Should Agents of SHIELD season 5 air on Friday nights?

What will the future of Agents of SHIELD season 5 be on ABC? These questions were asked Tuesday morning, as the network revealed its full fall schedule and the superhero show wasn’t a part of it.

In some ways, this was something that was fairly easy to predict. Given that ABC had already announced that Inhumans would be coming on the air in the fall, it would be hard to necessarily predict a situation in which the network scheduled both Marvel shows for the same time of year. Agents of SHIELD drew some pretty poor ratings during the first part of season 4; if Inhumans does about the same, putting two low-rated shows on the air at the same time could be creating some pretty big ratings suicide for the network. That’s probably a situation that they don’t want to risk since they need as many people watching the network as possible.

Given that Inhumans is being set up for a limited run this fall, all signs point to SHIELD probably continuing its run on Fridays, and this could be the best spot for it possible when you stop and think about it. Airing a little earlier in the night should help to compensate for it airing on Fridays. Meanwhile, it already is one of the most-recorded shows out there in proportion to its live audience, so it will still probably find a way to pull in some of those viewers.

Will season 5 have a lower budget because of the live ratings? Maybe, but the Aida arc in particular this season proves that this show is almost better when it has a few limitations. It is stronger when the focus of the story is simply on that, and not so much all of the special effects that you see in the big-budget movies. Leave some of the explosions for them, and here focus on the story and the characters. It’s already well-known at this point that the show’s got this in spades.

Be sure to watch the finale tonight, as there are many things worth getting excited about — after all, there is a huge showdown brewing between Aida and the entire SHIELD team.

What do you think about Agents of SHIELD season 5 being left off the fall schedule? Share in the comments below!

Meanwhile, head over to this link in the event you do want to get some further news when it comes to the show. (Photo: ABC.)