Ranking Every MCU TV Show From Worst To Best
It's all connected, but which Marvel Cinematic Universe series comes out on top?
It has now been ten years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was born. Though it was well received, nobody could've foreseen that Robert Downey Jr's first appearance as Tony Stark would be the beginning of a gargantuan franchise that would redefine cinema. Twenty films later and the series is yet to have a genuine dud, critically or commercially.
The development of the MCU has coincided with the renaissance of television as a media platform. Once seen as a poor equivalent to cinema, the success of shows like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad has paved the way for a seemingly endless supply of instant small screen classics to capture our hearts and minds.
Marvel properties have been increasingly ever-present across the TV spectrum to capitalise on this. To date, there have been four series distributed 'traditionally' on a broadcast network (three on ABC, one on Freeform) and seven distributed through streaming platforms (six on Netflix, one on Hulu). One more is pending, whilst the enormous depth of the company's character gallery means that many more are sure to follow as the brand goes from strength to strength, but this is how they stack up so far. Contains spoilers.
11. Inhumans
Whilst Marvel are still maintaining their streak cinematically, their nine-year run of every single release having a positive aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes was broken by the release of two absolute clunkers on television in 2017. Inhumans edges the next entry in the awfulness stakes, and was thankfully cancelled in swift and merciless fashion by ABC after the eighth and final episode had aired.
It should've been so much better. The Inhuman Royal Family are one of Marvel's longest running (if not particularly well-known outside of comic fandom) groups of characters and it'll always be a huge 'what if' to envisage how the film that was originally planned to introduce them to the MCU would've panned out, particularly given the TV rework's laughable effects and poorly-crafted narrative that a lean run-time and a budget in the hundreds of millions would've almost certainly rectified.
Black Bolt, Medusa, Maximus and company are now irreversibly wasted as more and more characters are drawn upon to expand upon the now enormous overarching Marvel story. They could appear in Agents Of Shield to tie up their stories, but it seems more likely that they'll be left as loose ends and forgotten about (which is criminal in Lockjaw's case!).
With the X-Men seemingly on their way if Disney's takeover of Fox finally goes ahead, it could be said that the Terrigen Mist-powered individuals have served their purpose as a mutant alternative anyway.