You’ve all probably seen “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” by now. And while you all have various opinions on the movie, I was too busy freaking out about the terrible television crossover by Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Sure, S.H.I.E.L.D. was a central feature in the film, and it’s viewed by the fan community as an essential (and respectable) part of the universe. But the relevance of the annoyingly mediocre show to the Marvel canon is a poor decision on the studio’s part.

For those of you not in the know, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is ABC’s attempt to buy into the popularity of Marvel’s superhero films and boost its network ratings. This was probably most apparent when “The Avengers” was first in theaters. With much critical acclaim and millions to be made, it made sense on an executive level to try to extend a story over a longer period of time.

So in the summer of 2012, Marvel Studios publicly announced its plans to make an Avengers-themed series, set after the events of the first movie. Apparently one fan too many had freaked out over the brutal on-screen killing of Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), so now they were going to bring him back to life to head a cast of talented but misunderstood agents.

I mean, when I was researching this show for a class, I was pretty excited that “Avengers” director Joss Whedon was on board to executive produce. Even though he wouldn’t be the primary showrunner, Whedon’s kind of a big deal. Who hasn’t regained faith in humanity after watching “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly”? So when I saw the poorly executed pilot that he’d presumably wrote, the gods (or Asgardians) of geekdom all probably wept.

This show’s S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t have a bad-ass Nick Fury running things; it might as well be the “Agent Coulson is trying to figure out this random conspiracy while a bunch of ‘talented’ ragtag kids emit angst and fight villains of the week” show.

An ace pilot (Ming-Na Wen), Black Ops specialist (Brett Dalton), civilian computer hacker (Chloe Bennet), amateur weapons technologist (Iain De Caestecker) and life sciences specialist (Elizabeth Henstridge) do not a good team make — or really do much to clue new Marvel fans in about what premise we’re working with.

Don’t get me wrong: There’s worse stuff on the air. “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” has action, shootouts and good-looking people like its cinematic equivalents, so it’s still done well enough to be renewed for a few more seasons. It also does a good job of depicting capable women who don’t need a love interest to be essential to the show (they’re also Asian, for added diversity brownie points).

But unlike the highly successful superhero dramas “Smallville” and “Arrow” (both on The CW), S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t find its heart in its characters. Granted, “Smallville” and “Arrow” are origin stories of otherwise boring heroes (Superman’s too nice, Green Arrow’s too egotistical), while “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is a continuation of an appealing storyline. But because the characters are entirely new with only occasional references to big-screen events, we really don’t care about Skye’s twisted past, Ward’s commitment issues or May’s cryptic backstory.

Unfortunately, the silver screen cannot command the same kind of attention that “The Winter Soldier” has, but ratings for “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” keep dropping. But maybe heroes aren’t meant to have our attention for consecutive weeks. Maybe they’re only supposed to entertain us when the movies come out each year.

Or maybe it’s because the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents aren’t super enough, neither in their abilities nor personality.