Board Thread:Television/@comment-1713281-20131004113215/@comment-3317214-20131122151438

LoveWaffle wrote: They didn't need the footage to explain the concept of Asgardians. They've had no problem talking about other concepts - the Chitauri being a good example - in the past without including a mini-trailer for a current, popular film. The next two minutes was them walking around the sets (or something that looks like the sets) from Thor: The Dark World, meeting the bare minimum for a requirement that the episode somehow tie-in to the movie in the same way a sitcom would be required to include some Christmas-y stuff in December.

The bait-and-switch happened in the writers' room when the decision was made to tack on an extended trailer for Thor: The Dark World for an episode that was not about Thor: The Dark World. We could have gotten an "Item 47" for the Thor movies. What we got instead was a self-contained episode that included a few elements that will probably never be picked up on again.

No, they didn't need to use the footage. I'm not denying that it was essentially a trailer for The Dark World. That doesn't make it a bait-and-switch. It's moreso a reference used to explain the situation and lay groundwork for the episode.

For the most part, the bait-and-switch was in the media, where the promo stated, "The epic adventure that began in Thor: The Dark World continues in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD", and in the synopsis of the episode, "In the aftermath of the events chronicled in the feature film Marvel's Thor: The Dark World, Coulson and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pick up the pieces--one of which threatens to destroy a member of the team".

And I would have loved to see a Thor-ish version of Item 47 as an episode, but I appreciated the storyline we got. Besides, I have a feeling the Asgardian will show up again. We may even see the generic Norse Paganist hate group again. But we'll just have to wait and see. And considering the impact the staff had on Ward, you'd imagine they'll address that with the story. Having said that, this is Agents of SHIELD, so all I'm expecting is a brief mention of it, and then everyone moving on.