Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 5 (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Creators: Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly)
	Actors: Clark Gregg (Iron Man 1-3, The Avengers), Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: March - May 2018, VOD, 32" TV screen & 10" tablet
Synopsis: The team led by Phil Coulson (Gregg) doesn't get a break. Barely recovering from their latest success, they awake apparently in space, and first have to understand why they are here before doing something about it. Many more challenges await them.
Review: They did it again. After three seasons establishing the characters and the tone while still evolving very fast and increasing the scope and stakes, and a fourth season managing to pack two original storylines, this fifth goes again in a totally different direction, raises the stakes one notch to give our favorite team a challenge at the level of what the Avengers usually deal with, and does so with again a two-part adventure that make you feel like you watched two seasons in one. I love how the characters fully embrace the new challenges, well summarized when Mack says: "We’re in space. It’s the one thing we haven’t done yet". Well he is about to get even more surprised. This one line invites you to accept a Universe that could seem outrageously exaggerated but that is in fact in line with the escalation in the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to the point that series makes references to the contemporary events of Avengers: Infinity War in its last three episodes. The special effects in the first half of the season are as good as always, and I was even impressed by some beautifully made landscape scenes with well-inserted effects. And the opening title is changing and nice as usual. The series gets a bit lazy in its second half, sticks more to indoors and the effects in the last two episodes look a bit cheap in spite of their grand scope. Enemies change in the course of the season (nice to see Florence Faivre from The Expanse, a nice series that I unfortunately learned had been cancelled) and characters evolve in unexpected directions, a characteristic trait for the series. However, I started to be less excited by the series in the last ten episodes, but I don't know if that is due to the format (I am not used to watch series episode per episode, I usually binge-watch whole seasons) or to a real need for renewal... This fifth season was produced quickly after the fourth, but the sixth will not air before June 2019, both constrains allowing for the series to pause before the events of Avengers: Infinity War and resume after Avengers 4 is released.
Rating: 6 /10