3 lessons Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. could learn from Syfy's alphas

When the dust settles at the end of this television season, there might not be a show more deserving of the title "most improved" than Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. After an uneven first season and a second one devoted to the buildup of the Inhumans, this third season feels like a payoff for sticking with the show. At the same time, it finally feels like the kind of show that casual superhero fans can stick with — which is what Marvel wanted in the first place.
The show this season is wrapping itself around the idea of Inhumans, people with latent alien DNA triggered by exposure to a material called Terrigen. These Inhumans have fantastic superpowers — the kind S.H.I.E.L.D. viewers have been waiting to see — that have really breathed new life into the series. But there's other, quieter stuff going on, too, like questions about trust, about desperation, and about humanity (which can, at times, be heavy-handed when combined with the Inhuman theme). And it's a better show for it.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s improvements and tweaks, and the reason they exist, are illustrative of the pains of telling superhero stories on television. While we have some great ones right now (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Flash, Daredevil) and some to look forward to (Jessica Jones, Supergirl), it wasn't too long ago that the later seasons of shows like Heroes and Smallville seemingly sullied the genre to the point where Heroes has become a punchline.
But lost in the undertow of not-great superhero shows was the inexplicably underloved Alphas.
Alphas was Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. existed. By no means am I saying Alphas was around before Marvel's comic books; it borrowed many of the themes found in X-Men and Avengers comics (which is part of the reason I really enjoyed it). But in terms of a television series about an arm of the government that is manned by superheroes, the rising threat of people with superpowers (called Alphas), questions about trusting your government, and the relationships and bonds these people have with one another — Alphas was there first.
Looking back at Alphas, especially after seeing the production values of shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Supergirl, and Daredevil, is like watching tennis played with wooden rackets. The special effects are clunky. The superhero headquarters barely look like temporary office space. There were also times early in the show when its "case of the week" format got gimmicky.
But despite its aesthetic limitations, Alphas did a lot of splendid things and told stories in innovative ways. It's a series that every superhero show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. included, could learn from.