Agents of SHIELD season 5, Once Upon a Time pairing: The merits

What are the benefits to Agents of SHIELD season 5 and Once Upon a Time season 7 coming on the air together? Moving the two shows to Fridays together for the 2017-18 season is a bold move, and it’s also a bold risk. ABC was doing rather well on the night as it was with the combination of Last Man Standing and Shark Tank, so there was fundamentally no reason for a change. Yet, it happened anyway, and it seemed like part of the reason for that was trying to create some sort of memorable night in which genre programming could coexist and support one another.

In speaking about this move earlier this week while at upfronts, ABC programming head Channing Dungey said the following (per Entertainment Weekly):

“When we were looking at the schedule, it’s interesting how much pressure we’ve had from fans to put those shows closer together on the schedule for quite some time … We like the idea of Fridays being a destination. Once Upon a Time has done a wonderful job on Sundays of keeping the lights on against football, but we’re looking to see how it will perform when it’s away from football for awhile.”

Was there that much pressure of putting Agents of SHIELD and Once Upon a Time together? It’s not something that we heard all that much about, but if it works for the network, it works for the network. Maybe the two shows fair similar to how they did this past season, and with that do enough to secure an additional renewal. If not, fans can just feel lucky that there were some further seasons in the first place given that a renewal here was not altogether assured based on some of the numbers. There were reasons to be doubtful over whether or not these two shows would get more.

Superficially, there are two easy problems to identify with the shows coming back. For one, Once Upon a Time has to overcome a mass exodus of cast members, a move that many fans are displeased with, even if in the case of some of them (but not all) it was the actors’ decision to leave. Meanwhile, there is a surprising amount of scripted competition on Fridays this fall, with every network other than Fox opting for two hours at least of scripted programming.

Do you think that the Friday timeslot will help or hurt shows like Once Upon a Time and Agents of SHIELD? Sound off below! (Photo: ABC.)