Despite greatly improving in quality since its admittedly shaky first season, ratings for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have continued to dwindle over the past four years, with several of its season four episodes setting new lows in terms of viewership.
With that it mind, it was somewhat surprising when ABC announced that it had renewed the Marvel series for a fifth season, set to begin this winter once Inhumans finishes its run on the network. And, if a report from Variety is to be believed, the show has Disney to thank for its continued existence.
According to the trade, ABC wanted to cancel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. earlier this year, but the mandate came down from Disney – which owns both the network and Marvel – to renew the show for a fifth season.
ABC and Marvel are also said to have clashed over the quality of the new Inhumans series, and it’s already been rumoured that the decision has been made to cancel the new series, which is set to premiere on the network this week (although ABC has denied those claims).
Nevertheless, Marvel’s Jeph Loeb has claimed that more Marvel shows are coming to the network in the near future., so it will certainly be interested to see what the future holds both for these two shows and the relationship between the two Disney subsidiaries.
