Marvel Studios has made a name for itself as one of the top providers of original TV content. It shouldn't be surprising considering that we're talking about the studio responsible for the most successful movie franchise of all time, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe's expansion into the small screen brought with it a lot more highs and lows than expected.
It wasn't smooth-sailing, because for every Loki, WandaVision, and Agatha All Along (which surprised viewers and earned critical acclaim), there were the divisive ones like She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and What If...? (which all had fans questioning the MCU's new output, the reliance on cinematic TV, and big budgets for Disney Plus). And yet, despite She-Hulk's dodgy CGI or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's six-part movie approach being the antithesis of television, there is only one show that has earned the honor of being the worst MCU show on Disney Plus.
Secret Invasion is by far the worst Marvel show on Disney Plus
Look, there's no easy way of saying this but Secret Invasion is by far the worst Marvel TV show ever made in the cinematic Disney Plus era. In fact, it's by far the worst title in the Multiverse Saga and quite possibly the worst title in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole. And those are some pretty bold claims to be making considering that it features one of the most star-studded casts that the MCU has ever seen - but that just makes its failure all the more striking.
How does one drop the ball with a series that stars Samuel L. Jackson, Emilia Clarke, Ben Mendelsohn, Cobie Smulders, Don Cheadle and the Olivia Colman?! Well, watch Secret Invasion and find out. And the sad truth is that it was one of the shows I was most excited about ahead of its release, because after two decades of pulling the Avengers together, Nick Fury deserved the spotlight in his own show. The finished product did not do him - or any of the other cast members - anything remotely resembling justice.
Jackson's Nick Fury constantly found himself battling against the tide of the Skrull invasion which, while compelling on paper, ultimately did damage to his character. It turns out that he never rehomed the Skrulls after promising that he would in 1995 (during the events of Captain Marvel) and, while he did take his own shortcomings personally, his decision not to recruit his former Avengers allies in a battle against a *checks notes* alien invasion just made it hard to buy into anything that happened throughout - despite the fact that its gritty, cold tone made us really want to.
The idea of Nick Fury leading a sci-fi thriller not-unlike-a British crime thriller could have worked, but Secret Invasion was just too ambitious to adapt in a grounded manner when it existed in a world with superheroes. This had the scale and scope of an Avengers movie so the idea of an aging Fury attempting to do it on his own - or, well, choosing to do it on his own - did a complete disservice to the arc.
Perhaps the biggest injustices, however, were to the other characters. The opening episode featured the genuinely shocking death of Agent Maria Hill, prompting immediate - and well-deserved- fan backlash for the cold treatment of one of the MCU's longest-standing characters. What's worse is that the show never even managed to justify the moment, resulting in its existence being little more than shock value to reel audiences into the story. It didn't even do that.
Talos suffered a similar fate, being taken out in an equally underwhelming manner, while his daughter G'iah has gone down in history as one of the MCU's most disliked characters - which is, again, a complete injustice to Emilia Clarke, who delivered in her performance as the character. And even though the character's approach changed by the time the finale rolled around, that finale itself was a low point for both the series and the MCU in general.
While Secret Invasion's approach was a bit of a divisive one, it can be commended for sticking to the grounded tale that it was telling. That is until it went and threw all of that out the window in a finale that was as gimmicky, over-the-top, and poor-CGI-ridden as everything it was seemingly trying to avoid. In fact, it was so poorly-received that the episode has become the lowest-rated installment of the MCU ever on Rotten Tomatoes, holding a jaw-dropping score of just 7%.
While Secret Invasion could have been forgiven for being a misstep in the MCU franchise had it just been a bland, all-too-serious, nonsensical spinoff, but the show ended up doing irreparable damage to the MCU as a whole. There's the whole quality-over-quantity change that it led to, as Marvel Studios looked to pivot all of its strategies to restore the fans' faith in it (and to their credit, they have pulled it off) but there were story elements so negatively received that the studio just hasn't addressed it at all since.
Fury's mystery wife reveal went down like a led balloon, the aforementioned deaths of Maria Hill and Talos prompted backlash, and the AI-generated opening credits caused understandable outrage. But perhaps the biggest gripe of the series was that Rhodey twist - where it was revealed that James "Rhodey" Rhodes was actually secretly a Skrull - which was so poorly-received that Marvel had to acknowledge that it happened after Avengers: Endgame (as fans were worried the real Rhodey wouldn't have been present during Iron Man's death). But even our beloved Rhodey has remained off-screen since then.
The only silver lining through it all was Olivia Colman's exhilarating performance as Sonya Falsworth. But then again, the show underutilized the character and given the response to the series as a whole, we probably won't see her on-screen again either. And that's a complete waste of Olivia Colman's talents.
It's fair to say that Marvel Studios has been pretty inconsistent with its TV shows, but Secret Invasion is a low point from which the MCU barely recovered from - doing lasting damage to some of the most beloved characters in the franchise. That's worth remembering the next time that you want to drag She-Hulk for silly bottle episodes or bad CGI.
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