Entertainment
Why Did Disney Save ‘Agents of SHIELD?’
At the end of last week, it was announced that ABC pondered about canceling Agents of SHIELD, the first foray into television for Marvel Studios, after its fourth season. It was reported that while ABC were overruled by their parent company, Disney, which also owns Marvel Studios.
Despite disappointing ratings for The Defenders, Marvel has done well on Netflix. However, it has struggled to establish an attractive universe on network television. Agents of SHIELD actually premiered to a ton of viewers (over 10 million its first week).
But it wasn’t really the show people thought it was going to be — at first — and it lost millions of viewers week to week up until a major change came to the show when Captain America: The Winter Soldier was released and SHIELD was dismantled.
That turned SHIELD from a show that was essentially just CSI in the Marvel universe to a show about people with powers. The sad thing is that Agents of SHIELD has slowly become the show that everyone hoped it’d be. It’s gotten better each year, and fans show are fighting to keep it alive.
Besides Agents of SHIELD, ABC also was the home to a show about Agent Peggy Carter — Captain America’s love interest in Captain America: The First Avenger and the co-founder of SHIELD. Despite a strong following, the show was canceled after two seasons — although it may come back in some way shape or form.
Marvel newest project, Inhumans, premiered to poor reviews last week. Two of the more popular characters on Agents of SHIELD left the show to star in their own spin-off, but that was canceled before it even began.
Despite the lack of interest, Marvel Studios’s TV arm is considering delving into the intergalactic world — just like in the movies. Loyal audiences may get to see S.W.O.R.D. — a department of S.H.I.E.L.D. that deals with extraterrestrials — in the upcoming fifth season of Agents of SHIELD.