S.H.I.E.L.D.

What does it stand for? Originally, it stood for Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division. In the 1990s, it was changed to Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage Logistics Directorate. Then, in the Iron Man movie, it was changed again to Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. No idea if this final change is cannon or not. Will the comic books start calling it by its new, DHS-inflected name?

Where can you find it? Marvel comic books.

Key members: Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan, Gabriel Jones, Tony Stark, Maria Hill, Clay Quartermain

Its mission, as far as we can tell: To protect the world from bad things like Godzilla, terrorists, aliens, giant robots, and communism. In the recent series Civil War, SHIELD had to uphold the Superhero Registration Act and force all heroes to register with the U.S. government. This resulted in a major pissing match between Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D., and ended in Captain America's death. S.H.I.E.L.D. is randomly associated with the U.N. or the U.S. (People from the U.S. have a hard time figuring out the difference between their country and the rest of the world.)

Any counter-organizations? HYDRA, which is spelled in all caps but is not an acronym. Warren Ellis made fun of S.H.I.E.L.D. with a group called H.A.T.E., which stands for Highest Anti Terrorism Effort.

SD-6

What does it stand for? Section Disparu 6 (French for Disappeared Unit 6)

Where can you find it? Alias TV series

Key members: Sydney Bristow (though she's tricked into it), Jack Bristow, Arvin Sloane, Jean Briault, Edward Poole (played by Roger Moore!)

Its mission, as far as we can tell: Weird spy shit. Digging up semi-mystical objects, retrieving semi-mystical objects from the bad guys, working with the CIA sometimes, killing people who know about SD-6, propagating weird family psychodrama.

Any counter-organizations? K-Directorate (with the wondrous Gina Torres) and FTL.

CONTROL

What does it stand for?

Unknown

Where can you find it?

Get Smart TV series

Key members: Agent 86 (Maxwell Smart), Agent 99, The Chief

Its mission, as far as we can tell: To work with the United States government to protect the nation from bad guys. Usually bad guys with bombs.

Any counter-organizations? KAOS, which is a Russian group nominally headquartered in Delaware for tax reasons.

U.N.I.T.

What does it stand for? United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, now shortened to Unified Intelligence Taskforce

Where can you find it? Doctor Who, Torchwood

Key members: the Doctor (in the 1970s), Doctor's former companion Dr. Martha Jones, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw

Its mission, as far as we can tell: To protect the planet, and especially England, from alien invaders. They're barely secret at all, and work with the United Nations. Their first great battle was with the Cybermen.

Any counter-organizations? None.

The Dharma Initiative

What does it stand for?Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications

Where can you find it? Lost TV series

Key members: Founders Karen and Gerald deGroot, from spooky University of Michigan

Its mission, as far as we can tell: Funded by the mysterious Hanso Corporation, its mission was to be a scientific collective where people could study meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and what is hinted to be utopian socialism (the scariest discipline of all!).

Any counter-organizations? The Others, who gassed them and took over their research stations.

The Syndicate

What does it stand for? Not an acronym, but perhaps a metanym. It's also known as the Elders, the Consortium and the Group.

Where can you find it? X-Files TV series

Key members: The Smoking Man, X, Alex Krycek, William Mulder (Fox's dad), Alvin Kurzweil (no relation to Ray)

Its mission, as far as we can tell: Like an old-fashioned Illuminati-style group, they secretly influence world affairs in government and business. Originally they banded together to fight a group of aliens who wanted to colonize Earth using the black cancer, or black oil. But somehow they are also involved in lots of other ooky-gooey projects to hybridize humans and aliens, as well as create creepy diseases.

Any counter-organizations? The colonizer aliens.

M.I.B.

What does it stand for? Men In Black.

Where can you find it? The Men In Black movies.

Key members: Agent J, Agent K, Agent L

Its mission, as far as we can tell: To deal with alien life on Earth, which sometimes means protecting humans from aliens but mostly seems to mean protecting aliens from each other.

Any counter-organizations? Unknown

I wasn't sure at first why I liked "The Poison Sky" better than "The Sontaran Strategem." I think it's just because last week's installment was just lots of nonsensical investigation. And this week's was lots of nonsensical battles, which are just inherently more fun to watch. There were just more fun moments this week, which is all you can really ask for a lot of the time. (Sorry this is late, by the way — partly I wanted to ponder it a bit more, but mostly I just got swamped thinking of ways to obliterate campiness. This episode provided a few hints in that department, of course.)

I liked almost everything about Donna in this episode, which surprised me — except for some of the interactions with her family. Donna's mother is still not working for me as a character, and even though I love Bernard Cribbins, I'm getting tired of the way the schmaltzy music comes on whenever she has a heart-to-heart with her grandfather Wilf. The thing of the companion staying in touch with her Earthbound family worked pretty well when it was Jackie and Mickey (as annoying as they sometimes got) but it just doesn't seem to have that much life left in it now.

Besides Donna getting to be a hero and take on a Sontaran single-handed, the much-maligned paramilitary organization UNIT finally got to kick some ass as well. The first half of the story had me wondering why UNIT had even been included, and I was ready for part two to be just a litany of scenes where the Doctor tells the toy soldiers not to engage the aliens — along with the occasional moment of UNIT disregarding the Doctor and learning the folly of violence. So I was stoked when UNIT actually turned out to be competent — and I liked Colonel Mace's rousing little speech about showing the aliens how advanced humans can be in the killing department.

So, yes. Fun shooty action and nice use of the SHIELD helicarrier UNIT airship in the giant battle. Although, the final bit where the soldiers all cheer and the hawt female science-nerd/soldier smooches Col. Mace — maybe a little too much. But it's Doctor Who, so "too much" is always on the menu.

And yet. All the things that didn't make sense in part one still didn't make sense in part two. The Sontaran scheme still seemed way too fancy for the galaxy's most unstoppable warriors. Why not just swoop down, have a fun afternoon killing all the humans, and then transform the planet into a clone farm? It's better strategy, plus it's the warrior way. The Sontarans must have done this to planets a thousand times before, so why would they need to use cars to convert the atmosphere to clone feed? They should have a "Sontara-forming" device on their ship to do that for them.

I was also sad about Martha — when she turned up on Torchwood, that show suddenly became twice as watchable, and the Torchwood team started being good at their jobs. But Doctor Who reaped no Martha boost, mostly because she was sidelined in the random clone plot. I sort of got that the Sontarans needed the Martha-clone to infiltrate UNIT and stop the nuclear launch. But did they really need her to keep pressing a button on her iPhone every few minutes after that? Couldn't they have just rigged a little button-pressing machine? Mostly, it just seemed like a waste of the amazing powers of Freema Agyeman.

And then the scene where Martha talks to her dying clone literally made no sense to me. Why were we supposed to be sad that her (apparently) smelly clone was dying? Was Martha confronting her own mortality through her clone's death? No clue, sadly.

Actually, now that I think of it, I know why I liked part two of the Sontaran storyline better than part one: there was a lot less of Sergey Brin, or whatever his real name was. His character continued not making much sense to me. He was like like stock character #27: the misunderstood genius who teams up with the bad guys because he believes their empty promises. And then they suddenly but inevitably betray him. (He had maybe just a dash of Adam from season one.) Even the wacky "breeding program" scene felt like a random stereotype. ("I'm cleverer than you! I'm cleverer than EVERYONE!!!") Plus did I miss a scene that explained about this new planet the Sontarans were going to give him and his ten other breeding partners? It was mentioned, like, twice.

The only way Sergey Brin could have surprised me is if he hadn't sacrificed himself at the end. The misguided geniuses in league with monsters always sacrifice themselves, either to redeem themselves or to punish their former allies, or just because there's five minutes left.

Another thing that bugged me, of course, was the deus ex machina device, the fancy atmosphere-fixing machine that we'd seen for a split second in the first episode, which miraculously turned out to be the key to solving the killer-smog problem in the second episode. Of course, the new Who is known for its deus ex machinas, so it's par for the course. And the alternative, to have the Doctor MacGyver a new atmosphere neutralization whatsit out of spare parts, wouldn't really have been much less cheap. Just slightly less cheap.

Oh, and the Doctor being willing to sacrifice himself, just so he can offer the Sontarans one last chance to quit? Sort of great, I guess — except he knows what the Sontarans will choose. Is it really worth giving up his life — all his remaining lives? — just to offer them a last chance that he knows they won't take? And then it turns out the Doctor is bluffing anyway. So he's throwing away his life on a bluff that he knows won't work. (Or, more cynically, he's manipulating Sergey Brin into committing suicide on his behalf.) It felt like it happened not because it made sense, but because the story needed one last tense climax.

So in short, I liked part two better than part one, mostly because I'd already swallowed the ridiculous set-up and the ridiculous resolution was more fun. Looking at the two parts as a whole... it was a forgettable but sort of entertaining romp. Better than the Daleks/pigs/Depression/New York storyline by the same author last year, but still a bit scattershot. If I had to explain to someone how the ruthless warriors, the killer car fumes, the global military organization, the geek wunderkind, the mind controlled soldiers, the cloned companion and the aborted nuclear launch all fit together, I think I'd have a brain embolism. Better to think of it as a collection of cool moments (Donna alone on the Sontaran ship) and blah ones (Martha watching her clone die, Sergey Brin describing his breeding program) than try to view it as a story.