ABC recently announced that they have picked up Marvel's Agent Carter for the Fall season, which is exciting news. It's great to see the Marvel Cinematic Universe expanding with the TV shows and the upcoming Netflix shows.
I am definitely going to watch this and I'm looking forward to it because I like Hayley Atwell in the role of Peggy Carter and I thought the Agent Carter One-shot was pretty good, so the show should be enjoyable.
However, I do question if this is the best idea Marvel could have gone for as a series to pair with Agents of SHIELD. Agents of SHIELD is a decent show that has gotten better, but it's not exactly a smash hit that everyone is watching. If they chose to do a second show that was set in modern times, they'd be able to do crossovers with Agents of SHIELD and use that to boost both shows up.
When I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix, it was very cool getting to the point where Angel began because I got to see stories carried between the two shows. This really pulled me more into that world because it felt a lot deeper and richer.
Being set in the 40s, Agent Carter is completely on its own. It can't cross over with Agents of Shield or play off the events of the movies like Agents of Shield did with Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Plus, despite Hayley Atwell having good potential as the lead for a series, Peggy Carter isn't exactly a popular character with mainstream audiences. The first Captain America movie did decent box office numbers, but most people who saw it thought that it was just ok. Because of this, I don't think Agent Carter will generate the early hype that Agents of SHIELD did so it will have to fight even harder for its audience.
Because of all these factors, I feel like Agent Carter is a surprising choice for a series. I could see it as a cool mini-series event, but I'm uncertain about the show's potential to be a hit in the long run.
Once again, I don't want to sound like I'm shooting the idea down. It's a show I'm looking forward to watching, but networks these days are very quick to pull the plug on shows that aren't doing great numbers, so my concerns are about if this show will be attractive enough to the mainstream casual audience to be a success and get the opportunity to tell its whole story.
I don't mean to give the impression that I don't think it has potential to be good though. I recently started watching Alias on Netflix and I think Agent Carter could do very well if it was done like a 40s version of Alias.There's also potential to do a bit of fan service with appearances by Howard Stark and the Howling Commandos.
Thanks for reading! Please, share your thoughts about the show in the comments. Are you planning on watching? If not, is there another idea that you wish Marvel went with for their second TV series?
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