Marvel Studios' What If...? - Season 1 Review

Marvel Studios’ What If…? concluded on Wednesday in a season finale which managed to epitomise the show in all its best and worst aspects. It’s nice to see the Marvel Cinematic Universe branching out into standalone, more varied stories, where everything that happens doesn’t have to fit into the “canon”. The animation work is lovely throughout, with some rich textures and lighting that put many other 2D and 3D animated features to shame. It’s also hugely impressive that the creative team managed all this – and snagged several A-list stars into a voice booth – in the midst of a global pandemic.

The resulting series should be an all-time classic, but alas What If feels like a missed opportunity – nothing more than another infinity stone in Marvel’s gauntlet. At 30-35 minutes each, the episodes either feel too short to delve into their subject matter or too long to really pack a punch. The Captain Carter episode (centring on a super soldier incarnation of Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter, complete with Union Jack outfit and shield) simply re-treads key scenes from Captain America: The First Avenger, while seeing T’Challa as Star Lord (a posthumous appearance from Chadwick Boseman) simply repeats the same gag over and over again: “hey, wouldn’t T’Challa actually be a better Star Lord?” A zombie-filled instalment struggles to find the right balance between adult-oriented horror and family-friendly adventure (and in my opinion, didn’t manage it), while the “Party Thor” adventure came and went without leaving any kind of impression. I was more intrigued by who performed such a terrific Chris Hemsworth impression (as it turned out, Chris Hemsworth).

Where the series found its strengths was strangely in the darker tales: in attempting to save the love of his life, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) causes destruction on a universal scale, while another tale saw the Avengers all brutally murdered before they could even assemble. Alas, even these episodes felt somewhat lacking – perhaps because Doctor Strange hadn’t built-up its key romance well enough in the film itself? Perhaps because the latter episode relied entirely on a twist that wasn’t even set-up earlier on? What If is certainly not without merit, but I never felt completely “wowed” by what the series had to offer.

Naturally, the anthology approach didn’t last long, and it turned out that the Vision/Ultron hybrid as seen on the poster and publicity materials was supposed to be a big reveal (oops on the marketing team’s part) and ended up coming across as an as-to-be-expected “big bad” to bring the heroes together for the season finale. Confusingly, the Thanos-armoured Gamora seen on the poster didn’t even get introduced until part-way through the finale – presumably she was supposed to debut in the unreleased additional episode that was dropped prior to release? The finale itself was watchable fluff, adding little to any individual character’s story but providing something of a satisfying conclusion to a series that really didn’t need any connective tissue.

What’s perhaps most frustrating about What If is that it doesn’t stand on its own two feet, instead constantly referencing the twenty-five films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, drawing parallels and repeating key moments in animation in an attempt to remind us of the “it’s all connected” promise. It’s fun to play with audience expectations, but What If does very little to build upon the familiarity of the MCU and tell new stories. Inside No 9 is one of the very best anthology series ever made, but the key to its success is variety. Audiences will go in with certain expectations and the show will constantly find ways of surprising them, whilst not journeying too far from the central premise. Perhaps What If will find its footing in a second season, or perhaps a show like this can never live up to its promise under the “brand management” at Marvel Studios and Disney.