Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 29 November

Marvel Studios: Assembled (2021-2023)

Every Friday night for over a year, I have been appear­ing on RNZ Nights to recom­mend film, tv and stream­ing con­tent and help people nav­ig­ate their view­ing weekends.

The 9.40 timeslot eats into the even­ing a bit, but I am very grate­ful for the oppor­tun­ity and have enjoyed chat­ting to the vari­ous hosts who have been look­ing after the show since Bryan Crump moved to Concert: Karyn Hay, Todd Zaner, Susanna Lei’atua and, lately, Mark Leishman.

Finishing my work­ing week as the pips sig­nal the ten o’clock news means that our own Friday night view­ing can’t be too intel­lec­tu­ally or emo­tion­ally chal­len­ging. We veg out, frankly, and that’s why we still have our Disney+ account. Because noth­ing is as ‘in one eye and out the oth­er’ as Marvel or Star Wars, no mat­ter that we prob­ably won’t remem­ber too much about each epis­ode the next morning.

They’re not all as good as each oth­er – cer­tainly not all as good as Andor – but they are relax­ing and com­fort­ing and … always seem to be there.

I don’t need to sell you on indi­vidu­al series at this point – although I may later on – but I do want to alert you to anoth­er of our reg­u­lar view­ing options, the behind-the-scenes doc­u­ment­ar­ies called Marvel: Assembled that show up at the end of each sea­son or when a new film drops.

BTS or EPK con­tent is usu­ally eas­ily skipped cor­por­ate fan ser­vice – and these shows cer­tainly serve the Disney mega­lith – but because they are at least a com­mer­cial hour (45 minutes plus) they have an abil­ity to stretch out and talk to story makers as well as stars; craft teams as well as executives.

I some­times find these pro­grammes to be more enjoy­able than the shows that inspired them (although you need to have seen what they are talk­ing about – you can’t go in cold).

Every epis­ode of Ms. Marvel, for example costs about US $25m – more than a Game of Thrones epis­ode – and it’s great to see that put up on screen, and the work that has gone into it all.

As a review­er, it’s import­ant to be reminded every now and then, that the cre­at­ives behind a show have thought about it for longer than you have, by a factor of sev­er­al thousand.

Season Two of Loki, which has just fin­ished, is the best designed and art dir­ec­ted Marvel product I have seen. There’s so much wit and thought gone into everything and this show gives you a closer look at those details and lets you awe in the craft of prop makers, cos­tume makers, VFX design­ers, etc.

If you have a kid who likes mak­ing things, show them some of these pro­grammes and be pre­pared to pause so they can zoom in on the details. I love the ded­ic­a­tion, per­cep­tion and skill of these amaz­ing people and Marvel: Assembled does too.

I only wish that the Star Wars sec­tion of Disney’s empire would be as open and as cel­eb­rat­ory. There’s no equi­val­ent for Andor, for example, and I wish there was.

Where to find Marvel Studios: Assembled

The con­tent below was ori­gin­ally paywalled.

Everywhere: Disney+