'Agents of SHIELD' news: Season 5 set for two-hour premiere

Promotional poster for season 5 of "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Facebook/AgentsofShield

Set for a Dec. 1 premiere date, the first episode of the fifth season of "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" will be running for a total of two hours.

The special premiere will air at 8 p.m. EDT and will return to its regular 9 p.m. EDT time slot starting Dec. 8. The new season will feature the return of cast members Clark Gregg (Director Phil Coulson), Ming-Na Wen (Agent Melinda May), Chloe Bennet (Daisy Johnson, Quake), Iain De Caestecker (Agent Leo Fitz), Elizabeth Henstridge (Agent Gemma Simmons), Henry Simmons (Alphonso "Mack" MacKenzie), and Natalie Cordova-Buckley (Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez).

Also confirmed for a return is Nick Blood (Lance Hunter), the honorary SHIELD Agent that left the show after season 3 with co-star Adrienne Palicki (Bobbi Morse, Agent 19, Mockingbird).

"We're the little engine that could and we keep just getting better and better and better. And on our show, our family keeps getting bigger and more diverse," Gregg said in their panel at the New York Comic Con 2017.

Season 4's finale saw Phil Coulson looking out through a big window that seemed to show the outer space. Fans quickly theorized that the last scene was signaling the birth of SWORD, the space division of SHIELD. Some fans also factored in the fact that there was an implicated temporal anomaly that happened in season 4. Time traveling SHIELD agents would be a great way for the show keep its anchors with the Marvel Cinematic Universe especially with coming of "Infinity Wars."

Episode 6 will be directed by Gregg who described the whole experience as generous. He added that the trust that Marvel Studios gave him was overwhelming as he got to work with an amazing production crew.

Bennet said Gregg brought comedy to the set and everyone thought that he was awesome while doing director duties.

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