So much juiciness has come out of the Television Critics Association press tours the past week or so, and this little nugget of awesome is regarding ABC and Marvel’s recently-announced Agent Carter series, which will follow the post-Captain America: The First Avenger exploits of Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) a year after the events of the film as she furthers her career as a spy working for the new clandestine organization, S.H.I.E.L.D.
It was announced on Friday by ABC’s Entertainment Group president, Paul Lee, that the showrunners for the series will be Reaper creators Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas and that the first script, written by Cap screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, is apparently looking “good,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
From their article, Lee says the series “has a good chance to be on the network,” and further says that Atwell will indeed be returning to the role she played in Cap 1 and the eponymous Marvel One-Shot featured on the Iron Man 3 disc, putting to bed the rumors that have been circling since the series was announced.
From the Reporter: “She’s such a strong, wonderful character if you’ve seen the one-shot,” said Butters, at TCA to support ABC’s Resurrection. “We’re happy to be involved.” The EP also noted that she and Fazekas could ultimately work on Resurrection and Agent Carter should both dramas continue on for the 2014-15 season.
What do we think of this? Personally, I think this will be a fantastic idea. Atwell’s Carter is one of the highlights in an already awesome movie and her One-Shot clearly struck a chord with audiences. And, maybe it’ll be a little less movie-commercial-like than its television predecessor, Marvel’s Agent’s of S.H.I.E.L.D., which simply can’t go a single episode without referencing the cinematic universe in a “Hey, remember how great the movies are” sort of way. Also, no word yet whether Dominic Cooper, who appeared as Howard Stark in both the feature film and the short, will be attached for the new series, but I’d sure like it if he were.
Anyone who complains about Agents of SHIELD needs to take into account the “Season 1 problem.” Lots of shows, including some of the best-regarded shows down the road, have had trouble finding their voice until they’ve got a number of episodes under their belt.
Anyway, Agents of SHIELD is still ABC’s highest-ranked new show of the season…
Certainly good to see Agent Carter is getting her own show. Awesome lady.
Marvel Studios is on a roll lately… say what you will about Agents of SHIELD, but it’s 150% better than it was at the beginning.
It should be noted that Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters also worked on Dollhouse, a great female-led show that was poorly-received because people have no attention span.