'Agents of SHIELD' Renewed for Shorter Season 6

ABC has announced that Agents of SHIELD has officially been picked up for a sixth season. However, there's a catch.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Season Six will be shorter than its previous five seasons. Instead of the normal 22-episode order, Agents of SHIELD has received the go-ahead for 13 additional episodes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe series.

ABC has not yet decided if these 13 episodes will be the final episodes for the show, or if it could receive additional episodes or even a seventh season.

Agents of SHIELD has averaged a 1.2 in the key 18-49 demographic and nearly 4 million viewers with seven days of delayed viewing

Showrunners Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen wrote the show's season finale without knowing whether it would be picked up for another season, but have said previously that they wrote it to be either a series or season finale.

"We'll never end something without the potential for more story," Maurissa Tancharoen said at the Agents of SHIELD 100th episode premiere. "That's how we've ended every season because, whenever we've come to the end of all the seasons past, we go into that mostly not knowing until the very last minute, so we're basically doing the same thing to close out Season 5. It can fit well as a possible series finale, and it can fit well as just another season's end."

Whedon added, "You always want to leave the idea that there's more stories, it's a question of whether or not we will tell them. We have our end, and we'll stick to it regardless, and we think it'll work either way."

"What we don't want to do is get to the end of the series and have gone off of something where you're like, 'Well, now it makes no sense. We want there to be a sense of resolution for the audience and a reward for the audience for being on this whole journey. We don't want to leave them hanging with something that didn't get paid off. That being said, not everybody is going to die in the finale, so those people will live on with stories to tell."

Agents of SHIELD will air its fifth season finale, "The End", on Friday at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.