ABC Renews "Agents of SHIELD," Picks Up "Agent Carter"

[PretenderNX01]

Being top five isn't much when you're a distant third or fourth in the ratings. Disney bet heavily Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD would be a blockbuster and, while many tuned in for the first episode, ratings show they didn't stick around.

No one, including ABC thought the amount of viewers watching the premiere would indicate the amount once it leveled off.

On any other network, it would most likely be bubbled or cancelled.

That's just plain untrue. The show does really well in the advertiser demo, only being beat by NCIS. Other networks kept the shows being shown opposite AoS that are not doing as well so....

It also, more importantly, is a direct marketing device for all the Avengers movies: note that you can't fully understand the Asgard episode or the recent events without seeing the movie, so every one of those viewers is a nearly guaranteed movie ticket.

I didn't feel I missed anything in not seeing Thor 2. The episode explained everything it needed to.

Problems I have with the show — and have watched every episode so far — are:

Ah, here we go it's an "I don't like it so therefore it deserved to get cancelled" argument.

And it really doesn't help that Arrow is made on half the budget and feels like a stronger show

To you. It's not my taste but guess what? I'm not going to pretend it's on the verge of collapse just because I (and a few other posters here) don't like it. It's one of the negatives about this site= people group together and gang up, believing their shared views are everyone's and thus success or failure can be determined by their small group.

This was never a bubble show.

Exactly. It was only on comic book sites that people ever claimed the ratings were in danger. Generalized TV sites had it consistently listed as a probable pickup based on it's ratings.

[Donald]

Problems I have with the show — and have watched every episode so far — are:
1. The need to see the movies right away or else the plot of one is spoiled by the other (they are not wholly independent as they should)
2. Reliance on guest stars (Victoria Hand, Maria Hill, Major Talbot, Nick Fury… and this is the last four or five episodes)
3. Contortions to make the plot work: so now Extremis is the Hydra Deathlok program they infiltrated SHIELD for?
4. Expectations of comic fans recognizing key plot points but not helping those that aren't (the alien is a Kree, but they won't use the word yet)
and
5. Still a lack of seriousness despite the level of threat: you don't see any real panic that SHIELD is gone.

Also, the end episode is going to have do some serious explaining as to how they can be agents of an organization that's folded — and how they can afford anything (like fuel, ammo, etc.) as a result.

You watch but do not see.

1. This was the case with only one movie; The Winter Soldier. The whole MCU is interconnected, why should SHIELD be any different?
2. Talbot has done little to nothing so far. The rest are all high up in SHIELD, not seeing them while the organization was falling apart would be odd.
3. I don't understand what you're saying here. It was mentioned early on Extremis was in the Centipede juice.
4. If a viewer doesn't know what a Kree is, saying "hey it's a Kree!" doesn't help that viewer. To them it's what it should be, a mysterious body in a tube.
5. SHIELD fell, what, about a week ago, show time? Ramifications are still being felt. This isn't a global SHIELD show either. It's about this group of agents and what their doing.

That's what Fury's secret base was for. If you recall, they were out of fuel when they reached it. They refueled and supplied there, plus SHIELD has caches of money and IDs for agents hidden around. And they're so out of gear they are raiding Tripp's grandfather's old spy kit.

[Zorkel567]

2. Reliance on guest stars (Victoria Hand, Maria Hill, Major Talbot, Nick Fury… and this is the last four or five episodes)

Though I can understand your other complaints, I have to disagree with this one. Almost every series, at least serialized shows, rely on guest stars. Hannibal has Margot, Mason, Freddie Lounds, Chilton; Arrow has Waller, Sara Lance, Sebastian Blood, Isabel Rochev; Once Upon a Time has had Peter Pan, Zelena, Ariel, Ruby, Corra, Greg/Tamara; Revenge (this season) has had Margeux, Pascal, Patrick, Sara, Javier, Lydia; Pretty Little Liars has Shana, Jenna, Melissa, Noel, Lucas, Toby, Paige.

And this is just naming a few.

[Brian from Canada]

For the last episode where information is available, Turn, Turn, Turn, 18-49 demo Live+7 Day(Providence aired as a special so its ratings aren't readily available) AoS had a 3.4. The average rating over the course of the entire year for ABC was a 2.1, the top network NBC had a 2.8.

NBC is not the top network. The #1 network in America is CBS. The #2 network is Fox. ABC is third. NBC is struggling to get out of the basement. CW lags a distant 5th, with Arrow barely getting a 2.0 average.

Keep in mind as well that the upswing in the last three weeks is connectable to the fact that it reflects events directly in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and has featured key guest stars from that movie: the previous week had Maria Hill and the following week has Nick Fury — and all three episodes are directly connected (they don't function all that well as stand alone episodes that can be seen out of order).

As for being a "bubble" show, on CBS and Fox, with numbers like that it would have been. That was the point I was making. On NBC and ABC, it's only a 50-50 chance based on ratings and demos, but – I pointed out – ABC would never bubble it because it has other investments in it at the franchise level and the parent level which make it a key part of their marketing plan.

Note as well that Marvel's Agent Carter was spoken of as a spin-off BEFORE the Iron Man 3 DVD/BluRay even hit stores. So much push while losing the contemporary show was never going to happen unless Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD was going to survive. Every media-watching site knew that, but until ABC actually came out and said it was renewed, it had to be labelled "on the bubble" because the decision as to whether to keep or drop wasn't made yet.

[Brian from Canada]

1. This was the case with only one movie; The Winter Soldier. The whole MCU is interconnected, why should SHIELD be any different?

Promos for the Dark World episode specifically mention it's an aftermath of the feature film. In order to know the battle, you need to see the movie. This is a negative to me because it forces the television audience to see the films in order to understand the context — and while the Thor episode happened to a great job in simply stating they were cleaning up in London, the latest episodes' mention of Hydra shattering SHIELD and Fury being dead are things that the TV audience who don't go to the theatres aren't going to quite get. I chose not to see the movie — at $15 a ticket x 2, plus $15 parking, plus $25 babysitter, plus food it's way too expensive — and felt angry that the episodes weren't being constructed in a way I could enjoy the series on its own, and I know others who were in the same boat. We only "got" the reference when someone at work was willing to spoil the film to explain all the cross points.

2. Talbot has done little to nothing so far. The rest are all high up in SHIELD, not seeing them while the organization was falling apart would be odd.

Talbot is shutting down SHIELD bases and taking over. Marvel also heavily promoted the fact that it was Talbot, a major figure in the MU. They did the same thing for Victoria Hand.
Granted, they're not as recognizable as Hill or Fury, but the idea of promoting guest stars above the action is also upsetting: the show should be about the team, and the guests all make them look bad.

Almost every series, at least serialized shows, rely on guest stars. Arrow has Waller, Sara Lance, Sebastian Blood, Isabel Rochev; Revenge (this season) has had Margeux, Pascal, Patrick, Sara, Javier, Lydia; Pretty Little Liars has Shana, Jenna, Melissa, Noel, Lucas, Toby, Paige.

Bad examples. The last three you list from Arrow, for example, or all but Shana in Pretty Little Liars — not to mention Margeux and Patrick in Revenge — are more than guest stars: they are characters added to the situation for a key part of the season in order to act as catalyst to the series' year-long plot. And by being recurring characters, their interactions with the main cast have greater weight because they have personal interactions that draw the characters a certain way. (Not to mention that, based on the number of episodes they are in, Sara Lance should be a regular cast member.)

Victoria Hand, on the other hand, is just… there. She doesn't bring out anything in the team other than to show Coulson isn't the only top officer there. There's no rank to pull, and whatever conflict there is doesn't seem really their concern. When Maria Hill shows up, her motivation for helping to track Ward is mentioned, but you see little to no deference to her former rank in any of the others and she doesn't really seem to do anything but act as an assistant for the one mission. Fury… his first appearance is to crack a joke. The only guest stars that really worked well are the Asgardian (who interacted with each), Sif (who each character reacted to) and Garrett (because he's brought in first to build trust in order to make the betrayal real). Patton Oswald was a decent guest star too.

And this hurts the series, IMO, because characters like Hill, Fury and Hand are being promoted as key to connecting the series to the cinematic universe that is clearly loved by more people than the TV series. Many guest stars are brought on as "stunt" casting to boost ratings during sweeps; it's just that these movie-related stunts aren't really helping the show stand out more (save for Sif, I'd say) like they would on other shows. (Arrow's stunt casting was bringing in Barry Allen in February, which was planned to be matched again in the finale before the spinoff.)

3. I don't understand what you're saying here. It was mentioned early on Extremis was in the Centipede juice.

When the series started, Extremis was the weapon gotten loose from Iron Man 3. It was the core of Centipede, true.
But now it's revealed that Centipede is a Hydra program, not solely A.I.M.'s being stolen by others, which was where the series was hinting at before.
Hydra should have "happened across" the value of Centipede, not been bankrolling it from the beginning for their own use.
It makes SHIELD look even more incompetent for not realizing who was behind the weapon that was used in the attempted assassination of the President of the United States.
Fury's suspicion in the movie comes from the fact he's always suspicious — that's his nature as a spy: trust no one.

Sometimes, there are threads that need to tie together. But EVERY thread? That's just too neat a bundle.
Agent Carter has already painted itself into this problem. SHIELD should have arisen as a division of the OSS to handle… unnatural problems that the upcoming CIA couldn't. Instead, the one-shot shows clearly that SHIELD was created and funded by Howard Stark, so everything superhero-related in the MU comes down to Stark money or Stark involvement (up to and including the construction of Ultron, which will come from Tony Stark, and Vision, which will have Jarvis' voice because it's the same actor playing both).

4. If a viewer doesn't know what a Kree is, saying "hey it's a Kree!" doesn't help that viewer. To them it's what it should be, a mysterious body in a tube.

It's not even stated that the body inside is an alien.
There are plenty of Marvel references hidden throughout (Deathlok, the Cube, Kree, etc.) but their success should be based on the way they can be passed by without affecting the story.
When the Triskelon is mentioned earlier on, you get immediately it's a bigger SHIELD base and irrelevant to the present action.
When the body of an alien is the key part of the weapon the bad guys want and the reason people are concerned about Coulson, it needs more exploration.
Coulson clearly knows something about it, and they just drop that plot point fast so they can jump into the fall of SHIELD?

5. SHIELD fell, what, about a week ago, show time? Ramifications are still being felt. This isn't a global SHIELD show either. It's about this group of agents and what their doing.
That's what Fury's secret base was for. If you recall, they were out of fuel when they reached it. They refueled and supplied there, plus SHIELD has caches of money and IDs for agents hidden around. And they're so out of gear they are raiding Tripp's grandfather's old spy kit.

I agree they've built in some mechanisms to keep the team going but consider these two points in counterbalance:
1. Without SHIELD, this team has no authority; they are an armed unit going into foreign territories, and should be considered a threat.
2. At some point, the number of those caches has to dwindle notably, especially with the US government tasking Talbot to shut them down.
Eventually, there will have to be a narrative device to get them back into full support — no doubt as part of the lead up to Avengers: Age Of Ultron — but it goes into shaky territory for a while.

I hear lots of people joking that they are agents of an organization that no longer exists, and that's something the series should be addressing right away. Instead of asking "Where does that leave us?" and asking about allies, they just run to a secret base and continue focusing on the mission. It works in series, but the logic behind it is just… shaky.

[Alvarez]

The show getting renewed for a second season speaks louder than all the fan pontification on whether or not it should still be on the air.
It is. Too bad. Deal with it.

I'm not a fan of the show, but if others are that's cool.

[Zorkel567]

Bad examples. The last three you list from Arrow, for example, or all but Shana in Pretty Little Liars — not to mention Margeux and Patrick in Revenge — are more than guest stars: they are characters added to the situation for a key part of the season in order to act as catalyst to the series' year-long plot. And by being recurring characters, their interactions with the main cast have greater weight because they have personal interactions that draw the characters a certain way. (Not to mention that, based on the number of episodes they are in, Sara Lance should be a regular cast member.)

Victoria Hand, on the other hand, is just… there. She doesn't bring out anything in the team other than to show Coulson isn't the only top officer there. There's no rank to pull, and whatever conflict there is doesn't seem really their concern. When Maria Hill shows up, her motivation for helping to track Ward is mentioned, but you see little to no deference to her former rank in any of the others and she doesn't really seem to do anything but act as an assistant for the one mission. Fury… his first appearance is to crack a joke. The only guest stars that really worked well are the Asgardian (who interacted with each), Sif (who each character reacted to) and Garrett (because he's brought in first to build trust in order to make the betrayal real). Patton Oswald was a decent guest star too.

And this hurts the series, IMO, because characters like Hill, Fury and Hand are being promoted as key to connecting the series to the cinematic universe that is clearly loved by more people than the TV series. Many guest stars are brought on as "stunt" casting to boost ratings during sweeps; it's just that these movie-related stunts aren't really helping the show stand out more (save for Sif, I'd say) like they would on other shows. (Arrow's stunt casting was bringing in Barry Allen in February, which was planned to be matched again in the finale before the spinoff.)

TECHINCALLY, Patrick and Margeux aren't bad examples, as by looking at Once Upon a Time Press Release and Agents of SHIELD Press Release, ABC anyways categorizes anyone not in the main cast as a guest star. Meaning officially, they are guest stars. They may have longer stints, but they can all fall under guest star. I mean, Victoria Hand was in four episodes, that's not just a stunt. Plus, I mean, Hill could still easily play a larger role down the line that they're just setting the seeds up for now.

Also, Arrow had Barry Allen in November/December, not February. And they wanted him back in episode 20, which got changed to 19 for Cisco and Caitlin, not the finale.

[Carabas]

1. The need to see the movies right away or else the plot of one is spoiled by the other (they are not wholly independent as they should)

So you're basically opposed to the concept of a shared universe that actually shares a universe then? Maybe Marvel just isn't your thing?

2. Reliance on guest stars (Victoria Hand, Maria Hill, Major Talbot, Nick Fury… and this is the last four or five episodes)

How is it reliant on them in any way at all? Or at least more than pretty much any other show ever?

3. Contortions to make the plot work: so now Extremis is the Hydra Deathlok program they infiltrated SHIELD for?

What? No. That's not even remotely what happened.
Hydra strictly speaking didn't even infiltrate SHIELD, they co-founded it.

When the series started, Extremis was the weapon gotten loose from Iron Man 3. It was the core of Centipede, true.
But now it's revealed that Centipede is a Hydra program, not solely A.I.M.'s being stolen by others, which was where the series was hinting at before.
Hydra should have "happened across" the value of Centipede, not been bankrolling it from the beginning for their own use.
It makes SHIELD look even more incompetent for not realizing who was behind the weapon that was used in the attempted assassination of the President of the United States.

It is important that you get this: Hydra has been a part of SHIELD for as long as SHIELD has existed. Hydra has not existed as a seperate organisation since the end of WWII. SHIELD is Hydra is SHIELD.
Hydra also had nothing to do with the attempted assassination of the president (if that refers to Iron Man 3). AIM was not ever at any point involved with Centipede. After Iron Man 3, SHIELD/Hydra took possession of Extremis, and passed it on to the Centipede/Deathlok project.

4. Expectations of comic fans recognizing key plot points but not helping those that aren't (the alien is a Kree, but they won't use the word yet)

I don't see how this is even remotely a factor considering how intense the discussion between hardcore comicbook fans was about what the blue dude was supposed to be.

It's not even stated that the body inside is an alien.

I'm pretty sure that it was definitely stated to be extra-terrestrial in nature.

5. Still a lack of seriousness despite the level of threat: you don't see any real panic that SHIELD is gone.

It's a feature, not a bug.

Also, the end episode is going to have do some serious explaining as to how they can be agents of an organization that's folded — and how they can afford anything (like fuel, ammo, etc.) as a result.

It's not really fair to criticise a show for something that may or may not happen in an episode that hasn't aired yet.

I hear lots of people joking that they are agents of an organization that no longer exists, and that's something the series should be addressing right away. Instead of asking "Where does that leave us?" and asking about allies, they just run to a secret base and continue focusing on the mission. It works in series, but the logic behind it is just… shaky.

I think they really should deal with the immediate crisis first. Also, it's already heavily hinted a lot of former SHIELD people will become 'agents of S.T.A.R.K.'

[Donald]

Promos for the Dark World episode specifically mention it's an aftermath of the feature film. In order to know the battle, you need to see the movie.

The events of "The Dark World" had no real bearing on the episode. Everything that you needed to know was explained in the episode.

Marvel also heavily promoted the fact that it was Talbot, a major figure in the MU.

Who has made no appearances outside of the series. Again, to someone who isn't into comics, he could have been Col. Hapenblap and the effect would have been the same. For someone into the comics, it's a nice Easter Egg.

but the idea of promoting guest stars above the action is also upsetting: the show should be about the team, and the guests all make them look bad.

Why is it upsetting? You use what ever you have to get the audience to watch. I've seen plenty of "x-movie-name star-name" used to promote their appearance on a show. It's not like any of the "named" guest stars came in, took over the squad, and made the team look like a bunch of pikers.

Hydra should have "happened across" the value of Centipede, not been bankrolling it from the beginning for their own use. It makes SHIELD look even more incompetent for not realizing who was behind the weapon that was used in the attempted assassination of the President of the United States.

I think you have this the wrong way around. SHIELD came into possession of Extremis after Iron Man 3. Killian was the only one that had Extremis and he had nothing to do with Hydra. Hydra got a hold of it through their infiltrators. It makes sense that Centipede wasn't on SHIELD's radar with Hydra keeping it quite from the inside.

Sometimes, there are threads that need to tie together. But EVERY thread? That's just too neat a bundle.
<snip> Instead, the one-shot shows clearly that SHIELD was created and funded by Howard Stark, so everything superhero-related in the MU comes down to Stark money or Stark involvement

Including Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk? I think it will be eventually revealed that the ARC reactor came from analyzing the Tesseract, so Asgard has contributed at least as much as Stark.

When the body of an alien is the key part of the weapon the bad guys want and the reason people are concerned about Coulson, it needs more exploration.

It does, in later episodes. Maybe even in the season finale based on the promo clip.

1. Without SHIELD, this team has no authority; they are an armed unit going into foreign territories, and should be considered a threat.
2. At some point, the number of those caches has to dwindle notably,

1. Coulson has mentioned more than once they have no authority or sanction. That's why Talbot is chasing them down. They're also the only ones who know what is going on and in a position to do something about it.
2. At some point, but it has been less than a week after they resupplied.

[Shaudius]

NBC is not the top network. The #1 network in America is CBS. The #2 network is Fox. ABC is third. NBC is struggling to get out of the basement. CW lags a distant 5th, with Arrow barely getting a 2.0 average.

CBS being the #1 network is only true in their own marketing. Having the most total viewers doesn't really mean very much to advertisers. Advertisers care way more about the 18-49 numbers, which CBS is not the #1 network in, they may have certain shows that perform really well in the key demo but overall they are not the tops.

Keep in mind as well that the upswing in the last three weeks is connectable to the fact that it reflects events directly in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and has featured key guest stars from that movie: the previous week had Maria Hill and the following week has Nick Fury — and all three episodes are directly connected (they don't function all that well as stand alone episodes that can be seen out of order).

Again, no. The numbers are actually slightly worse than they were before the Captain America tie in, but the fact is they haven't really dropped that much since the 10th episode of the season, The Bridge which got a live 2.1/6 with 6.11 and a 3.4/9.16 mil total viewers. The latest episode got a 1.9/6 5.37 in the live. The last episode with full numbers Turn, Turn, Turn got a 1.9/6 3.4/8.83 million viewers.

Every media-watching site knew that, but until ABC actually came out and said it was renewed, it had to be labelled "on the bubble" because the decision as to whether to keep or drop wasn't made yet.

Not a single site that talks about these sorts of things on a regular basis had Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the bubble (Edit: Recently), it was not labeled as such, it was a certain renewal and the numbers bore it out as a certain renewal.

[AJBopp]

Not a single site that talks about these sorts of things on a regular basis had Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the bubble, it was never labeled as such, it was a certain renewal and the numbers bore it out as a certain renewal.

They certainly did have AoS listed as "on the bubble" since mid-March at least and frequently said so. No one with any common sense believed it, though, for reasons Brian from Canada mentioned.

[Shaudius]

They certainly did have AoS listed as "on the bubble" since mid-March at least and frequently said so. No one with any common sense believed it, though, for reasons Brian from Canada mentioned.

Please provide one source for this assessment.

[sonofspam1972]

The show getting renewed for a second season speaks louder than all the fan pontification on whether or not it should still be on the air.
It is. Too bad. Deal with it.

I'm not a fan of the show, but if others are that's cool.

I like this attitude and completely agree with it.

[AJBopp]

Please provide one source for this assessment.

http://tvline.com/2014/03/25/renewed...n-brettdalton/

I quoted many more in the old forums. Went back to look for some but many of the pages have now been removed from sites since actual results are in.

[Shaudius]

http://tvline.com/2014/03/25/renewed...n-brettdalton/

I quoted many more in the old forums. Went back to look for some but many of the pages have now been removed from sites since actual results are in.

Which is interesting because that very same site at approximately the same time they published that article had Shield listed as, "a safe bet" on their ratings watch. https://web.archive.org/web/20140327...celled-series/