10 Problems With The MCU On TV (And How To Solve Them)

There’s a direct correlation between a mediocre showrunner and a mediocre TV show.

For Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., relative newbies Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen were teamed with veteran writer/producer Jeffrey Bell. The well-reviewed Daredevil and Jessica Jones were also run by skilled industry pros.

That’s why it was odd that Marvel chose Cheo Hodari Coker, a writer and producer with little showrunning experience, to bring Luke Cage to the screen on his own. The show never recovered from the midseason replacement of complex, charismatic gangster Cottonmouth with leering pantomime villain Diamondback, a storytelling stumble that seems down to inexperience.

But that was nothing compared to the bizarre decision to hire the incompetent Scott Buck - the man responsible for the downward spiral of the formerly excellent Dexter - to not only run Iron Fist into the ground, but to move on from there to wreck The Inhumans.

Coker needed a partner to work with; Buck’s track record spoke for itself. Guardians Of The Galaxy was a hard sell too, yet James Gunn made it look easy. Worse, the reactions to Iron Fist were coming in as Inhumans began filming in March, and backroom reactions to the scripts had been unfavourable for longer than that: yet no one stepped in to salvage the project.

You don’t let a child drive the family car, yet Loeb allowed Scott Buck to screw up two of their properties in a row.