Agents of SHIELD Producers Confirm Season 5 Setting, Talk Time Jump

CBR

By Anthony Nash

Published May 17, 2017

Jed Whedon and Jeffrey Bell confirm that a time jump and a trip to space are part of Agents of SHIELD's fifth season.

The closing seconds of Season 4 of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. left fans with one heck of a cliffhanger. With Season 5 on the horizon, albeit one delayed slightly from the traditional fall debut, Jed Whedon (the showrunner) has begun to tease what we can expect from the out of this world premise of the fifth season.

In an interview with IGN, Whedon and executive producer Jeffrey Bell were asked about the Season 4 finale, and while they didn't answer every question about the Coulson and crew's status, some things were flat out confirmed. Specifically, the rumor of a “time jump” occurring, with Bell simply stating “we acknowledge there’s a time jump," leaving fans to wait for more information regarding just how long that jump has been.

Whedon acknowledged that the show's “sandbox” continues to grow, meaning that the themes and ideas they want to explore continue expand with each Marvel Cinematic Universe film released. "The rule when we started was we couldn't say anything about spies, we couldn't say anything about Hydra, we couldn't have any A.I. or robots or anything like that, because all of that was coming in movies that year or the year after," he explained. "Since then, they've blown those doors wide open. They've introduced magic with Doctor Strange, which we played with this year, and they've introduced deep, deep space with Guardians of the Galaxy. The sandbox we're playing in keeps getting bigger, and we want to explore all sides of it, and tell as many different stories as we can. Fortunately deep space is very different. We've gone there a little bit with Simmons. We felt like we enjoyed that, so maybe there's more to come."

Whedon also confirmed that the finale's space setting is much more than just a tease, stating “bait and switches aren’t as fun” when asked if the agents were actually in space versus finding themselves stuck in some sort of simulation.

Airing Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. stars Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson, Chloe Bennet as Daisy “Quake” Johnson, Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May, Iain De Caestecker as Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons, and Henry Simmons as Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie.