Topic: The TV Show Thread

@colonelkilgore I really wasn’t sure whether to save it or not but honestly, there was nothing on tonight at all!

@nessisonett we’re still deep into Cobra Kai but when that’s done it’s gonna get even tougher to resist. The rumours of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil appearing in Spider-Man 3 might just divert our attention to a rewatch of Daredevil seasons 1-3 though, until Wanda-Vision is done.

@nessisonett just watched them. I’m hoping it keeps on going with this theme of nice on the outside, with something disturbing right underneath the surface. It’s so refreshing compared to everything else in the MCU!

My partner was trying to get me to watch WandaVision with him yesterday, but he hasn't seen the MCU through yet, and so I refused to let him jump in with characters he hasn't even met yet. We watched Iron Man 3 instead, continuing where we left off over Christmas.

Pleased to see some positive thoughts, though. I think it looks and sounds really interesting!

@RogerRoger Was about to revisit a selection of MCU movies in preparation for WandaVision just in case. Whittled it down to something like 10 essentials... which is still a lot of movie watching to do.

@zupertramp Yeah, his face was quite the picture when I told him "...but you need to watch these seventeen movies first!" Although I did notice that Disney+ made their top banner scroll through the five films featuring the characters' arc, before it got around to the new WandaVision promo. I'm sure that, under the Marvel category, there'd be a similar "collection" to the one they threw together for a recent Star Wars cameo.

So I did get a chance to watch Disney+’s new show — what many have inadvertently coined “Juan Division”, (which I can’t decide if that sounds more like a drama based on a mathematics teacher in Mexico, or a Sci-Fi show about a guy who can clone himself...)
But the actual show — WandaVision was extremely enjoyable. It’s very retro, of course, but the sit-com humor is excellently done, and it’s just pure fun. I’m not sure what the long term plans are here, because I feel like these two episodes are just a warm up for a more sophisticated narrative thread, but I don’t know. I’m very excited to find out.

Elizabeth Olsen previously had been one of my least favorite actresses in the MCU and I’ve always been annoyed at her painfully poor attempts at a Slavic accent. But it was nice in WandaVision to see her ditch all efforts at trying to sound foreign and just embrace her American accent. For this show it works, and she and Bettany’s chemistry has never been quite this adorable in the movies.

For those who haven’t seen the first episodes yet, I hope I’m not overselling it. It’s definitely different, and if you go in expecting a Marvel movie experience you’ll be pretty disappointed actually. Think more Bewtiched than Avengers: End Game. But for pure charm and mindless amusement it hits a home run (so far).

I've only watched the first episode of WandaVision so far but I unlike others here I found it pretty cringeworthy. I knew it was going to be bizarre going in but not sure what it's go for, is it actually supposed to be a comedy? I certainly appreciate taking creative risks and this is definitely a departure from the usual. I'm going to stick with it mostly out of pure curiosity at this point and no tv programme is ever at it's best in it's first episode.

@BearsEatBeets It’s a pastiche of classic sitcoms. The joke is that it’s camp and silly.

@nessisonett It's certainly an interesting style to go for and despite me finding the opening episode awkward rather than charming I believe it's going to jump through different eras of sitcom and maybe some of it will land better with me. Besides, even if it ends up not clicking for me I'd still hope it does well with most viewers (which seems the case for early commenters here) as there is plenty of room for more unique shows.

Descriptions like Bewitched, campy, silly and cringey have me a tad worried. Which is just as well since I barely have time to keep up with another tv series. Does make me wonder who the target audience is though.

@BearsEatBeets Fair enough. I do see hints that it is going to evolve into something more serious and with an impactful background narrative. We’ll have to see. If there is one thing about the MCU, it’s that they can never be accused of not having a long term plan. They usually know where their product is going narrative-wise years in advance.

@zupertramp I think the show is clearly intended to counterbalance the tedium of a 23 movie stretch which has some people complain of fatigue with the series. Whether it accomplishes that is still up for debate.

As for the target audience, I think the rabid MCU enthusiasts (I’d probably fit in here) are bound to like it just because it’s more Marvel hero stuff. I think the casual MCU fan who has had mostly a fleeting curiosity in the series will also like it because it’s different from the pew-pew explosion based movies that such a person wouldn’t likely gravitate to. Unfortunately, the middle ground — the lukewarm fan who has seen and enjoyed most of the movies but doesn’t have a large commitment to the franchise is where the show is likely to fall flat. I also think it might be designed as a tool to bridge the gap between mega-fans and their spouse or kids, since it’s relatively generic in its execution. I mean, who doesn’t like a good sit-com? 😄

So WandaVision is definitely something

What that something is I can't really discern but it's probably going somewhere significant. I like the sitcom approach to the presentation even if some of the jokes fell flat for me and it's nice to see characters usually in the supporting position being given extra room to really expand on their arcs. I still think something House of M-like is going to happen by the end of this season. With this show connecting to Multiverse of Madness, Wanda's role in this show seems to be heading into that direction, especially with the reality bending stuff

@TheFrenchiestFry I could probably hazard a pretty accurate guess towards what’s going on in WandaVision. Spoilers for the first two episodes of course.

@nessisonett I knew that voice over the radio was Jimmy Woo, it just sounded too familiar

I think Kathryn Hahn's character being named Agnes (I think) should be a dead giveaway she's going to end up being Agatha Harkness, and based on the Falcon and the Winter Soldier set photos they're already on their way to setting up S.W.O.R.D.

I've heard people speculate the ship Nick Fury was on in Far from Home's after credits scene beared a resemblance to the Peak VII, which is obviously where they primarily operated in the comics, and the biggest roadblock to getting them in the MCU to begin with was mainly that Fox owned the rights to S.W.O.R.D. specfic characters like Lockheed. I wouldn't be surprised that their plans to introduce them in the MCU canon might've been fast tracked as a result of the Disney-Fox merger going through alongside their plans to reboot Fantastic Four and the mutant characters

Also regarding the pregnancy, I distinctly remember in one of the trailers they showed Wanda and Vision cradling two babies, so really who else could they be at this point. It's probably Wiccan and Speed they're setting up as potential Young Avengers in the future given we already have Kamala Khan and Kate Bishop on the way, and Homecoming also indicated Miles Morales exists in this universe on top of that

So after @Th3solution totally bounced off New Who, I decided to go back and start binging it on iPlayer and see if it holds up! In my opinion, it actually does. I started to think watching the new episodes that perhaps I’d just grown out of it and I would have thought the older episodes were rubbish if they aired today but I couldn’t be further from the truth. The writing is brilliant and I was especially amazed at how well the contemporary jokes about celebrity culture land even today. Each individual story in the first 3 episodes that I’ve seen had interesting characters and settings. Even ‘Rose’, which admittedly looks a lot more dated than the other two, was heaps of fun. I miss the campy take on Doctor Who and sheer unbridled joy that the characters embody.

@nessisonett Lol, well ... there’s no accounting for taste! I’m probably in the wrong mindset to really appreciate the camp and the cheese. Maybe I’ll warm up to it eventually

Last night, I watched the fifth season finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it's abundantly clear that everybody thought they were getting cancelled. It's such a perfect end for the show, and many of its characters, that I'm almost loathed to continue (but curiosity will get the better of me, if only to see how they write themselves out of the corner they created for themselves).

Once I'd dried my eyes (damn, I'm such a nerd) I went in completely the opposite direction, and reached for a recently-purchased DVD boxset of 'Allo 'Allo. Most definitely a sitcom which could not and would not get made today, for so many reasons, but it has its charms!

So that new WandaVision episode definitely had a plot

What that plot was completely perplexed me at that moment but also they said Billy and Tommy and I am now very happy

@TheFrenchiestFry I mean... considering the plot of House of M then I somewhat fear for the ‘realness’ of the twins but yeah, I do love the Young Avengers and I have to say it was cool. Can’t have Wiccan without Hulkling though unless they bring him in with the Secret Invasion TV show.