Agatha All Along outperforms every other MCU show in one unique way

Agatha Harkness loves to cause some chaos and that's exactly what she has done with her long-awaited return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nearly four years after making her MCU debut in WandaVision. Kathryn Hahn is back in the bewitching Disney Plus series that critics are calling "magical" and "batsh*t crazy in all the right ways". See what I mean? Chaos!

Agatha All Along takes Agatha on something of a redemption arc as she attempts to regain her power. Though very much still out for herself, she must rely on her new coven to help her along the way as all of them walk the Witches' Road to get the one thing they desire the most. She's even beginning to grow quite attached to Teen, the young boy who sought her out, broke her free from the Scarlet Witch's spell and has helped her down the road.

The show has very quickly endeared itself to fans (both of the MCU franchise and spooky season shows in general) but perhaps even more so than any strong viewership numbers could show (and it does have those strong viewership numbers too!). Yes, Agatha All Along has seemingly outdone some of its more famous counterparts in a rather unexpected way.

Agatha All Along achieves highest continuation rate of any MCU show

People are loving Agatha All Along! Marvel's Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation Brad Winderbaum has revealed that the series has the best continuation rate of any of the Marvel shows, meaning that it's holding onto a lot of the viewers that tune into its premiere episode(s) for future installments. This reveal came during an interview with Variety, and although he didn't reveal any specifics, it's a huge win for the series, particularly because none of the characters featured in it have appeared in any of the MCU movies thus far. And yet, viewers are returning to it each week.

This comes after the first streaming data from the show has been made available. According to Disney Plus, the premiere episode garnered 9.3 million viewers in its first week of release, which is a strong start for the series. Even more impressive is the amount of minutes watched. Variety reports that the show's first week of release saw it watched for a total of 72 million minutes before it increased to 304.7 million viewers in week 2. That's a 321% increase, which of course is a fantastic accomplishment to achieve after that initial premiere week buzz has quietened down a bit.

Something else that works in Agatha's favor is the fact that it is the least expensive Marvel Studios show. Though the official budget number has not been released, it was previously reported that Echo, on a budget of $40 million, was the least-expensive so it's a safe bet that the WandaVision spinoff cost less than that. And that makes it incredibly cost-effective, because even though its premiere numbers aren't quite as high as recent Star Wars series The Acolyte, its budget also wasn't in the realm of $180M - $230M (which explains why that show was unfortunately cancelled after just one season).

Opting for a more practical approach with Agatha All Along was a wise decision considering how many of the previous MCU shows had film budgets. Television is an entirely different format from the movies, and it's great to see that Marvel Studios are officially acknowledging that. Agatha feels like a TV series in so many ways and that works extremely well for it. And thus, while its budget is no doubt much higher than the typical broadcast TV series budget would be, it doesn't have to be anywhere near the levels of these ambitious MCU movies either.

It was a great approach by Marvel for sure, but it's even cooler to hear that Agatha has exceeded expectations anyway. Positive word-of-mouth, excitement to continue the story of WandaVision, the cast (which includes Heartstopper's Joe Locke), and releasing the show during the Halloween season have all worked in its favor. The continuation rate is just yet another example of that.

Marvel adopted a wise strategy for Agatha All Along and it's clearly paying off.

New episodes of Agatha All Along stream on Disney Plus on Wednesdays at 6:00 p.m. PT/9:00 p.m. ET.