10 Terrible Mistakes That Almost Ruined The Marvel Film Universe For Everyone

10. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Irritatingly Slow Start

By linking a television series with the continuity of a series of movies, Marvel were always running the risk of tarnishing their most valued franchise. Given the much smaller budget and the difficult task of keeping things entertaining on a weekly basis, the introduction of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. could have been detrimental to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole - and it very nearly was. If the viewers lost interest in the television series, it could well put them off going to see the related movies and the incredibly slow start that the series made very nearly caused that to happen for some people. In the United States, the season premiere pulled in 12.12 million viewers, which made it the biggest network drama debut of the previous four years. The season finale only had 5.45 millions viewers, so you can see the problem. The premiere was a promising piece of entertainment, but the action dwindled badly in the subsequent episode, and it was only towards the end of the first season that things really started to get interesting again.