Seekest Thou the Road

I loved the weird and creative WandaVision and so far this show is just as weird and wonderfully creative and different. I can't wait to see more of this show.

The cast is incredible too, including Kathryn Hahn, the legendary Patti Lapone, and Mary Jo Rupp. Joe Locke was and is wonderful in Heartstoppers. Bringing back Westview and the Salem Seven is cool.

Although in the comics Agatha Harkness isn't exactly as evil as these shows create, she was a tough cookie when training Wanda, the Scarlet Witch in the Avengers comics. At times even scary, but faithful to Reed and Sue Richard in the Fantast Four.

I look forward to Agatha getting her powers back and introducing Joe Lockes character (maybe her son? Nicholas Scratch?

I look forward to more episodes.

It's better than the Acolyte in every way but nowhere near enough unfortunately.

* Plot: Very low stakes. Not much going on. Some of it doesn't even make sense and a lot of conflicting rules and information are introduced.

* Story: First episode is basically a waste of time until the last five minutes.

* Writing: Most of the writing isn't thoughtful or make sense. No character development yet. Dialog is clunky and l there are several lines that just feel inserted and have no explanation. I saw no subtext in this episode demonstrating how surface level this is. Everything feels very contrived and done without consideration of it being good. It feels like it's written by people used to writing Disney cartoons.

*Acting: Over-the-top and more so than normal. This could be on purpose but having only seen one episode it's too difficult to tell. But if it is done on purpose then the writing is bad for not explaining why.

* Pacing: It's mostly bad because the first episode is 30 minutes of nothing relevant followed by ten minutes of nonsensical stuff.

*Music is my favorite part *Special Effects: Decent quality for a show.

*Editing: Poor. Too many jarring cuts. Shots not put together well. At one point I felt like they gave up trying to edit well for a few scenes.

The show starts with an agent named Agnes who is on the case of a body that was found in the woods. She must try and identify who the body is and along the way she seems to be finding herself also.

The show is a fine start nothing spectacular! The acting I found was a bit weird, it just felt off at some points throughout the episode.

The story of this episode is fine, again it's the first episode so the hook is all you are looking for.

I will watch the whole show but nothing major drawing me in as of yet.

A good start to the Halloween season. I'm hoping this show takes off in the next couple episodes, 5.5/10.

What begins as a standard police procedural mystery, with two strong femme cops on the case, turns at the halfway mark into a hard-to-follow supernatural show, with witches turning out to be the main theme. It was a far cry from being a compelling pilot episode, with Hahn and Plaza the only reasons to stay tuned.

The spooky music hinted a bit at what was to come, and the opening credits listing character names instead of actor names tells us that like its predecessor "WandaVision" we are watching (at first) a fake TV show with fake credits, not "real", but I was thrown by the arbitrary details for the transition from seeming reality to fantasy. I suppose gimmicks are instantly acceptable in the Marvel family of comic-strip content, but I didn't find anything interesting here, including Hahn's tame nude scene. And I'm turned off by the end credits listing enough names (including dozens of drivers) for a "Lord of the RIngs" movie, including maybe a hundred names, totally extraneous, listing the office and executive staff at Marvel and at Disney. Plus enough producers for this miniseries to launch a huge Broadway play.

It feels like this show has been in development for a while. It wasn't much time after "WandaVision" was over that this show was announced, which was followed by a long process of title changes and casting announcement. Despite the fun nature of the marketing campaign, this wasn't necessarily a show that I was anticipating, despite how much I enjoyed that original show. This is not a character with a huge background, so it was limited how much they could do with her at all. However, it feels like Jac Schaeffer has found a way to bring her forward, while using a bit of nostalgia.

Schaeffer immediately brings back a familiar formula by dressing the show up as a gritty crime drama, mixing it up with the nostalgic brand of MCU humor and a bit of pulp that I did not expect. However, Schaeffer also knows that she won't be able to simply rely on this formula to get us through this show, and she very quickly pulls back the curtains to show what's really going on, and it shows a refreshing change of pace compared to its flagship show. Some may argue that the show could feel rushed, but spending time going through the motions in a similar fashion as we did in "WandaVision" would simply feel like a case of "been there, done that." The episode has a few new characters, but while they certainly do what they need to do in the episode, there is a bit of confusion going on, and the episode could have saved itself a little bit of that if it had been more transparent in regards to their service to the overall show. Then again, this is only the first episode so there's still time for that, but it did still feel like something was missing from here. Kathryn Hahn is still very good in this role and she rightly turns it on its head, by being intentionally campy throughout a very serious part of the episode. She adds such a lighthearted element to the show, yet still manages to get respect for how well she just nails this absolutely crazy character.

"Seekest Thou the Road" is certainly an entertaining start to this new show, and it cleverly sheds its gimmicky format very quickly for a more straightforward story. The episode does have a few setbacks, especially some clunky character introductions, but Kathryn Hahn is a constant joy in this role and she already carries a lot of the weight.