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I can tell you exactly when that moment began: around 7 p.m. on October 11, 2015.
Squealing and cheering commenced.
This was a crowd that expected great things.
And hoo boy, their expectations were met.
Thatinaugural installment ofJessica Joneswas a true humdinger.
I cant tell you how much of a revelation a good superhero show was at that time.
Showrunner Melissa Rosenberg and starKrysten Rittergenuinely seemed to be elevating the game.
If it ever was the future, it is now the past.
The loose ends will probably forever dangle in the wind, reminding diehards to never love anything too much.
So, what the hell happened?
For one thing, all the shows suffered from an acute case of Netflix bloat.
There was simply no good reason for these stories to run 13-odd hours each.
There were B- and C-plots, but they, too, were stretched out to unreasonable lengths.
Yet, over and over again, we had to see that gratification delayed beyond reason.
You were never going to hold eyeballs very long with that kind of lukewarm storytelling.
If the shows struggled with format, so too did they suffer over formula.
Quite simply, they rarely did anything audacious or iconoclastic.
In a word: snore.
When the MarvelNetflix collaboration wasannouncedin November 2013, it was something of a revolutionary idea.
Trouble is, once both of them had won, they no longer needed each other.
Disney has seen its Marvel brand become a license to print money.
Marvel Netflix was consigned to being the abandoned child from a marriage that fell apart.
Future generations may find the very phrase Marvel Netflix to be an oxymoron, afterthe streaming warsreally heat up.
Which brings us to Disneys challenge in its post-Netflix reality.
(Youll note that all of those shows star major characters from the film arm of the MCU.
Thats because Marvel Studios will be managing all of the Marvel content streaming on Disney+.)
The format has to lend itself to thrills, chills, and density.
In other words, formula has to take a back seat to innovation.
How quickly the heroes of tomorrow become yesterdays news.
