As many reviews have observed, the second episode of a TV show is the one that tells audiences how things will function from week-to-week, now that the business of introducing the premise and characters is (mostly) finished. Will

The team is summoned to an archaeological dig in Peru where an 0-8-4 – an object of unknown origin – has been discovered in an ancient Incan temple. Getting the device to safety proves a challenge as the dig is attacked by the war-torn region’s rebels soldiers, but Coulson receives aid from an old colleague, now-Commandant Camilla Reyes. Meanwhile, Fitz and Simmons work to figure out what the 0-8-4 is, and whether or not it poses a danger to the team, while Skye struggles to find a place within the newly-formed team and May tries to keep her background a secret.

From the beginning of the episode, there are Firefly-esque subtleties in how the plot is presented and the purpose of what viewers see. The teaser will throw any Browncoat back to “Out of Gas” by showing the heroes’ vehicular home base and its leader in mortal peril, while the following scenes are constructed into a series of nice long tracking shots that take viewers through the Bus and let us get a sense of the layout. Like Serenity, the Bus is going to be the characters’ home and the show wants us to inhabit the space and be comfortable in it.

Unfortunately, the actual plot of the episode feels very rote and cliché-ridden. There’s not much in the way of surprises, even though “0-8-4? tries to deliver a twist at the two-thirds mark; the fact is, by the time we’ve reached that point, even the most genre-blind viewers know how the plot is going to turn and what conflict the characters will have to solve by the end. It’s almost procedural, and therein lies a big potential pitfall for Agents of SHIELD as it risks becoming NCISHIELD or something similarly tired and overdone. Hopefully the plotting will pick up as the show goes on.

Team development really feels like the focus of the episode. Much like the Bus, time is spent feeling out the current dynamic between all the team members and making the point that so far, professionally speaking, they don’t work well as a unit. There are a few clunky lines and perhaps too much emphasis on painting Skye as the heart of the group, but that early discord makes it satisfying when the team figures out how to save the day at the end. Coulson takes a backseat in “0-8-4?, though amusingly, the writers suggest the whole premise of the show could be seen as Coulson’s midlife crisis.

Even taking into account the wonderful cameo appearance at the end and a general tone that’s reminiscent of Joss Whedon’s greatest artistic accomplishment, “0-8-4? is a slightly worrying yet very entertaining instalment and is likely to be the template for Agents of SHIELD episodes to come. There’s dark potential lurking around the edges for the premise to dip into overly formulaic territory, but even the more 2D, archetypal characters are interesting and the team dynamic is very fun to watch. Hopefully the hints of a larger story arc will resolve into more interesting episodic stories as the show progresses.

John Keegan is Editor-in-Chief for Critical Myth, a partner site of SciFi Vision. Paul Pearson is Critical Myth's reviewer for Agents of SHIELD.