"Window of Opportunity" Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S06E02 Review

I'm beginning to see why I haven't reviewed Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. elsewhere, and might not continue doing so here.

Don't get me wrong, the show is good. But it's very generically good. The acting is okay, the dialogue is a lot better than a lot of shows, there are occasional directorial touches, and the fight choreography is excellent.

But there's still a sameness to it. When the show keeps doing the same thing episode after episode, season after season, it's hard to come up with new things to review about it. The acting is okay, the dialogue is a lot better than a lot of shows, there are occasional directorial touches, and the fight choreography is excellent. Got it? Got it. Good.

But we're already here, so let's give it a try. "Window of Opporunity" divides into two parts. Three, really: Sarge and his crew, S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to find them, and Enoch and Fitz having a thrilling adventure in space.

The focus is mostly on Team Sarge, as we find out a little more about their backstory. They travel from world to world, and apparently destroy them. They need PEZs (Piezoelectric Crystals) to power the world-destroying device. They clearly have and are familiar with advanced technology, so they're futuristic despite their Road Warrior getups and attitudes.

We find out little bits about the various non-Sarge characters. Pax has doubts about their mission. Jaco is surprisingly smart (he's the one who rattles off what PEZ means), Butterfly beliefs in reincarnation and really likes to kill people. They saunter around a lot as music plays on the soundtrack. All we find out about Sarge is the name "Coulson" sounds vaguely familiar to him. And he acts a lot like Coulson.

The search for Team Sarge doesn't turn up much, either. Marcus confirms Sarge has the same DNA as Coulson. But mostly it's S.H.I.E.L.D. being one step behind Team Sarge. Team Sarge breaks into a jewelry store to get the PEZs, and they terrorize a clerk named Dana (Sola Bamis). They then lock themselves in the store vault and use some kind of portal device to travel back and forth between their cloaked truck and the vault. Melinda figures out what's going on, gets into the truck, and takes out Team Sarge until they manage to get the drop on her, send her back through the portal to the vault, and seal it shut.

On the adventures of Fitz and Enoch. In Space! Fitz is working as an engineer on a Sivian ship. He blows his cover, and Captain Viro (Paul Telfer) prepares to toss him and the hiding-but-discovered Enoch off the ship. Fitz isn't big on that, but Viro doesn't care so Fitz gets in the airlock with the engineering crew he's going to kill now he has Fitz who will work for free and is smarter to boot. Since Fitz reversed the airlock controls, Viro opening the airlock actually ejected himself and his own crew into space. Enoch hangs on because he knows about Fitz's plan, rescues Fitz and the crew, and they arrive at Naro-Atzia. Why Fitz is heading there, I'm not quite sure. Yes, his cyrostasis pod was built there. But it's not like he went there to get it in the first place. Can't he find another one somewhere in space?

As the episode ends, Enoch and Fitz take off to drop the engineering crew off at some planet because they'll be arrested as mutineers. Daisy and Jemma (and an unseen budget-saving Piper and Davis) arrive and Jemma can feel Fitz is somewhere there. Oh the irony.

Best part of the episode? The extended fight scene between Melinda and Team Sarge in the truck. It's dimly lit but there's nice choreography going on from what we can see. Team Sarge is an interesting group of personalities, and Clark Gregg is always good.

The worst part? There really isn't any bad parts. There aren't a lot of good parts. The Sivians are generic ratty-looking alien humanoids look just like humans except for some funky eye patterns. They're not a particularly interesting group, and they exist mostly as an obstacle to Fitz on his quest.

"Window of Opportunity" is just another episode of Agents. There's nothing bad about it, although the Sivians are pretty unimaginative. Imagine turning the personality development the creative team allocated to Team Sarge to Viro or the unnamed "Sivian Foreman". But then again, Team Sarge looks like they'll be with us for awhile. Crew Viro, not so much.

Agents seems to have settled comfortably into what is now its summer Friday-night slot on network TV. Disney is going to keep it alive because it's too big to fail. Not the show, but Disney itself. They took a hit on Inhumans, but that was a one-season show that was a bit experimental. Agents will keep trekking along as long as everyone involved wants to stick with it, and Disney doesn't want to look like it's losing its grasp on the whole ABC/Marvel/Disney nexus.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?