I don’t think I realized how much I missed the MCU. I was one of those people who was ready for a little break after Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. We’d been surrounded by Marvel’s enjoyable mega-blockbusters for more than a decade, and the conclusion of a major storyline like Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet seemed like a good time to give the characters some breathing room. Sadly, we got that MCU breather as a result of a horrendous global pandemic—but, let’s face it, anything short of a worldwide catastrophe would not have stopped the Marvel money train. With Black Widow delayed or possibly moving to Disney+, there were no major Marvel movies on the horizon for us for more than a year and a half. But if you were craving Avengers-level entertainment, the seemingly endless slew of upcoming Marvel TV shows might be just what the doctor ordered. 

Kicking off with WandaVision, the MCU is officially back via the small screen. This series sees Avengers Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) living in the style of classic TV sitcoms through out the ages. The first episode is even in 4:3 black and white with a laugh track and those tall, open sets you used to see on TV back in the day. There are clear homages to The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, The Brady Bunch and so many other Nick at Nite classics. At first, it seems like a fun experiment. What if we took these world famous characters from the modern day and plopped them down in a sitcom from the 1950s? But as the episodes continue, a mystery starts to unfold and we learn that things aren’t quite what they seem. It’s the perfect choice to launch the new wave of MCU TV because television and some of its most well-known tropes are such a huge part of the story. 

Every actor nails the tone and delivery of a classic TV show without ever going so over the top that it feels like a parody. They’re just inhabiting the world of silly Bewitched special effects on strings, I Dream of Jeannie magical jump cuts, and Brady Bunch astroturf yards. Bettany, in particular, is able to give us range here that we can’t really get from regular MCU Vision because the character in the movies is so powerful and doesn’t do much quipping during potentially world-ending events. Here he’s able to be goofy and charming in a way that gives classic Dick Van Dyke or Larry Hagman vibes. In fact, seeing actors like Bettany, Olsen, Kathryn Hahn and Teyonah Parris perfectly play archetypal classic sitcom roles while simultaneously struggling to understand just how they came to exist in this world adds so much engagement to the mystery. 

The first three episodes were made available to critics and I’m really excited to check out the rest of the series, but most of all, I’m excited for what this show could mean for the MCU. We’ve seen huge blockbusters before and while Marvel might have invented the formula and other studios are struggling to imitate it, there’s something to be said for a smaller-scale entry that isn’t afraid to get a little weird. After all, my favorite DC product right now is Doom Patrol and that’s about as weird as it gets. While I’m sure they’ll mix more traditional programming like Falcon and the Winter Soldier with this new menu of Marvel TV, WandaVision (and hopefully  the upcoming Loki series) gives me hope for this new breath of fresh air with future TV entries.