Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 6 (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	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: May-August 2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: The team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is split on several fronts, one part looking for a missing member in the vastness of Space, the other fighting a new foe on Earth.
Review: That was a short season with only 13 episodes, maybe because it started late in the year to wait for the release of Avengers: Endgame. The previous seasons were spanning over 22 episodes with a big reveal somewhere in the middle to continue with new stakes. This sixth manages a similar effect at the end of the double S6E9-S6E10 Collision Course. Another reason for this shorter season is that the next will also have only 13 episodes. That seventh season will also be the last. It is sad but in the end I think the story ran its course and went over and beyond to deliver the audience an ever-expanding Universe. Indeed the series kept its promise of exploring new frontiers in every season, in this one going full Space Opera, following the lead of the MCU movies like Guardians of the Galaxy. A final note before I review the quality of the season: even though it waited for the release of Endgame, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is now not anymore canon to the MCU, i.e. although it was running in parallel to the movies since many years, it now ignored what happened in them and runs it own course in a different Universe. A bit of a pity but I guess it would have been logistically hard to do otherwise. This also marks a different with the new series that Marvel will release on the Disney+ streaming service (Falcon and Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Hawkeye...) and that are supposed to be fully integrated to the story of the MCU movies. So how did I like it? I found it is the least good season to date, the main reason being that the Space parts look too cheap and not believable: make-up effects, scale, story... the same nonsense that may look fine in Guardians of the Galaxy here looks cheap and out of place. On the positive side it still is a pleasure to follow the characters that we have been following for so long and the season gets better on its second half once the incredible coincidences are explained and the whole thing starts to make sense. Also one can only praise the series for going for a whole new SF sub-genre at every season, increasing the scope to a point borderline ridiculous, but in fact in line with the comics book spirit from which the series is adapted. The characters themselves make fun of it: "Zombies? Sure we haven't had those yet". As I wrote, I find it nice that the series comes to an end on its terms, it is probably a good time and in those conditions they will manage to deliver something to remember, call-backs to previous seasons, return of old characters...
Rating: 4 /10