Agatha All Along opens with gritty, wet woodland, as a weary, jaded detective is dragged out into the sticks with her partner to investigate a mysterious Jane Doe found dead on a road.
So far, so Mare of Easttown / True Detective / The Killing – delete as appropriate. Yet this isn't Kate Winslet or Jodie Foster, but a sarcastic, weary, frazzled, gum-chewing, burnt-out detective played enthrallingly by Kathryn Hahn, in a show called Agnes of Westview.
Anyone who's seen Hahn's more serious acting chops in I Know This Much Is True knows that she's easily at home with heavier material, and surprisingly this is where Agatha All Along shines the most, just like the light emanating from the fingers of a certain witch.
But it's not all hard-nosed crime capers. Wry little touches mimic the tropes of those procedurals, which hark back to the very best moments of televisual parody from WandaVision, way back in the early days of Disney+ in 2020 – which almost feels as long ago now as the 1950s Americana they often parodied.
From the extended opening credits channelling The Wire's famous opening music style to the faux source material, explaining the show-within-a-show is based on 'The Danish series Wadavisdysen', this is Agatha All Along at its slickest, from the four episodes we've seen so far.
Related: Marvel's Agatha All Along creator explains why TV show is so musical
Soon, however, Agnes becomes more shrill, more exasperated, more over-the-top and comedic, and once Aubrey Plaza's mysterious Rio Vidal rocks up as an FBI agent sticking her nose into local business (imagine that), things slowly melt into something more MCU-y.
Agnes harasses a local librarian for information on a mysterious stolen book (the Darkhold) and finds it burnt to a cinder before she interrogates a witness forcefully (Joe Locke), and hits the bottle. "Everyone knows a woman can't be a good detective and have a personal life" quips Plaza.
Soon we're back to a more typical 'real world' MCU setting, and hammy, plinky-plonky superhero territory, with some fun thrown in. Of course, it was a matter of time, and we're not expecting Marvel to become HBO-lite, but it might have been nice for Agatha All Along to experiment more with grown-up, modern TV genres.
Similarly, Marvel's ghoulishly fun Werewolf By Night embraced the gory, black-and-white style of the Universal Monsterverse in the bloody horror one-shot that Marvel made for Disney+ in 2022.
Executive Producer Mary Livanos told Digital Spy exclusively: "We wanted this to feel like a spiritual spin-off of WandaVision, but it's all about Agatha. So it's a whole new tone, a whole new set of references.
"With WandaVision, we celebrated the golden era of television with different sitcoms. But we're celebrating the golden age of horror and fantasy."
Livanos added to Digital Spy: "The writers all came to the table with all the witchy, fantasy and horror references that we all love, and of those went into the pot, and I think if you're a fan of those genres and sub-genres, there's definitely Easter Eggs, and there's a little bit for everyone to love, hidden within the show."
Although the show plays with other formats throughout the first four episodes, it felt more like experimentation with fashion, and musical styles – admittedly with some bangers that come close to 'Agatha All Along' – rather than TV spoofs in the same way.
And that's fine, we're not looking for a TikTok feed of show shuffles, and you can certainly feel references to Charmed, Hocus Pocus and The Wizard of Oz, yet given the novel format that WandaVision had, it's hard not to feel it's slightly wanting.
Agatha All Along has been described as part of a trilogy of shows that will climax with Paul Bettany's Vision Quest, which will also bring back longtime series villain Ultron in some form, thanks to the casting of James Spader.
Elsewhere in the show, Aubrey Plaza is a brilliant addition to the MCU, and brings her trademark deadpan demeanour, while Joe Locke is earnest and mysterious. Sadly, the wider coven of witches doesn't get quite enough character development for our liking, and with so many cast members to juggle, it's hard to feel connected to them.
There are nine episodes in Agatha's season, so there are still another five episodes to enjoy until we see what spell the show intends to cast on fans, including the mysterious identity of Joe Locke's character, simply dubbed 'Teen'.
Just don't expect WandaVision part two. But if you love a musical, campy, spooky, Halloween romp in the vein of Hocus Pocus, then Agatha is most certainly for you. We're just hopeful the later episodes can conjure up more of the magic, which made us bewitched by WandaVision's creativity all those years ago.
Agatha All Along premieres its first two episodes on Wednesday, September 18 on Disney+ in the US, and Thursday, September 19 in the UK, with new episodes following weekly, and a double bill for the finale.
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Editor-in-Chief -Digital Spy
Laurence Mozafari (he/him) is a multi-award winning journalist, editor, and presenter, currently Editor-in-Chief at Digital Spy, the UK's biggest TV and movies website.
Before that, he held roles as Editor, Deputy Editor, and Associate Editor focusing on news, social, and video.Laurence hosted the BBC Sounds podcast Obsessed with Peaky Blinders in 2019, as well as his own podcast production, Time of My Life, where he interviews fascinating elders about their life lessons, including Only Fools and Horses' Sir David Jason, Star Trek’s George Takei and Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh.
He was previously at Bauer Media working as Digital Editor of Heat magazine’s website, Heatworld.com, and has worked at and written for Sky, NME, Q magazine, Grazia, Closer, FHM and dedicated careers website GoThinkBig.
He secured a first-class BA journalism degree at Staffordshire University, along with several NCTJ qualifications, and now has 14 years' experience in digital publishing covering TV, movies, music, gaming, tech, showbiz, and travel.
Laurence has been a broadcasting contributor on television and radio, including KISS, Heat Radio, BBC Radio London, Radio 5 Live, and BBC Breakfast. He is also a visiting lecturer at various universities teaching journalism, including City, University of London, Nottingham Trent, Staffordshire University and London Metropolitan.
Laurence has won numerous awards in his journalism career, including the BSME Talent Award’s Best Deputy Editor, the PPA's 30 Under 30, and the New Editor and Editor of the Year at the AOP and BSMEs. He led Digital Spy to win PPA's Digital Content Team of the Year twice, along with the British Media Awards’ Brand of the Year in 2021.
Laurence joined the committee for the British Society of Magazine Editors in 2022. He has since hosted panels with CEOs of Immediate Media and the Media Trust at the PPA Festival, as well as presenting his own radio show on Green Man Radio at Green Man Festival in 2022. Laurence is also a Brits voting academy member. Laurence has been lucky enough to interview numerous celebrities, actors, and musicians throughout his career. Arnold Schwarzenegger loved his hair, Jimmy Carr loved his coat and Antonio Banderas gave a shout-out to his mum. Laurence has covered set visits for The Witcher on Netflix and Marvel’s Inhumans, he got Daisy Ridley to do a Chewbacca impression and loves Marvel, PlayStation, Glastonbury and craft beer.
