Spartan virus which had nothing to do with William's mental manipulation powers which had nothing to do with the CSM actually wanting William for his immortality. The show would've been better with character arcs over a myth-arc.

"Nothing Lasts Forever" and "My Struggle IV," despite being written by two different writers, seemed to have the same writing style: both Karen Nielsen and Chris Carter write scenes and moments instead of stories. In "Nothing Lasts Forever," Nielsen has written some truly creepy and compelling gore-horror scenes and some genuinely heartfelt character interaction scenes for Mulder and Scully matched with some superb superhero action with Juliet spiking murderous organ harvesters. There's a linking theme of youth and age and how some seek to defy it with supernatural-paranormal science, some expend it on vigilante exploits that lead to prison and some go with the flow.

But the end result: Mulder and Scully wander through the story and don't make any difference except for the worse -- which is to say that had they not gotten involved, the story would end with Juliet having killed the organ harvesters and set off to rid the world of more evildoers. Instead, because Mulder and Scully are involved, Juliet will now go to jail and the world of THE X-FILES is now deprived of a badass lady who stakes evil, bloodthirsty lunatics through the heart. Mulder and Scully have therefore made the world worse and the episode is simply a collection of nice moments.

"My Struggle IV" is much the same except Chris Carter isn't really a character oriented writer. His cool moments are action: car chases, William making people explode, Mulder and Scully running through the dark halls of an abandoned factory, a shootout, a car possibly running Skinner over. He's all about the action sequences and thriller escapades and as a result, there isn't much space for Mulder and William to reunite, for Scully to process William's parentage, for Mulder to grapple with the revelation.

There are truly nice scenes throughout: Mulder hugging William, Scully's revelation, Skinner explaining he helped the Smoking Man to gather more information, but they're so crowded out by empty action that they have no room to breathe. The shootouts and car chases and multiple sequences of Mulder getting close to William only for him to slip away add little to the story beyond delaying reunions and confrontations that come too quickly to have impact.

As a final episode (and it probably should be), it's effective enough in concluding the mess that is the myth-arc and ending with Mulder and Scully together and the X-Files Division shut down again (although it's unclear why it was reopened in the first place). Skinner's fate being left unknown is the only plot point that truly calls for resolution and it's irksome that Carter left that dangling for no real reason beyond the wish for a Season 12 despite Season 11 being Anderson's last (or so she says).

I think THE X-FILES under Chris Carter has come to a belated, awkward, strangely rushed yet overlong finale that wasted a lot of time but found some nice notes on which to conclude despite Skinner's frustratingly unknown status.

THE X-FILES was the first show I ever saw where small children were acceptable victims of the week. It really disturbed me and I don't really know what to say about it. SMALLVILLE also really troubled me with the way it casually massacred teenagers (even if they were played by actors in their late 20s).

My main problem with the X-FILES formula for monsters of the week: Mulder and Scully never accomplish anything. Had they not appeared, the story would have unfolded in much the same way. THE X-FILES does it deliberately to represent how our world is at the mercy of inhuman, unknowable and otherworldly forces whether they're technologically advanced aliens or supernatural beings. It's not something I enjoy.

I don't really feel comfortable saying whether "Familiar" was good or bad except to say I don't really like THE X-FILES, I never have, I study it rather than enjoy it and it always makes me appreciate FRINGE.

With FRINGE, the victims of the week are played for tragedy and grief, but their deaths also lead Fringe Division to preventing further bloodshed and loss of life with every case-of-the-week building to the Season 5 finale in which Fringe Division saved the entire human race.

In every FRINGE episode, there is a scientific explanation. Sometimes, that science is absurd emotionalism masquerading as empirical analysis, but the show is commited to something resembling rationalism whereas THE X-FILES is an abstract horror show one week and a technology driven thriller the next and the lead characters are helpless. That's not what I personally want to see.

I will never say that THE X-FILES is a bad show, but it's not *my* show. No thank you. I'll watch it. I'll study it. I'll never buy DVD sets to revisit its narrative. I'll never like it and I'll never write a six part series of screenplays for it.

But people should be free to create work that I don't like.

Hey, when's the ebook of THINK OF A ROULETTE WHEEL coming?

Didn't we already have this conversation when talking about "This"?

I honestly don't mind. The DESPERATE HOURS novel still exists and is still a great read. It was a terrific volume for the time in which it was published, presenting a very amusing thought experiment by having the 1960s sets and costumes right alongside the 2017 sets and costumes and having the characters declare that the 1960s design is more advanced.

But it is equally valid to declare that the 23rd century through DISCOVERY is a visual re-interpretation in the way a SPIDER-MAN comic looked one way when Steve Ditko drew it in the 60s but looks another way when Steve McNiven draws it in the 21st century.

From a scripting standpoint, nothing's at odds with the original STAR TREK except for aspects that should be ignored anyway like "Turnabout Intruder" saying no woman has ever captained a starship. Gaffes like "Vulcan Hello" contradicting "Tholian Web" (in which Spock said there's no record of a mutiny aboard a starship) have been patched with Burnham's record being expunged. Spock has never been forthcoming about his family, not even acknowledging his parents when they were standing right in front of him.

It kind of reminds me of SPIDER-MAN and IRON MAN comics. In SPIDER-MAN comics, flashbacks almost always reprint panels from the 1960s comics even though they're completely at odds with the 21st century designs because the 1960s issues are so iconic. With IRON MAN, however, flashbacks tend to take place in the modern world with scenes always redrawn and updated because Iron Man wasn't terribly popular when he first began. DESPERATE HOURS took the SPIDER-MAN route, but the DISCOVERY finale took the IRON MAN path.

How does the DISCOVERY-style Enterprise fit in with DESPERATE HOURS declaring that Constitution class starships have a different design style and uniforms? GO FUCK YOURSELF, that's how.

... I'm sorry. Slider_Quinn21 has jokingly needled me about how I take media tie-ins like novels, comics, video games and audioplays as canonical and invest emotionally in them and refuse to ever call them 'unofficial,' constantly asserting that this plothole or that unfinished arc is addressed in this comic and that novel. Unfortunately, when it comes to DESPERATE HOURS and DISCOVERY, I must concede defeat.

This is a difficult time for me as I must confess the unspeakable -- STAR TREK novels aren't canon. It was really hard to type that.

What happened here: David Mack was writing DESPERATE HOURS when Bryan Fuller was working on the show. Fuller suggested that Mack write a Spock/Burnham story as Fuller didn't want to do a crossover. As Mack was writing the novel, Fuller left and the costumes changed from the neo-Cage look to the more ENTERPRISE-styled uniforms.

Mack described the onscreen Enterprise exactly as it appeared in the 60s and point-blank had Spock declare that the Enterprise looks more advanced than the 'older' DISCOVERY ships. But now, Fuller's successors have chosen a route Fuller wasn't going to use; they want to do a crossover and DESPERATE HOURS no longer fits.