ABC's renewal of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is accompanied by not just one caveat but two. The first, of course, is that the sixth season will be shortened to just 13 episodes, but now we've learned the second: That it won't premiere at midseason, as expected, but instead in summer 2019.

TVLine reports the announcement was made this afternoon by ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey during a conference call with reporters. The news arrives ahead of the drama's Season 5 finale on Friday.

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Long viewed as a bubble series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. upended its status quo at the end of Season 4, with a twist that propelled the cast into space, in a future in which Earth had been destroyed. While the drastic change is widely credited with helping to reinvigorate the series, it hasn't improved the ratings.

Although it had been expected that S.H.I.E.L.D. might explore the fallout from Marvel Studios' blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War in its sixth season, a summer 2019 premiere would place the show after the sequel, Avengers 4.

Airing Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 stars Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Henry Simmons, Ian De Caestecker, Natalia Cordova-Buckley and Elizabeth Henstridge.

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