AGENTS OF
S.H.I.E.L.D.
SEASON 5

FOUR EARTHBOUND SEASONS, THEN THE GREAT UNKNOWN

WHY THE SHOW LEFT EARTH

ABC renewed the series for a fifth season of 22 episodes on 11 May 2017, and the writers started work at the end of May. Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen and Jeffrey Bell were the showrunners, and ABC aimed to lower the show’s cost by reducing its budget and licensing fee.

Whedon and Tancharoen said on 1 December 2017 that the move followed the films’ lead into the cosmic side of the MCU. Tancharoen said the team knew near the end of the previous season that the show was heading into space, and that the art direction and sets would be overhauled. Whedon explained the pull of the setting:

“It’s the great unknown, and we hadn’t explored it yet.”

Jed Whedon, 1 December 2017

A FUTURE TO ESCAPE, THEN A PRESENT TO SAVE

HOW THE SEASON IS SPLIT IN TWO

The season is built as two “pods.” The first, informally called S.H.I.E.L.D. in Space, follows the team in a future where Earth has been destroyed. The second has them trying to prevent that future in the present. The show’s 100th episode, “The Real Deal,” is the twelfth of the season, and the last four episodes take place over a single day during the events of Avengers: Infinity War.

Filming began on 20 July 2017 and wrapped on 15 April 2018. Natalia Cordova-Buckley was promoted from recurring to series regular.

A KREE STATION AND A TWIST ABOUT TIME

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE TWO-PART PREMIERE

In the premiere the team is taken to a Kree-controlled space station and then realises that the debris outside is the remains of Earth. They have travelled forward in time, not just across space. The team splits into several storylines, with Simmons forced to serve a Kree leader and Daisy finding a drug den that offers escapes into a version of the Framework. Reviewing it on 4 December 2017, Reactor’s Alan Brown called the episode a “solid start” while saying parts of it felt formulaic.

A FRIDAY SLOT AND SLIPPING NUMBERS

HOW THE RATINGS HELD UP

The premiere drew 2.54 million live viewers and a 0.7 rating among adults 18 to 49, rising to 4.27 million viewers with DVR. By April 2018 a Friday episode had drawn 1.66 million viewers and a 0.4 rating, new series lows. The finale, “The End,” drew 1.88 million live viewers, or 3.34 million with DVR. The season averaged 3.57 million viewers including DVR.

THE REWATCH

A 100% CRITICS SCORE AND A SHORTENED SIXTH SEASON

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 100% critics’ score from 23 reviews and a 93% audience score, and its consensus says the season “swings for the fences with large-scale storytelling and wild twists.” The season won a Hollywood Post Alliance Award for visual effects, for the first part of the premiere, and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Superhero Television Series.

The finale was written with no guarantee of a sixth season. Speaking on 18 May 2018, the showrunners said that before the renewal they had wanted an ending people could imagine for themselves. Bell said: “It felt like a nice, succinct ending.” ABC announced the renewal on 14 May, and by 15 May ABC’s Channing Dungey had confirmed that Season 6 would return in summer 2019, with reports putting it at 13 episodes. It followed on 10 May 2019, as the catalogue lists.

In the Marvel Marathon it is catalogued as Marvel Television and sits in the Marvel TV shows in order guide between Runaways Season 1 and Jessica Jones Season 2. It is not in the MCU timeline guide or the MCU release-order and series guides.