That show had such a weird situation with Marvel tying their hands. Sure, you can run half a season and introduce everyone to your characters, just don't actually start the story until our latest movie is out. By all rights it should have crippled the show, and a lot of people did write it off based on those campy first episodes.

But damn did they have a plan and a means to kick things off with a bang as soon as they had the opportunity. As soon as Bill Paxton appears, things go uphill fast. The fact that Ward went from everyone's most hated/boring character to one of the most popular in the series just shows how well they had things planned out