Agent Carter will no longer be reporting for duty as the show has been axed in a wave of announcements made by ABC yesterday evening.
The series, led by Hayley Atwell, finished its second season this January to a more tepid response than its first, with ratings at around half of what they were the first time around. The show was widely celebrated as one of Marvel’s brightest and best in the MCU, not to mention one of its most diverse.
It wasn’t the only Marvel victim, though. ABC have elected not to pick up Marvel’s Most Wanted, the Agents of SHIELD spinoff following Mockingbird and Hunter. The pair were written out in a recent episode of what is currently SHIELD‘s third season. There’s been no update on if the actors will simply return to SHIELD or not.
Other series dropped include the adult-themed The Muppets, whose first season will now be its only, Castle, Nashville and Galavant.
The fact that not one but two Marvel network shows have been wiped off the slate, one of which before it was even given a chance to air properly, speaks to what may be a disconnect between ABC and Marvel’s TV division. Outside of the Netflix shows, the only network ongoing for the MCU now is Agents of SHIELD, which is in the middle of both a long arc and is the home for the Inhumans, the group of characters and lore Marvel recently removed from their calendar of movies.
This is just speculation, but the fact that these cancellations are coming almost directly after it was announced Ike Perlmutter was head of Marvel’s TV division may not be a coincidence. Perlmutter is notoriously difficult as a head of production, with the lack of TV and movie crossover reportedly entirely down to him. It’s entire plausible that ABC and he had large disagreements over what these shows were delivering, so they minimized they’re involvement with him to save themselves the headache.
Who knows, though. For now, we mourn the departure of Agent Carter for however long it takes for Marvel to acknowledge her onscreen again and hope that we might, someday, get to see Hayley Atwell in action in the role again too.
