This article was published on 10/4 and republished on 10/6.
Agatha All Along is a hit, thanks to decent viewership compared to an extremely low budget. But Disney is also celebrating its success in another way.
One important metric when it comes to the reception and renewal of streaming series is “continuation rate,” whether that’s how far you get through a Netflix binge, or if you keep following along week-to-week. A low completion rate means people are less likely to show up for season 2, hence why it’s a big factor in why shows get cancelled.
Well, Marvel TV’s Brad Winderbaum has now confirmed to Variety that so far, Agatha has the best continuation rate of any Marvel show they’ve released after four episodes here. Meaning week to week, it has retained the largest percentage of viewers, though he does not get into specifics, perhaps because he doesn’t want the other shows to look bad. As a reminder, here are all the Marvel series that have aired so far, and it’s better than all these:
- WandaVision
- Loki
- Falcon and the Winter Soldier
- Moon Knight
- Ms. Marvel
- She-Hulk
- Hawkeye
- Echo
- Secret Invasion
- What If…?
Marvel TV is pretty goofy considering out of every show on that list, only What If…? and Loki got a season 2. Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision and Secret Invasion were supposed to be miniseries. She-Hulk is for sure cancelled, but Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye and Echo are in limbo. Moon Knight may be the closest to getting a second season, but it hasn’t been announced.
So, a solid completion rate is great for Agatha? I mean yes, but it’s…another miniseries, so it’s not looking for a season 2 renewal anyway. However, the success of Agatha may mean the following:
- An indication that Scarlet Witch herself needs to return to the MCU in force if even her spin-off show is doing this well.
- An indication that even if Agatha itself is over, Agatha, Teen and Rio Vidal (and the latter two’s secret identities) may be good to add to other projects in the future.
- An indication there should be investment in a “supernatural” corner of the MCU which has already been rumored, and could include things like Blade, Moon Knight and Ghost Rider.
- There’s also a rumor about a show finding Wanda’s lost son, Tommy Maximoff, or Speed, and that concept may be bolstered by success here.
This is all great news, and the show has also largely avoided the kind of culture wars you might normally see from a mostly-women-led, LGBTQ project like this. It’s performing great, and hopefully the rest of the series continues to keep this quality bar.
Update (10/6): In this same interview about the retention rate, Brad Winderbaum spent a while talking about the budget, where he confirmed it has the lowest of any Disney Plus show, which puts it underneath the $40 million Echo. It’s supposedly part of a new philosophy that leans away from high-budget spectacles starring (expensive) actors from the films, something that Agatha lacks (at least until Scarlet Witch shows up, perhaps). Here’s Winderbaum on the future budgets:
“I think it’s about how you use the effects, as opposed to the scale of the effects,” he said. “And we’re responding to to our own recent history here, and how effective effects really are in increasing the value of a story.”
But Winderbaum is also quick to praise Agatha’s showrunner as the driving force behind why the series, like WandaVision, is a hit:
“Jac is unbelievable,” Winderbaum said. “Any chance I get to walk around that woman’s imagination is like a gift. She’s an absolute genius storyteller. And I can tell you like there are so many twists and turns left to come in ‘Agatha.’”
I feel like I know a few of those twists or turns already, but that doesn’t mean the journey is still going to be fun for another five weeks here.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
