Marvel Expands On ABC With Agent Carter, S.H.I.E.L.D. Season Two

The announcements are flying fast and furious today, ahead of next week’s media upfront presentations for the U.S. broadcast networks. Next up is ABC, which will double-down on the Marvel cinematic universe with a series order for Agent Carter.

The network has also renewed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a second season, as we predicted.

Agent Carter stars Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, a 1940s heroine who was introduced as Steve Rogers’ love interest in the feature film Captain America: The First Avenger. She also featured in this year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Between those two films (set during World War II, and in the present day) the character helped to found S.H.I.E.L.D., along with Iron Man’s dad Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper).

Agent Carter will be set after The First Avenger and the end of the war, but long before the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. Says Deadline:

It’s 1946, and peace has dealt Peggy Carter a serious blow as she finds herself marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad. Working for the covert SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve), Peggy must balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions for Howard Stark, all while trying to navigate life as a single woman in America, in the wake of losing the love of her life — Steve Rogers.

London-born Atwell, 32, has a list of credits including several TV mini-series, including Life of Crime, The Pillars of the Earth, and The Prisoner.

The show was ordered straight to series without a pilot, based on the Marvel One-Shot featurette also titled “Agent Carter” (which appeared on last fall’s DVD / Blu-ray release of Iron Man 3). Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters (Reaper) will executive produce, along with writers Steve McFeely and Christopher Marcus (Captain America: The First Avenger) and Marvel’s Jeph Loeb.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Agent Carter will likely be short-ordered (13 episodes or less) and used as a bridge series, filling in between new episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. started strong in the fall and steadily lost half its audience, and has been averaging just shy of 6 million weekly viewers since March. But the show has performed very well in DVR playback, and is on a creative upswing with a major story tie-in with April’s The Winter Soldier.

We’re hoping that Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill) will join the regular cast next year, now that How I Met Your Mother has ended. (She guest starred in the April 29 episode.)

ABC’s official scheduling announcement comes next Tuesday, May 13. Stay tuned to SciFi Stream for the latest!