While producer Jeph Loeb understands that the way we watch TV has changed, that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be happy to see the upcoming Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. be appointment television.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Loeb says that is why ABC and Marvel are being extremely secretive about the pilot for the upcoming series. Audiences who attended the recently concluded San Diego Comic Con and the Television Critics’ Association summer meetings got a look at the pilot.  But if critics missed those screenings, they will have to wait until September 24 like the rest of us to watch the pilot. ABC and Marvel have decided not to send out screeners for the pilot episode of the series.

Loeb says that part of the reason is to re-create the idea of “appointment TV.”

“While we absolutely welcome the idea of you downloading it or you DVRing it — because that’s the way the people are watching TV — but wouldn’t it be great if we could get back to a place where, at 8 p.m. on Tuesday nights, everybody got together and decided to watch Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD so that that social experience is actually one that’s immediate as opposed to something that is shared and reshared and spoiled and then unrevealed and all of the other things that go along with it,” Loeb says.

One of the surprises that Loeb could be looking to keep under wraps is the week-to-week fate of the show’s central characters.   Actor Clark Gregg says that no one on the show is safe, including his own character of Phil Coulson.

Gregg says all of the characters on the series are “vulnerable” and that includes Coulson.

He goes on to call the show a “hopeful” one.  He adds that part of what excites him about working on the series is watching how it fits into the bigger Marvel universe.

“So to see the first couple of scripts, to see the way that they’ve found the thing that’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen on TV, and yet to see the humans of that world represented is really exciting for me,” Gregg tells Comic Book Movie.