Trapped on a station somewhere in the middle of space, the team (minus one member) must try to work out where they are, what’s going on and what they need to do to get back home.

For some time now, SHIELD has not been a show that shied away from the bigger, bolder and outright weird elements of the source material, as emphasised last time out when we had Ghost Rider, LMDs and the Darkhold all vying for the spot of ‘most outlandish thing we can get away with on a TV budget’. So it makes sense that in this season, they send everyone to space, and if you think that sounds flippant, wait until one of the characters points it out.

Yes, the other thing that SHIELD has always done well but goes all out to embrace here is the characters (and by extension the show itself) leaning into the ludicrousness of some of the events that befall them with just enough tongue lodged in cheek to make it work. So yeah, they’re in space, miles from anything familiar, and they have to navigate completely alien surroundings and do things they normally wouldn’t, but they’re SHIELD, damn it, and that means they’ll do it with a knowing smile and a cutting quip.

It’s an approach that certain other shows in the MCU stable (naming no Inhumans) could have learned a lot from. Honestly, when a show resorts to dumping all its characters into space, one might assume that it was jumping the shark. Approaching it with the characters being in on how insane it all seems isn’t enough to carry things on its own, but it’s a good start.

What really seals it though, is just how beautifully everything is presented. It’s difficult to say too much specifically without wandering into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that the verisimilitude of proceedings is helped greatly by the quality and weight of the VFX, costumes and makeup. When we see a spaceship, it looks solid, believable and real. When we encounter creatures and aliens, they all look appropriately detailed and believable too. For a TV show that’s made a name for itself carving its own little niche within but removed from the cinematic side of the MCU, this really wouldn’t look out of place alongside many of the movies.

The dialogue snaps too – several characters get their little moment of snark/winks to the audience, but we also get some real, emotional moments from all concerned. As the gang start to find out just exactly where they are, this grounding helps, anchoring them while the plot takes us to places that even this show hasn’t ventured towards yet – territory that makes almost everything the team encountered last season seem tame by comparison.

And it’s good to have the team back. Mack and YoYo are as adorable as ever, his grumpy demeanour a great contrast to her playful optimism. Coulson is about as lost as he’s ever been, but still doing his best to hold it together and get everyone moving in the same direction. Simmons is her determined, logical, practical self, and Daisy is her usual mercurial combination of badass and fragile. May doesn’t get a lot of meat in the way of character development, but she does get to kick some behind as usual, once again impressing us all with just how stoic she is. I couldn’t help but think back to those whispered murmurs about ‘The Cavalry’ in season one, and how far she’d come from sitting in an office shuffling paperwork to fighting for her life on a space station. Different environment, same old May.

In terms of new characters, we get a couple of reluctant allies for the team, one of whom obviously has more to them than is first apparent. We also get a couple of new villains – one boss and one henchman, and honestly at this point, the jury is out as to which of them is the creepiest.

Verdict: The band is back together, and it’s just a real good time. The episodes waste little time in throwing us and the characters headlong into the action, and when it looks this good and is this well-paced, that’s no bad thing. This could be one hell of a ride. 9/10

Greg D. Smith