After months of hype followed by six underwhelming weeks of television, Secret Invasion dropped its final episode today, and it’s fair to say it hasn’t salvaged its reputation with Marvel fans. The show has received a number of complaints from long-term lovers of the comic franchise, with many arguing that it’s too slow, or too subtle, which some would argue is code for “not enough explosions.”
Yet, despite this dissatisfaction, the negative feelings towards Secret Invasion have one common denominator: it was only six episodes long.
As a Brit, I’m naturally quite defensive of the shorter-episode season. Unlike in America, where creative decisions are hampered by commercial needs (i.e. the imperative to sell people things they don’t need for money they don’t have), in the U.K we’ve mastered the art of the six-episode season, even if the episode length is thirty minutes or less (see: The I.T Crowd, The Thick of It, Extras, etc.).
However, it seems large-scale, American-based productions are yet to figure out a way to say something with brevity, and this issue has affected the way many fans of Secret Invasion are seeing the show. It’s also notable that other Disney Plus six-episode seasons have suffered the same criticism, with Hawkeye, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight all leaving fans feeling as if the story had been rushed to a conclusion.
With that all said, Secret Invasion having a six-episode season seems like it’s been a double loss for the Disney-owned studio. Perhaps next time they have a story that can be told over six short episodes, they reconsider whether it should just be a movie.