Disney+ revitalized appointment television in 2021 with its MCU shows

2021 will always be known as the year that the MCU took over streaming thanks to Disney+. Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have long been viewers of the tie-in shows that loosely were attached to the mammoth success of their film counterparts.

However, when Disney got into the streaming game, those shows got the axe. No one knew whether or not Marvel TV, as it had been known on Netflix, Hulu, and Freeform, would be any good on Disney+.

Sure, we’ve all enjoyed or at least indulged MCU film after MCU film but television is a whole other beast. Not to mention, there were concerns that the MCU under the umbrella of the House of Mouse would be watered down.

Disney+ doesn’t have as much room as a streamer like Netflix to push rating boundaries and get down to the grit that Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and The Punisher could. While Cloak & Dagger was an underrated marvel and Runaways was a hit with teens, those also weren’t shows one could picture on Disney+ and they were geared toward young adults.

But, it turns out an exception could be made for a well established franchise like the MCU. The TV-14 and PG-13 ratings suddenly became acceptable for TV shows on the globe’s most family friendly streamer which opened the door to the kind of Marvel storytelling commonplace on the big screen.

The MCU shows of 2021 were the talk of the internet

When WandaVision made its premiere in January, no one knew what to expect from the nine episode series besides a trip into Wanda’s grieving mind. The big question was whether or not Disney+ and Marvel Studios would be able to replicate the success of the MCU on the small screen as they had in theaters.

Within the first three episodes of its weekly launch, it became clear that yes they could. WandaVision became appointment television. Those who tuned in spoke endlessly across the web about the show’s successes, its structure, its treatment of the characters, the worldbuilding, the costuming, you name it and it was most likely discussed in some sphere of social media.

Then Falcon and The Winter Soldier premiered and the same thing happened. Loki made its debut and Disney+ changed its release dates from Friday to Wednesdays for all of their original programming.

Every time a new MCU show drops on Disney+, the internet starts buzzing. It’s water cooler television, the likes of which we don’t often see outside of network shows anymore because streamers tend to drop all episodes of a season at once.

The week-to-week release model has worked exceptionally well for Disney+ in regards to its MCU series and, yes, that has a lot to do with the caliber and quality of said shows. These miniseries are as cinematic as the universe they belong to and that’s why they collectively made our FanSided Fandoms of the Year list for 2021.

Whether you watched an MCU show this year or not, you were certainly hearing about them nonstop. They were a pop culture moment and there’s more to come in 2022.