ABC has shown increasing confidence in Agent Carter. It’s gone from “eh, a miniseries to keep the nerds watching” to “Hey, this is a miniseries people are interested in!” to, now, a two hour event right after New Year’s on January 6th.
That does shorten the series order; Agent Carter will now be a seven part series running through February. But it’s a pretty strong display of confidence on the part of ABC. Honestly, though, it’s not surprising; Agent Carter is a fairly easy sell as TV series go. Even without the Marvel tie-in, which the show will likely play for all its worth, it’s still a period piece action series. Those tend to do pretty well, if for no other reason than you get to put your heroine in cool hats.
And, of course, it helps that Agents of SHIELD has steadily improved, and that the series will dovetail with that in certain ways. We’ll be keeping an eye on the series when it premieres January 6th.