Sometimes when you’re watching a show, you might notice that there are two bits of the story that don’t quite add up. This is particularly likely when the story arc has been going on for a long time and evolving over the course of the show; things that appeared one way in the beginning were later revealed to be another way, and so on. This tends to result in some complicated continuity, or even outright continuity errors. But just as often, these continuity “errors” can rather easily be fixed with a little explanation provided by the fans, who tend to refer to their personal beliefs about the show as “headcanon.” With that in mind here are some minor continuity problems, and the funny explanations fans use to patch them up.

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Things take a surprising turn in the wake of Age of Ultron, which saw the series playing a big role without putting movie-only audiences out of the loop. Conflict arises between SHIELD and the Inhumans–and not necessarily from the people we’ve been expecting. And we’ve still got the finale next week!

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Doing a TV show week to week… well, it can get a little dull. Emergency power to the deflectors, shields to 40%, yadda yadda. So sometimes, the actors like to get a little something to mix it up, and that can be fun for the writers and the audience as well. To see our favorite characters taken outside their typical milieu and placed in a situation where their usual tricks aren’t quite as useful can be quite telling about who they are (or it can be a complete disaster). I mean, that was the whole idea behind introducing the holodeck in Star Trek, after all. It made practically any setting a possibility. But not every show has a holodeck to fall back on when it comes time to do these types of episodes, so here are 4 episodes of sci-fi TV shows where the usual tropes of sci-fi took a week off, leaving us with a different genre all together.

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This is a little something I’ve been working on in celebration of the release of Age of Ultron tonight. By using footage from the various TV movies Marvel put out in the 1990’s, I’ve assembled an alternate set of Avengers–well, minus Hawkeye. Sorry Hawkeye! See the video description to find out which movies I used exactly. Black Widow isn’t really Black Widow, unfortunately, but rather a character that’s very clearly based on her from one of the Hulk movies. Hawkeye and Iron Man had no such counterparts, so this ended up being the best way to do it. This is just for fun, so I hope you enjoy it!

Tonight’s episode has the duty to build hype for Avengers: Age of Ultron, and boy does it ever. On top of that, we’ve got a moment that has been in the making all season–the original cast is reunited, and things get ugly fast. Both character moments and show development take front and center, without letting the build-up to The Avengers overshadow it.

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This month’s “What Could Have Been” is brought to you by special request (a while ago, actually, but I wanted to cover Odyssey 5 in a Primer first). As it turns out, Odyssey 5 doesn’t have a whole lot of information out there on how it would’ve progressed; Manny Coto, the show’s creator, has been fairly tight-lipped about his plans and still has a fervent belief that he may be able to resurrect or remake the show some day. It’s hard to argue with the idea that the show would likely be far more successful if it were made today than it was at the time, although ratings weren’t behind its cancellation. Almost everything I’ve found comes from one source: the DVD commentary for episode 1. However, there’s still enough tantalizing tidbits here that we can reconstruct some of the series’ plot and eventual resolution. Let’s look at the plans for Odyssey 5 Season 2 and beyond.

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Cameos can happen for all kinds of reasons. Maybe it’s someone who’s been very important behind the scenes, or in the show’s history, and they wanted to get on screen again (or for the first time, in the former’s case). Just take a look at Stan Lee’s many, many cameos over the years. Or maybe it’s just that all shows have their fans, and sometimes those fans are famous people who can pull the strings to appear on screen. Or perhaps it’s just a notable personality–not necessarily a celebrity in the usual sense, but a politician, or a scientist, or a high ranking military officer in a military-themed project. Here are 4 cameos that hit all those marks, and have a little more to them to boot.

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Another amazing episode as the various factions we’ve been introduced to this season start running into each other, and our wild cards keep dropping into play to complicate it even further. The march towards the finale has indisputably begun, and we’ve still got the Avengers 2 in between!

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A few weeks ago, we discussed some of the lesser known spinoffs of more popular parent shows. This week, we’ll continue the descent into obscurity with 4 spinoffs that never even made it that far, having died before they even managed to… uh, spin(?) at all, by picking up in the vein of “What Could Have Been.” As they all come from major franchises, it’s interesting to imagine what the consequences of their success might have been. Let’s explore, shall we?

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May’s backstory is revealed at long last, and it turns out “the Cavalry” wasn’t quite the badass nickname it always seemed to be. More traumatic, really. We also get to see more of Skye, Raina, and the Inhuman encampment they call Afterlife. It’s not the strongest episode of the season, but last week was a tough act to follow.

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