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

3. They Keep Getting In Their Own Way

MCU TV
ABC

Agent Carter, a miniseries positioned to run during Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s midseason break, received universal acclaim yet was cancelled after season two due to plummeting ratings. Season four of the good, often great Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a creative high point for the show - yet viewership slumped further.

The MCU’s massive built-in audience clearly has little interest in tuning in every week to see a superhero show without the ‘superhero’. Given that, it’s astonishing how much of the time Marvel Television trip over this same stumbling block.

Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. treated Deathlok, the Inhumans and Ghost Rider as guest stars, completely oblivious that they were the main attraction. Iron Fist wasted half its running time on a dysfunctional family of rich assh*les. The Inhumans gives us a royal family of superpowered beings living on the moon, only to exile them to Earth to pretend to be normal folks.

Playing into Marvel’s reputation for lacklustre villains, the overall Big Bad for the Netflix shows was The Hand, the most faceless, bland antagonists imaginable: yet they offed Killgrave, one of the best TV bad guys of the last twenty years.

Why have Matt Murdock’s friends treat his Daredevil persona as a dangerous addiction and urge him to quit? Why give Jessica Jones a redemptive, heroic arc in her own show, and then reset her to snarky social agnosticism for The Defenders? They seem to love getting in their own way.

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Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.