I don't know, my mom's also a fan of the show, and she seems to really like Skye. For better or worse, older women seem to be a big demographic for ABC, so it may be that Skye and her subplot are specifically there for that target audience. If that's what we have to put up with to keep the good aspects of this show…

I really felt like the episode got worse (and possibly the entire series going forward) when Fury showed up.

You didn't really think they were going to kill Fitz or Simmons did you?

And it's also "Phil Coulson, Director of SHIELD," which may be just business as usual (since he's really not in charge of anything more than his small team at this point anyway), but has the potential to be really interesting, if they make an effort to show Coulson trying to develop the infrastructure of the new…

Since they revealed that the Deathlok program has been going on for a long time, and Garrett was one of the first subjects, I was starting to think they were gonna make him "the real Deathlok," since the character from the comics was a lot more like Garrett than Mike Peterson anyway. I thought after the machine got…

The show definitely had some low points in the fall, but I actually thought the pilot was not a bad start. Of course, it has the usual overstuffed exposition of most pilots, but I thought the whole theme of "find me a solution that doesn't involve this kid losing his father" was a great distillation of who Coulson is…

But don't forget that Joss Whedon is only an executive producer, and the people who are actually in charge are first-time showrunners. From that perspective, I thought this was a really strong first season, and I'm very optimistic that it's going to get even better.

That was such a perfect callback to that scene. Even though him shooting Loki through the wall a couple scenes later was technically the fulfillment of Chekhov's Gun, this was almost like a Chekhov's Gun Bonus Round that really put a perfect bow on that whole sequence. By far the best reference to the movies of the…

The scene that comes to mind for me in Cabin in the Woods is when Hemsworth was trying to do the big motorcycle jump and hits the wall. The way it's set up and the way the music swells is meant to call to mind the big, inspiring hero moments from more conventional movies, and then they pull the rug out. Not quite…

That's a very interesting comparison, that I wouldn't have noticed on my own.

I'm hoping they're setting it up for Fitz to not be a series regular so Koenig can replace him. Not because I dislike Fitz, but because I really like Patton Oswalt!

David Gustafson:

Koeing's doppleoswalt not really explaining what was going on, and just acting business as usual was perfect. And I think we finally found our LMD.

How amazing would it be if he became a series regular in season 2? I would probably give a kidney for that to happen.

Did this guy remind anyone else of Bradley Whitford, or was it just me?

"I know what it does." Some people have been highly critical of the gratuitous references to the movies, but I thought that one was a great callback that was delightfully meaningful to Coulson's character, and getting to see him use the Destroyer gun for serious this time was a really great fulfillment as well.

My perception was that 99% of the reason for it was humor, and for that, I think it worked beautifully.

I really wanted to be excited about this show because Adam Baldwin is in it, and as typecast as it may be, a military character is a really good fit for him. Alas, I don't think that's gonna be enough to make this one work.

I don't know about you, but I was in a theater seat in 2009.

I hope in his movie the Enterprise actually travel through the stars "boldly going where no man has gone before" and not another "terrorist want to destroy Earth/Vulcan" story.