Will Captain America: the Winter Soldier Help or Hurt Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Ratings?

With Captain America: The Winter Soldier tying into Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in a big way, there are more fans talking about the show this weekend than ever before. The discussion around Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for most of the season has been about whether it can sustain its big budget in the face of falling ratings, but with an uptick in quality and fan engagement over the last few episodes, and their social media promising no more reruns until the finale hits (apparently those breaks were becuase they needed to sync this week's episode up with the U.S. release of The Winter Soldier), there's more positive buzz around the show than ever before. We have to wonder, though -- will it help the show, or hurt it, that there's a perception that the show will spoil the movie, the movie will spoil the show and in order to get the full experience, you need to watch both?

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.got a ratings bump out of the recent appearance by Jaimie Alexander as Thor's Lady Sif, but not as big as they might have hoped -- and that came the week Thor: The Dark World was hitting Blu-ray. What of Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Sure, it's on everybody's mind right now...but the impression from many fans is that the changes at S.H.I.E.L.D. in that film are so major that you can't possibly tie the TV series in without spoiling big chunks of the movie -- possibly the whole thing. So while you hope to get lapsed fans back, or earn some casual fans excited about the movie...will some Marvel fans actually avoid Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this week because they haven't seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet?