'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Returns, Continues to Skid

"Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" returned with a new episode this week after a rerun last week, but hopes that the brief rest would halt the series' ratings slide were disappointed. What initially looked like a definite hit for ABC now looks like a show whose long-term future is in jeopardy.

The series premiere of  "Agents" impressed everyone in the fall as it drew the biggest audience of any new series and scored bigger ratings than ABC had seen from a new series in several years. In the beginning, "Agents" easily outpaced its competition, primarily CBS' "NCIS," among viewers in the 18-49 age group.

After the first couple of episodes, though, it was all downhill, and by a few weeks ago, the show set series-low ratings marks two weeks in a row.

For the Nov. 19 episode, ABC enthusiastically promoted a crossover between the series and the "Thor: The Dark World" theatrical movie. However, audiences, having been burned before by promised "Avengers" tie-ins that turned out to be nothing more than brief cameos, didn't bite, and ratings ticked up only moderately. There was good news the following week, when the episode titled "Repairs took ratings back up to the level they were at in mid-October.

There was optimism that the upward trend would continue with the Dec. 10 episode, the last new episode before the series takes a break for the holidays. But "The Bridge" saw a big ratings drop, and the episode set a new series-low mark. For the week, total viewership was off more than 50% from the series premiere and down a huge 56% in the 18-49 demographic. In total viewers, "Agents" was in third place for the night, behind "NCIS" and "The Biggest Loser," and among young viewers, "Agents" lagged well behind "NCIS" and was barely ahead of "The Biggest Loser."

ABC has already given "Agents" a full-season order, so it's safe for this year, but will it be back next year? The conventional wisdom says yes, since one of its reasons for being is to provide hype for the "Avengers" sequel due out in 2015. For this reason alone, ABC no doubt hopes to get another year out of the series and is likely to do its best to ignore the plummeting ratings.