Thanks to Swiftnissity for the heads up.
S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson is about to have a very bad day.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, released in theaters over the weekend, reveals that the secret government agency has been infiltrated to its core by sleeper agents of Hydra, an evil organization bent on world domination.
And in a bit of movie-to-TV synergy, the film's events will prompt a major retooling of ABC's Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for its first season's final six new episodes, beginning Tuesday (8 ET/PT).
"It's an extremely unique experience that doesn't exist anywhere else out there in the entertainment business," says Jeph Loeb, executive producer and head of Marvel TV.
The show's group of agents led by Coulson (Clark Gregg), introduced in the Marvel movies, are faced with not only trust issues among themselves but a civil war within the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. organization, where no one knows who's actually a Hydra operative.
Upcoming episodes feature at least one major betrayal, and what's left of Coulson's team is forced to deal on their own with the dismantling of their whole world as well as the new Hydra threat.
"Survival is a huge part of it," says executive producer Maurissa Tancharoen. "There is no more tapping into big S.H.I.E.L.D. through the holo-comm. The guns you have on the plane are the guns you have. They're basically left with the bare minimum."
Coulson's team — agents May (Ming-Na Wen), Ward (Brett Dalton), Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Skye (Chloe Bennet) — were established as new characters in Marvel lore finding their identity in "the most massive organization ever created by man," adds executive producer Jed Whedon. "Now they really are a ragtag bunch scraping things together."
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has had bigger problems than Hydra its first season. Viewership has been disappointing — it premiered in September with an impressive 12 million viewers, but ranked behind The Voice and NCIS with 5.71 million last week, though it is expected to return next fall.
And the hardcore fanboy contingent has decried its lack of characters from the comics, though that will be addressed with the Hydra element, which the show couldn't mention until now in order to avoid spoiling Winter Soldier, Whedon says. Instead, the series spent time building external threats -- the big bad mystery man the Clairvoyant, the mad scientists of Centipede, the cyborg operative Deathlok (J. August Richards) -- for the heroes to deal with that would then connect back to Hydra later.
"Hopefully people who've had mixed feelings about the show will now understand it was all part of a big plan," Tancharoen says.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, released in theaters over the weekend, reveals that the secret government agency has been infiltrated to its core by sleeper agents of Hydra, an evil organization bent on world domination.
And in a bit of movie-to-TV synergy, the film's events will prompt a major retooling of ABC's Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for its first season's final six new episodes, beginning Tuesday (8 ET/PT).
"It's an extremely unique experience that doesn't exist anywhere else out there in the entertainment business," says Jeph Loeb, executive producer and head of Marvel TV.
The show's group of agents led by Coulson (Clark Gregg), introduced in the Marvel movies, are faced with not only trust issues among themselves but a civil war within the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. organization, where no one knows who's actually a Hydra operative.
Upcoming episodes feature at least one major betrayal, and what's left of Coulson's team is forced to deal on their own with the dismantling of their whole world as well as the new Hydra threat.
"Survival is a huge part of it," says executive producer Maurissa Tancharoen. "There is no more tapping into big S.H.I.E.L.D. through the holo-comm. The guns you have on the plane are the guns you have. They're basically left with the bare minimum."
Coulson's team — agents May (Ming-Na Wen), Ward (Brett Dalton), Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Skye (Chloe Bennet) — were established as new characters in Marvel lore finding their identity in "the most massive organization ever created by man," adds executive producer Jed Whedon. "Now they really are a ragtag bunch scraping things together."
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has had bigger problems than Hydra its first season. Viewership has been disappointing — it premiered in September with an impressive 12 million viewers, but ranked behind The Voice and NCIS with 5.71 million last week, though it is expected to return next fall.
And the hardcore fanboy contingent has decried its lack of characters from the comics, though that will be addressed with the Hydra element, which the show couldn't mention until now in order to avoid spoiling Winter Soldier, Whedon says. Instead, the series spent time building external threats -- the big bad mystery man the Clairvoyant, the mad scientists of Centipede, the cyborg operative Deathlok (J. August Richards) -- for the heroes to deal with that would then connect back to Hydra later.
"Hopefully people who've had mixed feelings about the show will now understand it was all part of a big plan," Tancharoen says.
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