TLDR; Marvel is moving away from limited series and moving to more multiple-season shows.
Makes sense. WandaVision made sense as a mini-series.
Falcon and Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and Ms. Marvel all felt like movies chopped into TV length segments.
She Hulk could have been good TV but if felt like they weren’t in it with their whole heart. They stopped writing the plot part way through and then just kinda faked it until the end of the show.
Loki is a great TV show but it’s the ONLY one really paced for the TV audience and also the only one with enough plot that it could easily go 12-20 episodes a season if modern streaming budgets would allow for such excess.
Oh and Moon Knight suffered the same fate as She Hulk. They had slightly less than one movie’s worth of plot and put it in 6 episodes TV and hoped it worked. Maybe in old network TV it would have been fine but in the streaming age it was poorly paced.
I disagree with both FatWS and She-Hulk. FatWS really felt like it focused on a different side character or tackled something big each episode and wouldn’t have worked as a movie format.
She-Hulk just made the plot secondary. That’s pretty common for episodic shows. Probably the most well know to do it like that is Doctor Who, where the main plot is hinted at but rarely the focus.
FatWS felt so unfocused to me. For example they make a HUGE deal out of Bucky’s therapist and him being required to go to therapy regularly in eps 1 and 2 and getting arrested in Louisiana for being a no-show for his therapy appointment.
Then the rest of the show is jet-setting around the world without any consequences or need to get back to the US for any reason. Bucky sends the therapist a gift bag and note at the end but otherwise we never see her or her office again. Are there consequences for him leaving the county? Did her need her permission? Did he violate his court order? Who knows because they never mentioned it again.
It’s been a minute since I watched it. But didn’t Sam vouch for him and get permission? I thought that ended up being a huge part of his therapy for Bucky to let literally anybody in, so they let him go.
Yeah but making up stupid endings in on brand for she hulk.
I thought the end was strong and on-brand but the wedding ep and the one where she goes to the retreat center were both kinda mediocre and disconnected. Fine when you have 15-20 episodes in the season you can get away with those “beach episodes” that only push the plot a little but in this format they felt like wasted time.
I think, this would be great. I don’t like to see only one season. I like to see the character growing.
I agree. Also going in with multiple seasons in mind will allow them to slow down and work on character development more, not having to cram origins, development, and saving the world in one season.
Hear me out, maybe some of the series (and movies) can be about something other than saving the world.
Yep, it’s a huge problem in both DC and Marvel. It’s always world ending stakes. Need more local situations a la Spider-Man comics. It would also make the “why don’t they call the avengers?” question less an issue. I feel like Ms Marvel tried but it was just a little messy for my taste. Enjoyed it for the most part, but that was mostly due to Iman Vellani.
How about saving the galaxy and fighting the empire?
I don’t really care. Almost everything after Endgame was a turd. With like three exceptions.
Endgame was a nice ending to a decade of marvel movies. Spider-Man NWH was a nice ending to 20 years of Spider-Man films.
It be nice if they took a long ass break before continuing to exploit these properties. Let the kids who grew up with them learn to miss them.
Yeah. I grew up with those movies. When phase 1 started I didnt even know what Marvel is. I remember when I watched first avengers and how epic it was, and wondering how they got thor and iron man in the same movie.
Now from characters that are left I dont really care about anybody. Maybe only GotG. Wanda would be there too, if they didnt “forget” her character development from the tv show.
GotG 3, Spider Man NWH, WandaVision are the only things I liked after Endgame, and there was 10 movies and 11 tv shows. I have seen almost everything. I’m missing 1 movie and 2 tv shows, but I’m done with marvel already. I will be watching Pitch Meetings instead.
Spiderman NWH was a pile of hot garbage.
NWH was like when I poured out all my action figures from their box and played with them one last time before mom donated them.
TIL there is enough after endgame that there are three exceptions to a rule.
10 movies, 11 tv shows
Endgame was end of phase 3. Phase 5 started recently.
This is a bummer, but given how these limited series have gone so far, this is probably the right call.
WandaVision as a one off is probably OK, although realistically you could have changed a few story beats in Doctor Strange and lead us right into Season 3, now called House of Harkness. I expect that is what will still basically happen, but it’s going to be a little uglier/hand wavy than it could have been. (Which is to say yes, Wanda will be back, Agatha will be her teacher.)
Falcon and the Winter Soldier is honestly probably the best “limited series” since it gives us lots of character growth. Sharon Carter being possibly the weird exception.
Ms. Marvel was always going to get multiple seasons, they should have kept the stakes lower and not had the rushed ending, I think we all would have been fine with a “friendly neighborhood Ms Marvel” TV series.
Moon Knight set itself up for future seasons, so that one makes sense.
She Hulk should have been an anthology series, and it still can be. We should be generally following Jen in all of these series & movies whenever we need a lawyer. Specifically to clean up after the events. She can still have her own story but it should be in bits and pieces, leading up to a special presentation.
Hawkeye should definitely continue as is, but I’m fine if they want to move Haliee into movies.
Loki is great so far (I am behind the most recent episode, but I’m assuming it’s going well). My only concern is too much dancing behind the scenes making a confusing Kang story. Kang is meant to be our big bad and while Loki has been able to tell that story, the films (Ant-Man) just make him a baddie if the week.
And for completeness What If can do whatever they want. I don’t think anyone has any issues with it and I expect it will just keep doing what it’s doing.
(And yes, I’m ignoring Secret Invasion. They fucked up.)
Falcon and winter soldier is a great example of what these limited shows should be used for. Transitional pieces. I don’t think falcon becoming cap and wrestling with that idea would go down as well in a movie. It needed some room to breath and for him to “earn” that role. Regardless of whether or not people think he did earn it. He’s definitely earned it more than he would’ve in a single movie.
Hawkeye does a similar thing with being a pass the torch moment. He’ll even wandavision with its gradual reveal of wanda becoming a villain.
The only shows that don’t do this (bar the heavily serialised ones like loki where this format just inherently fits anyway) have all felt lackluster.
They have gone full circle here.
From having a TV division that produces multi-season shows for ABC and Netflix, to cancelling all of it. To creating the Disney+ shows by “treating TV like the movies!”, only to fail. Back to “oops maybe we should do proper TV shows with multiple seasons”.
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Just make Loki into Dr Who for 90% of the run time , then do your MCU stuff the other 10%
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