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The Marvel Cinematic Universe is an entire – well, universe — complete with people, relationships, places, and timelines. Many people just watch Marvel movies because they’re fun, action-packed superhero movies, but for die-hard MCU fans, things can get very intense, very quickly.

The world of Marvel goes so deep that the level to which fans can pick apart and analyze the characters and storylines seems to know no bounds.

MCU fans like for everything created by Marvel to line up and connect with each other – any plot holes are definitely a huge no-go for Marvel fans. This is part of the reason why many fans stopped watching Marvel TV series, Agents of SHIELD, right after a certain season; things just didn’t seem to be lining up to their satisfaction.

What is ‘Agents of SHIELD’?

HENRY SIMMONS on 'Agents of SHIELD'
HENRY SIMMONS on ‘Agents of SHIELD’ | Mitch Haaseth/ABC via Getty Images

If you’re not a Marvel superfan, you may not have known that not only does this studio produce blockbuster after blockbuster for the big screen, but they also produce television series. Agents of SHIELD is one of those series, created for ABC by The Avengers‘ director Joss Whedon and others. 

SHIELD (standing for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division) is a fictional intelligence agency within the Marvel superhero universe which serves to protect the United States from all threats.

Within the MCU, SHIELD was responsible for forming the Avengers, and the agency also has to control people who have access to superpowers and super-advanced technology. We think of it like a superhero version of the CIA.

Agents of SHIELD primarily follows Phil Coulson, a high-ranking SHIELD agent brilliantly played by Clark Gregg. Gregg has played the role in some MCU movies as well, including Iron Man and The Avengers.

Why many fans stopped watching ‘Agents of SHIELD’ after season 4

Agents of SHIELD seems to have lost a pretty substantial proportion of their viewers after its fourth season. The reason why so many hardcore MCU fans gave up on the show is an interesting one; it wasn’t because the writing or acting worsened, or because the show, standing on its own, was of bad quality in any way.

What MCU fans had a hard time with was that Agents of SHIELD seemed to stray further and further from the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and eventually seemed to stop making references or connecting in any way to the MCU movies altogether.

Whether the TV series and movies within the MCU should always be connected is something that’s up for constant debate among fans, but people who are deep into the Universe want everything to link up and make sense.

“I drop it at the end if Season 4 and since it doesn’t affect the movies and the show continued to go off the rails, I dropped it,” one fan recently commented on Reddit. “It continues to go off the rails and at this point the show doesn’t even acknowledge the movie side. The movie side doesn’t acknowledge the TV side,” another fan complained. Another sadly shared: “I love the movies, so it makes me sad that the movies have completely ignored the television series.”

Fans have complaints about other MCU TV series

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An ‘Agents of SHIELD’ Movie Could Be a ‘Game of Thrones’-Level Disaster

Agents of SHIELD isn’t the only series of the MCU that fans have complaints about. It seems that there are quite a few Marvel shows that fans aren’t all-the-way satisfied with, and some even state that they only continue to watch them because they’re part of the MCU — not because they’re any good.

“I’ve been let down by the MCU since Endgame,” someone succinctly put. Another fan agreed: “I could be wrong, but right now I feel like I’ll just be watching the MCU because it’s the MCU, and I’m devastated I feel that way,” they shared.

We’ll cross our fingers that the MCU can start making fans happy again very soon!

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