ABC TV has officially ordered a full season’s worth of episodes of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The new series, which debuted as TV’s highest rated new drama series in four years, despite being in the competitive 8 pm time slot—has been approved for a full year’s worth of shows. The original order of 13 has now officially been expanded to a full season, making a total of 22 episodes for its freshman year.
Although the rankings for subsequent episodes of the show which have aired since the pilot have dropped noticeably for the second and third week, this week’s entry still ranked second for the 8pm time slot, with 7.9 million viewers and a 2.9 rating for adults 18-49.
Series show-runner Joss Whedon was asked by Entertainment Weekly if thinks a lot about making a show a success as he writes his episodes. He answered, “No. I mean, I want it to be a hit because people who I work for have invested in it, and people I work with are in it, and writing it, and I want it to continue. We have the opportunity to do something special. If it’s not special, hopefully it will go away. I think we’ll be okay there. But I can’t measure it in those terms. It doesn’t seem useful to me.”
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D will continue running new episodes for the rest of the season on ABC at 8pm Tuesdays
