Last week Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered with a 2hour intro to this years season.  While many shows are doing their mid-season finales and wrap-ups before the holidays at this time, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D chose to be a late-comer and step on the scene late in the season. And what an entrance!

Last season ended with closure to the “Framework”, where our heroes had been trapped in an alternate time loop contained within a framework of technology where they all had completely different roles and lives.  It was the ultimate virtual reality, where if you die there, your body dies in real life as well.  We did lose a few of our favorite heroes, as well as Mac’s “fictional” daughter, but Aida was finally defeated and all of the heroes ended happy, and in true style eating at a diner just like the Avengers.

I wasn’t sure what they were going to do with this season…..but the season premiere was a smashing success.  Just when we think we have seen it all in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. repertoire, they go even further.  Coulson and everyone else on the team, except for Fitz, are frozen in animation, moved to a secret location, exposed to a new monolith and wake up on a space-ship, somewhere in what they think is deep space!  Not only do they arrive separately, but they arrive into a part of the ship that is completely  overrun by huge alien roaches that kill everything in their path.  They have no idea where they are, how they got there or why they are there and their one link to putting the pieces together gets killed right as he is beginning to talk to them.  Is it time to panic yet?  But having faced aliens before, as well as psychotic inhumans, and even evil Artificial Intelligence robots, this team is not so easily thrown.  We spend the first episode just getting our bearings as an audience because we are just as intrigued and lost as the characters!  The Season Premiere was actually the first two episodes back to back so we are able to get a little more grip on what is happening.  Not only are they in space, but they discover that the Earth has been destroyed, that they are actually in the future and the Kree are in charge!  I know right??

I am excited that they have taken such a drastically different and completely new storyline this season.  Yes of course inhumans and aliens are still central to the plot and the theme, but in a way that we have not seen them before. Profiling what civilization would look like once reduced to such a scenario is also a fascinating sci-fi turn of events.  Its as if they have taken elements of The Hunger Games(survival of the fittest for entertainment sake), meets the new Thor ( its fighting champions scenes) and combine it all in a deep space nine atmosphere to create a new spin on the superhero genre.  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D is in the Marvel universe but not intrinsically based around super heroes. Instead they focus on inhumans (their version of mutants) and aliens.  But somehow–as ridiculous as it all sounds–it works.  It truly does.

Next week Fitz returns and we see what happened to him when all of his friends and his love were taken, and favorites of ours from the past are reunited!  So tune in for a great new season!