'Agents of SHIELD' Gets a Full First-Season Order; Titus Welliver Will Reprise His 'Item 47' Role

Three episodes into its short life, and Agents of SHIELD has already earned ABC's trust to the point where the network gave it a full-season pickup. Of course, there was little chance ABC wasn't going to make this move, not when Disney owns both ABC and Marvel.

I'm doing my best to enjoy Agents of SHIELD, knowing darn well that a show based on superhero movies and run by Joss Whedon shouldn't exist in our TV world. I want Agents of SHIELD to succeed, but the show needs some fine-tuning. Agent Coulsen is great — it's the rest of the cast that needs some focus. This week's episode finally started that process, digging deeper into the motives of characters like Skye and even sowing the seeds for a future supervillain.

On Thursday, Marvel took another step to add some heft to Agents of SHIELD, announcing that Titus Welliver will reprise the role of Agent Blake from Item 47, one of the several One Shots shorts that the studio has produced to flesh out the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Welliver (who you probably know best as the Man in Black from Lost) will appear in FZZT, the sixth episode of Agents of SHIELD's first season.