Good news for hardcore Joss Whedon fans and those impressed with his newest show, Agents of SHIELD – the Marvel series has gotten a full-season pickup from ABC. This means that the company has bought the rights to the second half of the season, rounding out Agent’s first run to a full 22 episodes. The show is the third new fall show to get a full-season pickup and so far it’s ABC’s premiere investment.

Joss Whedon, Saturn Awards
Whedon has practically struck gold with this one.

While SHIELD opened to smashing ratings, having the best opening for a drama series in the past four years, the switch from its Thursday premiere to a less profitable Tuesday 8pm slot caused a notable dip in ratings. Nevertheless, last week’s episode averaged a respectable 7.9 million viewers, making Agents of SHIELD the second highest rated show of the hour. In addition, the show averaged 2.9 million in that mythical, oh-so-coveted by advertisers 18-49 age range.

Clark Gregg, ABC TCA Summer Party
Clark Gregg, one of the stars of SHIELD, is a frequent collaborator of Whedon's.

This means that Agents will stay on for one full season at the very least, making it Joss Whedon’s first full-season television engagement since the end of Angel in 2004. Whedon later worked on the sci-fi series Dollhouse for Fox, but the series only had a limited run of two short seasons. For this series, the creator teamed up with Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen and so far, Agents has been getting a positive response from both viewers and critics alike. The other two fall pickups so far have been Fox’s Sleepy Hollow being renewed for a 13-episode second season and NBC giving The Blacklist a full season.