2025/01/05
On January 6th, 2015 Agent Carter, or rather Marvel’s Agent Carter, first aired on ABC. Created by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and is of course based on the Marvel Comics character Peggy Carter. We also saw Peggy Carter in the 2011 movie Captain America: The First Avenger and later on, in 2013, I guess to test the waters for a TV show, we got a Marvel One-Shot short film of Agent Carter. Haley Atwell reprises her role of Peggy Carter from the movie and the One-Shot short film. Other lead actors are: James D'Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, Shea Whigham, Wynn Everett, Bridget Regan, Reggie Austin and Enver Gjokaj. The setting is in the 1940’s where Peggy Carter must try to find a balance between being a secret Agent with that of a single woman in 1940’s America.
The Premise:
The first season takes place in 1946, with Peggy Carter having to balance the routine office work she does for the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) in New York City with secretly assisting Howard Stark, who finds himself framed for supplying deadly weapons to enemies of the United States. Carter is assisted by Stark's butler, Edwin Jarvis, to find those responsible and dispose of the weapons. In the second season, Carter moves from New York City to Los Angeles to deal with the threats of the new Atomic Age by the Council of Nine in the aftermath of World War II, gaining new friends, a new home, and a potential new love interest.
ABC ordered the show straight to series, the first season consists of 8 episodes while season two consist of 10 episodes. It aired from January 6, 2015 till March 1st, 2016. Unfortunately only two short seasons. It was a good piece of television, both seasons aired during mid-season breaks of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but Despite a positive critical response, viewership fell, the ratings, as always stayed behind and went down quite firm over the course of two short seasons. The ratings of season one already took a dive from 6.91 million viewers to 4.02. In season two it dove further from 3.18 to 2.35 million viewers.
According to Maureen Ryan of Variety, the low viewership of both seasons can, certainly in part, be blamed on "the questionable scheduling decisions" made by then ABC president Paul Lee, saying that the series "has received lackluster promotion, especially [for its second season]. The botched rollout of season two included a changed premiere date and episodes that were difficult to access in advance on Marvel's dreadful media site. Capping the mishandling is the fact that the full first season was only made available on ABC.com days before season two began, which frustrated viewers who might have wanted to jump on board in advance." We will never know for sure if this is an important reason, but you ask yourself why ABC handles such a show with such a lackluster promotion? I mean, I assume they also want this to become a hit, especially as they also aired Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time, which was a perfect pairing.
On Rotten Tomatoes Agent Carter fares quite well with an 86% Critics reviews and 77% by the audience, which are good numbers. I for one really liked Agent Carter and I remember back after its first season there already was a wrong buzz regarding the renewal for a second season. I remember writing a blog post on my previous website SF Series & Movies, almost pleading them not to cancel Agent Carter. I don’t think my blog post had anything to do with it but it did get a season two renewal then. 😊
An excerpt of that blog from 2015:
So the fate of Agent Carter has yet to be decided but the series itself was a lot of fun, instant favorite of mine. Agent Carter is fresh, funny and has lots of action in a gorgeous 1940's setting. The characters are believable, Agent Carter is fun character, strong woman and her relationship with Jarvis is one of the best parts of the series. On the one side it's a pity that there are only 8 episodes but on the other hand, it means there are no filler episodes, it's just one big arc. As I said before, the 40's setting is just so beautiful and so realistic, real impressive, you totally get the sense you are in another era.
Final Word:
Yes, I really loved the show, it was unique, one of its kind, a great cast, exciting stories and so much potential. It keeps amazing me that so many people rather watch reality shows, talk shows, the 20th season of some TV show, rather then check out this new fresh TV show like Agent Carter. Perhaps the lackluster promotion was a big reason for its low viewership, on the other hand, in this day and age, everyone can go onto the internet, find new and upcoming shows, so I don’t know for sure. Anyway, I sure wouldn’t mind to revisit this universe but I guess this is just wishful thinking. Happy 10th Anniversary Agent Carter!
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