I LOVE Agents of SHIELD and I can't emphasize enough how good it is (to me) when binge watching.
However, if you really feel like there are parts of it you just can't stand, particularly in Season 1, here are the notable bits that I think are required or just plain good. I'll be quoting from one of my previous posts on this matter:
Episode 1, if you're binge watching.
But in terms of where the show actually starts having a clear vision for the future: Episode 10. But in retrospect all of the previous episodes are actually building up certain aspects that will show up and be important.
Here's a list of the stronger episodes of Season 1, if you want to skip the "weak" episodes of Season 1 (Season 2 is pretty fantastic overall):
- Episode 1
- Episode 4
- Episode 6
- Episode 10
- Episode 11
- Episode 13 and the rest of the season
Out of the ones left out, here are some of my choices to possibly include for particular reasons:
- Episode 5: First introduction of Raina, has a pretty fun story with a guy that has pyrokineses.
- Episode 7: Fun interaction between the characters of Ward and Fitz
- Episode 8: I like the stuff having to do with the Asgardian artifact, and there are insights into the characters of Ward and May.
- Episode 12: Neat insight into the way SHIELD Academy works, plus the FitzSimmons stuff is neat. Also introduces Ronnie Gill who appears again in Season 2 in a way that might seem out of the blue if you haven't seen this episode.
Episode 2, 3, and 9 (the only ones not included in the above lists) are probably the weakest of the series, 3 does introduce an important character as well as Gravitonium, but it hasn't reared its head much since. Episode 9 had an interesting concept with its villain that follows up a bit on Thor: The Dark World, and made me think about the way the realms work, but it wasn't that important to the series at all in any fashion.
I still suggest watching all of Season 1 in a binge watch, but the first list I gave is a good way to get the gist of the first half of the first season.