What If...?

Really enjoying this series & the risks they've taken so far.

I enjoyed the first season more than the second. The first season had a propulsive narrative force anchored by the Ultron-Watcher storyline that made for a satisfying finale. The second season didn't have that same overarching plot, as the episodes seemed a lot more cut off from each other. I did enjoy certain episodes, especially the first one with Nebula joining the Nova Corps as I felt it gave off a very steam punk sci-fi vibe that I dug. I also liked the episode involving Hela and the 10 rings. I felt it did a good job basically mimicking the plot of the first Thor movie, but with Hela as the main protagonist. I did appreciate a lot of the action in the second season, but the pacing in both seasons is just so fast paced. This is understandable, as they are attempting to pack in an entire story within 30 minutes of run time. That being said, it's so fast paced that the show doesn't give you pause to breathe and take in the different story beats... especially the dramatic ones. Overall, I felt that the second season was more boring than I would've hoped. The first season was an 8, but I'm going to downgrade the show as a whole to a 7 after completing the second.

Now that the first season is over, I can confidently say that this series has exceeded my expectations. It uses witty scripts and detailed animation to bring the fans the service they've been wanting and more. Each episode is quite varied so there are many different scenarios and you never know how it will turn out or which characters will show up. The series wastes no time explaining any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and just gets to the point of the scenarios, and also starts to merge the scenarios without warning. This is for the fans, not casual viewers! However, the variety of episodes also means that the quality and tone also vary quite drastically. The short runtime means that many events and battles are cut short. There was a good amount of care to make everything canon and consistent, but there are still some shortcomings and the power/ability of each character seemed to be contrived based on the needs of the plot.

Talk about potential wasted. In a world where literally anything is available for them to do... They ran out of cool stories after the first season. The first season had fun, exciting, interesting stories - with our favourite marvel characters doing awesome things. Then the second season came along and they chose to focus on lame characters, and "what if's" that were no longer meaningful or interesting to watch. For a 30 min show things felt slow for much of each episode. Many of the episodes felt skippable and I had to resist zoning out. Where's more of the "zombie" level of What Ifs? That was crazy and wild. That's the kind of What If scenarios I wanted to see.

As much as I love the animation style and using the original actors for voice-overs, much of 'What If' fizzles and falls short. Many of the storylines have never really dwelt on what many Marvel and comic book fans would think of when asked 'What if?" To me, this series would be super successful if it actually gave an alternate perspective to known story lines. Episodes like: if Carter became the First Avenger, or Ultron Won, and even 1602 were great. Others just were weirdly, acid-trip induced crap.

As a longtime Marvel fan I never wondered if T'Challa became Star Lord, Nebulla joining the Nova Corps, or in the latest Season 3- Avengers made their own Voltron?!?!

What if the series took the original movies and did the opposite? What if Tony died or New York wasn't saved in Avengers? What if Killmonger succeeded in defeating T'Challa? What if the Guardians couldn't stop Ronan in a dance off?

These are possibilities that would have been fun to explore. Honestly Season 2 should've been the last one, because as evident in Season 3 Episode 1, there's not much imagination left. It's Voltron or Pacific Rim meets the Avengers. Dull and already been done.