Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. draws lowest ratings of season Tuesday night

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was one of the most (if not the absolute most) highl anticipated new shows of the 2013-14 television season. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has ties to The Avengers and all the other Marvel superhero movies and, perhaps most importantly, has the all-important name of Joss Whedon attached to it. But the news and reviews have not been so super, and Tuesday night's midseason finale marked a new low.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. drew a series low with 5.9 million viewers and a 2.0 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic. Those numbers represent a 14 and 17 percent decrease, respectively, from the previous new episode. The multiple cliffhangers in the midseason finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. apparently were not enough to draw in more viewers.

So what's gone wrong for this once-promising show, which has seen a ratings decrease in almost every consecutive week so far this season? Part of the problem is that it goes up against CBS' ratings juggernaut NCIS almost every week. ABC clearly had a lot of confidence in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to stack it up against one of the most popular shows on television, but it looks like that move may have backfired thus far.

But more than that, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is just sort of...there. It's not terrible by any means, but it's also far from the quality one would expect from a Joss Whedon show. Whedon is directly involved with the show, but he only wrote the first two episodes. He's got a lot of other projects to juggle, including a little film called The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

There's still time for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to turn it around and there's plenty of potential in there, so we'll see if the ratings rebound when the show returns in January.