Disney+ to host all six Netflix Marvel shows and AGENTS OF SHIELD from mid-March

Disney+ will add all six of the Marvel Netflix TV shows and ABC's Agents of SHIELD to their roster on 16 March.

The package includes three seasons apiece of Daredevil and Jessica Jones, two seasons apiece of Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher, the team-up mini-series The Defenders and all seven seasons of ABC's Agents of SHIELD. That's 20 seasons of television, totalling 297 episodes, that will be making the jump to the service.

The fate of the Netflix shows was initially unclear after Netflix confirmed they were leaving the service a few months ago. However, the appearance of the Netflix version of Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin, played by Vincent D'Onofrio in Hawkeye and the appearance of Matt Murdock/Daredevil in Spider-Man: No Way Home, played by Charlie Cox, suggested that those shows were going to be brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon.

The fate of the two well-regarded ABC series Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter was a lot more ambiguous. Agents of SHIELD had gone to some lengths to tie itself in with the MCU, featuring guest appearances by Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Jamie Alexander as Sif, reprising their roles from the film series, alongside lead actor Phil Coulson, with Clark Gregg reprising his role from the films, and Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter.

Avengers: Endgame saw a tie-in with Agent Carter, with James D'Arcy reprising his role as Jarvis in that movie. However, the final seasons of Agents of SHIELD saw a splintering away from the events of the films, reportedly due to the film team not wanting to give the TV crews any secret information about the movies for it fear of leaking.

Agent Carter is not, so far, joining Disney+ in the United States, but it is already available on the service in other countries, including the UK.

To accommodate the new shows, which feature swearing, violence and more adult content such as sex and drugs, Disney+ will be enhancing its parental controls in the US. In the UK and some other countries, Disney+ operates an adult-oriented subchannel called Star TV, which is likely to host the shows outside the US.

Marvel regains TV rights to the Netflix Marvel characters

Marvel has regained, in full, the TV and film rights to the characters from Netflix's Defenders universe: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher, plus the crossover event series that linked them together.

Netflix collaborated with Marvel, via their ABC production arm, to make three seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones apiece and two seasons apiece of the other shows, plus the event crossover mini-series, totalling thirteen seasons of television produced in just four years. Netflix co-funded the series in return for transmission rights, but ABC - owned by Disney - actually made them, and a two-year exclusivity contract was put in place so that the no-one else could make shows or movies featuring those characters after the contract ended. Today, that limitation for both Jessica Jones and The Punisher expired, returning control of the characters to Disney and Marvel Studios.

Disney's plans for the characters remains unclear. Of the group, only Daredevil and The Punisher were known to a wider audience before production started, but the shows did bring a new level of fame to the other characters, particularly Jessica Jones and Iron Fist's supporting character, Colleen Wing. Based on the contract, it appears that Marvel are free to bring the characters back with the same actors playing them, but it's less clear if they can refer to the events of the Netflix shows.

One notable issue is that, so far, Disney have kept all of their MCU output in the "family audience" category. The Netflix Marvel shows were very much not in this category, with swearing, sexual content and much more graphic violence than we've seen in the MCU to date. One possibility would be to create bring back the characters but with a more familiar MCU style or tone. Another, potentially more interesting, possibility would be to keep the adult tone and create a sort of M-rated MCU, which these characters could inhabit alongside Deadpool, whose forthcoming third film (but first under the MCU banner) has been confirmed to be an adult-oriented film. One can imagines Disney continuing these shows on Hulu, which is rumoured to be taking on a more "adult Disney" role, and on the Disney Star service internationally (a sub-channel of Disney+ featuring somewhat more adult programming).

It's also unclear what will happen to the existing shows. Netflix are currently streaming all of them as normal, but their distribution rights are no longer exclusive and they could appear elsewhere, such as on a Disney streaming service.

Rumours have circulated that Charlie Cox's Daredevil (whose rights expired much earlier) has already been seen on the set of the third Spider-Man film, currently shooting, and the MCU powers that be have already confirmed that they strongly considered portalling the Defenders in from New York City at the end of Avengers: Endgame before deciding that would be too random for people who hadn't seen the shows, indicating that Marvel Studios are well aware of the popularity of these versions of the characters and are certainly considering ways to bring them back.

Marvel is not lacking for content on Disney+ in the meantime, however, with WandaVision currently airing, soon to be followed by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki and What If...?, with Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk in production and Moon Knight, Secret Invasion, Ironheart and Armor Wars in pre-production (a further series, Wakanda, has been announced but is unlikely to go into production until after Black Panther 2 is released).

Netflix cancels THE PUNISHER and JESSICA JONES

In the biggest non-surprise story of the year so far, Netflix has decided to terminate their four-year collaboration with Marvel. They have now cancelled The Punisher just after the release of its second season and Jessica Jones ahead of the launch of its third. This follows the cancellation of Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Daredevil last year.

Marvel pinned the blame on Netflix, saying the streaming service had the final say on whether to renew the show or not. Netflix in turn have blamed Marvel for trying to change their contractual agreement (most notably by reducing their seasons from 13 to 10 episodes, as every single viewer urgently wanted). However, it's hard not to see the real reason here: in autumn this year Marvel's parent company will be launching the Disney+ streaming service with a number of new shows, including mini-series focusing on MCU characters Scarlet Witch, Vision, Loki, Winter Soldier and Falcon, not to mention multiple Star Wars shows and Disney's immense back catalogue of TV series and films. Netflix decided it was not worthwhile to effectively be promoting a rival service's characters for them.

Marvel's statement is interesting, however, confirming that they will be exploring these characters again in the future. Whether that is directly continuing these shows with the same casts - which they can do after a two-year break - or some kind of full reboot is unclear.

Counting the still-to-air Jessica Jones Season 3, the Marvel/Netflix collaboration has chalked up 13 seasons and 161 episodes in less than four years, which is quite impressive. Some of the seasons were exceptional (in particular the first season apiece of Daredevil and Jessica Jones), although others were not, and the big team-up in The Defenders fell a little flat. Given the sheer speed at which the shows were producing episodes, which saw some fans fall off the bandwagon, and the increasing variance in quality, the cancellation of the shows is perhaps not entirely the disaster it would have been a couple of years back. Still, Daredevil had gotten his mojo back in the third season and Iron Fist's second season was a great improvement over the first, so there are some regrets about seeing where these stories woudl have gone.

The final season of Jessica Jones and the Marvel/Netflix universe is expected to be released in the next couple of months.

LUKE CAGE cancelled by Netflix

In a surprise move, Netflix has cancelled their Marvel superhero series Luke Cage when a third season of the show was in pre-production. This comes just a week after they confirmed the axing of sister-show Iron Fist.

Netflix and Marvel have teamed up to produce six superhero TV shows (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders and The Punisher). These shows have done very well for Netflix in terms of critical acclaim and streaming figures, although the acclaim has started to drift recently (with the first season of Iron Fist coming in for a particular drubbing).

More of an issue is the fact that Disney (who own Marvel) are launching their own streaming service in 2019 which is seen as a major competitor to Netflix and a much greater threat than Amazon's streaming service. Disney are planning to launch the service with a new Star Wars TV show called The Mandalorian and at least two Marvel mini-series, one focusing on Loki and the other on Scarlet Witch, with Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen in talks to reprise their roles from the films.

Although the Netflix-Marvel deal allows Netflix to keep making these shows, the practical business decision of that may not make much sense, since Netflix are effectively producing tie-ins for a rival service. In addition, Marvel (and thus Disney) take a slice of the shows' profits and their sales on DVD, Blu-Ray and so on. Although the Marvel shows started performing strongly for Netflix, their recent performance has been less impressive and Netflix are looking to cut some of their under-performing shows to make way for new projects. On this basis, Netflix gradually shutting down all of the Marvel shows and perhaps looking elsewhere for superhero projects does make sense.

Deadline suggests that this particular cancellation was down to "creative differences" between Marvel and Netflix, with Marvel demanding major script changes and even a change in creative personnel, suggesting that Marvel also does have a script veto, meaning that they may also have the power to effectively cancel the shows (or logjam the process to force Netflix to cancel them).

Ironically, the news comes just after Daredevil Season 3 launched on the service to the strongest critical reception any Marvel Netflix season has enjoyed since the first season of the show.

Jessica Jones Season 3 and The Punisher Season 2 have already completed filming and are expected to air in early 2019. The fate of the Netflix/Marvel shows should become clearer at that time.

Luke Cage: Season 2

Harlem is in the grip of a crime wave, with councilwoman-turnged-gangster Mariah Stokes Dillard orchestrating things from behind the scenes. The police can't touch her and all Luke Cage can do is put out fires and try to fight crime on his own (whilst dealing with his own social media fame). Events take a turn for the worse when a Jamaican criminal named "Bushmaster" arrives, hellbent on vengeance against the Stokes family.

The first season of Luke Cage may rank as the weakest of the Marvel/Netflix collaborations so far (despite strong competition from the first season of Iron Fist): an excellent first half, with a strong villain (Mahershala Ali's Cottonmouth) giving way to an absolutely awful second half with a weak antagonist (Erik LaRay Harvey channelling William Shatner levels of ham in his one-note performance as Diamondback), with maybe seven or eight episodes' worth of plot stretched over thirteen hours.

Season 2 of Luke Cage, annoyingly, manages to take these problems and magnify them. The season is far from a complete write-off, with the actors all being great and some of the storylines and character arcs having promise, but none of it cohering very well. The villain problem is at least alleviated, with the always-splendid Alfre Woodard stepping up as Mariah and Mustafa Shakir (The Night of, The Deuce) giving a charismatic performance as the ridiculously-named Bushmaster. The show also adds some good new acting talent in the form of Reg E. Cathey (The Wire) as Luke's father. Sadly, Cathey passed away shortly after filming of the season was completed.

But the negatives are huge. This time around there are maybe four episodes' worth of plot stretched across thirteen hours. Not just entire episodes, but entire blocks of episodes simply exist to spin their wheels and take neither the plot nor the characters anywhere. It doesn't help that the writers seem to not be on the same page as one another: in early episodes Luke apparently has an anger problem, but this immediately vanishes and is never mentioned again. In another episode recurring secondary villain Shades (Theo Rossi) appears to have genuine remorse (to the point of crying about them) for the deaths of innocent civilians he's caused, and in the next is gloating maniacally about them. Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) is just dropped from the season when the writers run out of things for her to do. The first episode has a great joke about villains always trying to shoot Luke when they know he can't be hurt, which is undercut by the same thing happening again and again throughout the season. There's also a team-up with Danny Rand/Iron Fist (Finn Jones) which is surprisingly great, but then Rand just disappears from the story with no explanation.

There's a lot of frustration here, mainly because the actors are great when they're given good material to work with, but all too often they're left going round in circles and talking about things we already know about ad infinitum. As a 4-6 episode mini-series, the second season of Luke Cage (**) could have been excellent. As a 13-hour season, it's an all-too-often soulless grind, with bright moments separated by hours of tedium. Easily the weakest season of the Marvel/Netflix collaborations to date. The season is available now on Netflix.

Update on the Marvel/Netflix TV shows

2017 was a successful year for Marvel's collaboration with Netflix. They got no less than three seasons of television on-air: Iron Fist Season 1 in March, The Defenders mini-series in August and The Punisher Season 1 in November. Each one of these shows had impressive viewing figures and cemented the success of the partnership between the two companies.

Well, it did, anyway. Disney, who own Marvel, have announced that they are launching their own streaming service in 2019 with an adult-oriented, Netflix-style channel which will feature both a Marvel TV series and a live-action Star Wars show. This has left the fate of the Netflix shows up in the air and relying very much on the contractual agreement between Marvel/Disney and Netflix. It might be that the shows will move from Netflix to the new Disney channel (not likely to be called that, for branding reasons), or that they will remain on Netflix as long as Netflix keep renewing them. It's also possible that Marvel will also buy out Netflix of any long-term contractual agreement. Netflix would probably like to keep the shows as long as possible: they have good brand awareness, they've been generally well-received and they're surprisingly cheap (at least compared to the likes of Altered Carbon and The Crown).

The long-term future of the Netflix/Marvel universe may in question, but at least in the short to medium term we know what's going on. Here is the status of the Marvelflix shows going forwards:

Jessica Jones Season 2 was filmed between April and September 2017. The season is in post-production and is likely to air in February or (if Netflix want to clear everything out of Altered Carbon's way) March 2018.

Krysten Ritter, Rachel Taylor, Carrie-Ann Moss and Eka Darville return and are joined by Leah Gibson, Janet McTeer and J.R. Ramirez as new characters. No word on the who the villain is, but David Tennant will return for flashbacks as Kilgrave.

Luke Cage Season 2 was filmed between June and November 2017. The season has only just started post-production. It seems likely to hit the August 2018 release slot.

Mike Colter, Simone Missick, Rosario Dawson, Alfre Woodard and Theo Rossi return from Season 1 and are joined by Mustafa Shakir, Gabrielle Dennis and Thomas Q. Jones. Finn Jones will also feature in a multi-episode arc teaming up Luke and Iron Fist, seen by some as a possible pilot for a future Heroes for Hire series (although logistically how this will work with the new Marvel/Disney streaming service remains to be seen), which could potentially replace both a Luke Cage and Iron Fist third season if the collaboration is well-received.

Daredevil Season 3 started filming in November 2017 and is likely to run through April 2018. This is the same filming slot for The Punisher last year, so this makes it pretty likely we'll get this in November 2018.

Charlie Cox, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Vincent D'Onofrio return and Wilson Bethel joins the cast.

Iron Fist Season 2 starts filming in the next week or two, with shooting likely to run through May 2018. This is an unusual filming slot for a Netflix series, suggesting that Netflix may be considering getting it out on screen in December next year shortly after Daredevil, although that might be tight. More likely they will put it in the February 2019 slot. Still, getting new seasons of all four Netflix shows out in one year would be impressive.

Finn Jones and Jessica Henwick return and it is expected that Tom Pelphrey and Jessica Stroup will also return. Simone Missick is expected to cross over from Luke Cage as well, and is possible that Rosario Dawson will also cameo.

The fate of the Marvelflix universe beyond the second season of Iron Fist remains questionable (neither The Defenders nor The Punisher have been renewed yet), and it will be interesting to see if the cataclysmic events of The Avengers: Infinity War have any bearing or even be mentioned in the new seasons (given that the trailer depicts New York as a key battleground in the new movie, you'd assume that it would come up). But we have another four seasons of these shows to get through before we know for sure what's going to happen.

The Defenders: Season 1

An ancient organisation, the Hand, is causing trouble in New York City. They've already run afoul of the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and invoked the enmity of the Iron Fist. Now, with time running short and their resources dwindling, they are forced into desperate, high-profile gambits that attract the attention of not just Iron First and Daredevil, but also Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. The four defenders of New York reluctantly join forces to bring the Hand down...if they can.

The Defenders is the culmination of two and a half years of careful planning by Marvel TV and Netflix. Back in April 2015 they released the first season of Daredevil, a TV series based on one of their lower-tier heroes, rooted in defending Hell's Kitchen, New York from more mundane threats than the aliens and demigods that the likes of the Avengers have to deal with. More series followed focusing on other characters from the same milieu: Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, as well as a second season of Daredevil. The plan was always to bring them together in a big team-up to fight a mutual threat.

The Defenders has a few jobs it needs to do. It has to be a satisfying team up for these four heroes, it has to work as a story in its own right, it has to pay off the groundwork and scene-setting down in five previous seasons of television and it has to be accessible to newcomers. It's a tall order, not helped by the gradual decline in quality of the Netflix Marvel series that preceded it, but one that it kind of pulls off.

The opening episodes of The Defenders focus on our individual heroes and the problems they are going through: Matt Murdoch has dropped the Daredevil persona and is making a go of it as a lawyer, whilst Jessica Jones is still recovering from Kilgrave's depredations and working up the confidence to go back to work. Danny Rand is searching for more information on K'un-Lun in Asia and Luke Cage has just gotten out of prison and returned home to Harlem. A surprising number of our heroes' supporting casts drop in, making these individual story strands work between in linking the mini-series to the ones that preceded it. Combined with a new storyline revolving around the Hand and one of their leaders, played with traditional charisma by Sigourney Weaver, this makes for a busy couple of opening episodes even before our heroes meet up.

When the gang does get together, the writers have fun setting up their dynamics: Matt's Catholic guilt and intensity gets little respect from the rest of the team and everyone seems to find Iron Fist kind of ridiculous. Jessica Jones gets the best lines and the best side-eye moments as she tries to work out what kind of crazy situation she's walked into, and all four lead actors seem to be having a great time.

The fight scenes are a serious step up from Iron Fist, being more dynamic and brutal, even if they don't get back to the earthy, gritty rawness of the first season of Daredevil. A few of the fight scenes also rely too obviously on CG or filming trickery to pull off having four complicated battles going on in one shot, which feels a bit gimmicky. But overall, the show competently handles its action scenes.

In terms of pacing, something that has caused almost all of the Marvel Netflix shows big problems (Luke Cage worse of all), Defenders benefits from having just eight episodes to unfold across. This makes for some breezy, fast-paced episodes (although, conversely, the best is arguably one that is mostly restricted to a Chinese restaurant and featuring our heroes talking about stuff) which come as a relief after the frantic wheel-spinning of some of the forebear series. The series even finds time to set up new dynamics: Colleen Wing, Misty Knight and Claire Temple get lots of stuff to do, hinting at a possible alternative superhero team who could take shape later on (although, given the impending Netflix/Marvel divorce, this seems less likely).

Unfortunately, the series continues to have a villain problem. Using the Hand is a bad idea, as they were boring and bland in both Daredevil and Iron Fist and are still boring and bland here. The idea of using the Hand leaders (the Fingers, appropriately) as counterpoints to our four heroes is a solid idea, especially since two of them were set up in previous Netflix shows, but it doesn't quite work as other members of the group receive little to no development. Sigourney Weaver's Alexandra is a big selling point of the series and Weaver gives a fine performance, but the character is left a little underdeveloped. More capable in the role of antagonist is Elodie Yung as Elektra, returning from the dead, but she takes quite a long time to rediscover her old mojo. It also doesn't help that the Hand's plan is murky and vague, and the stakes are never really made clear other than that bad things are going to happen to New York.

The result is a mini-series that is quite a lot of fun, and a merciful step up in quality from Daredevil Season 2, Iron Fist and Luke Cage, but one that is never in any real danger of replicating the quality of the first season of Daredevil or Jessica Jones. It really needs better villains and a clearer set of stakes and goals. But as it stands, The Defenders (****) works absolutely fine as a fun action series. It is available to watch on Netflix right now.

Trailers: THE DEFENDERS and THE DARK TOWER

A couple of big trailers rolled out today. First up is the trailer for The Defenders, the Netflix/Marvel series which teams up Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist to take on a threat led by Sigourney Weaver.

The Defenders his Netflix on 18 August this year.

Next up is The Dark Tower, a film based on Stephen King's novel series of the same name. The film is both an adaptation of and a sequel to King's novels. If successful, it will be followed by a sequel and a spin-off, prequel TV series.

The Dark Tower is released in cinemas on 4 August this year.

Luke Cage: Season 1

Harlem, New York. Following events in Hell's Kitchen, Luke Cage is laying low. He has two jobs, working in a barbershop by day and in a kitchen by night. A series of chance events lead to the murder of a friend and mentor, so Luke Cage reluctantly breaks out his crime-fighting skills to avenge his friend and find his own identity.

Luke Cage is the third of a planned six-series collaboration between Marvel and Netflix, following on from Daredevil and Jessica Jones and running ahead of Iron Fist, The Punisher and The Defenders, which will see the heroes from the first four series (it doesn't seem that The Punisher, which was a late addition to the project, will cross over in the same way) join forces against a mutual threat. It's definitely one of the most ambitious TV projects that has been mounted in many years.

As a project it's been mostly successful: the first seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones were excellent, with brilliant acting and strongly-defined villains and thematic elements. The second season of Daredevil, whilst still very watchable, was a little bit more incoherent and lacked a decent enemy. In particular, its pacing was a big problem and the series was drawn out to a slow and meandering ending.

Luke Cage, unfortunately, is weaker still and for many of the same reasons: the story is far too thin to support 13 episodes (it should have been 6 episodes, or maybe 8 tops), the "big bad" of the season is monumentally disappointing and the show's thematic ambitions become muddled to the point where it's impossible to work out what the show is trying to say.

Backing up, the show has plenty of good points. The first half or so of the season is pretty tight, with Luke Cage (Mike Colter reprising the role from Jessica Jones) going up against local gangster Cottonmouth (House of Cards's Mahershala Ali) after his mentor Pop (The Wire's Frankie Fason) is accidentally killed in a shoot-out. At the same time, local cop Misty Knight (Simone Missick) is investigating Cottonmouth's criminal activities and his relationship with his cousin Mariah (Alfre Woodard). There's a nice, tangled-up moral mess to the situation, with Cottonmouth genuinely respecting Pop and losing it after a subordinate kills him unintentionally.

Mid-season things switch up, with Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson reprising the same role from both Daredevil and Luke Cage) joining Team Cage. Cottonmouth's drug supplier Diamondback (Erik LaRay Harvey) then takes over as the main villain after he gets annoyed with Cottonmouth failing to deal with Cage and takes matters into his own hands. It's at this point that the show goes off the rails.

Cottonmouth is an interesting villain, well-played by Ali and featuring a genuine degree of nuance. Diamondback is not. He's a dull thug, played with a near William Shatner level of hamminess by Harvey. The character is deeply boring and when he shows up in a special suit in the final episode to fight Luke Cage, it's unintentionally hilarious. By this point the show has also run out of ideas so it spends three episodes dwelling on the possibility that Luke Cage might die (hint: he doesn't) and two on a deeply tedious hostage situation that feels designed to spin wheels rather than tell a story or develop character.

The show also has a pretty incoherent attitude to format and structure. Most episodes don't have a cold open, but then several do for no real reason. Several episodes feature flashbacks immediately before the information in them become relevant in the present day, which feels lazy and obvious. However, the prison flashback episode is a big winner since it has structure and pacing and tells a complete story in 50 minutes, which none of the other episodes manage.

There are some other bright spots: Misty Knight's police bosses are obstructionist but never stupid, and expertly avoid being cliches. Alfre Woodard is excellent throughout the season, even when her plot turns are less than convincing. The music is brilliant (although Method Man's cameo as himself is completely bizarre).

But these good points only make the show watchable, never exceptional. The tone of the series is all over the place. One moment it feels like the show is making a serious point riffing off the Black Lives Matter movement and the problem of race relations in modern America, but then it runs scared from the idea (in one incongruous moment a white police officer explains his decades-long history of policing in Harlem in detail to make it clear he's not racist). It spends a lot of the time trying to stay "grounded" but then breaks out bazookas and super-powered suits that would have looked cheap on Agents of SHIELD. The police's attitude to Luke Cage also changes at random between episodes, veering from them trying to hunt him down like a dog after being framed as a cop-killer and being okay with them. It's also great to see Claire being given a lot more to do, but it's then a bit odd to see her being reduced to a damsel in distress in several scenes and her potential romance with Luke Cage feels shoehorned into the story for no real reason.

There is a fair bit to enjoy about Luke Cage (***) such as the performances, music and atmosphere, but the pacing is poor, the ultimate villain is deeply boring and the show can never quite make its mind up about what it's trying to say or do. The show is available to watch now on Netflix.

Finn Jones cast in lead role in Netflix's IRON FIST TV series

Netflix have cast Game of Thrones actor Finn Jones (Ser Loras Tyrell) in their upcoming Iron Fist TV show. This is the fourth of six TV series they have planned with Marvel, following Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, with The Defenders and possibly The Punisher to follow.

Jones will be playing Danny Rand, a New York kid trained up in supernatural martial arts in a mysterious city. He returns to New York to fight crime, and presumably team up with Luke, Jessica and Daredevil at some future point.

The series, which will be run by former Six Feet Under producer Scott Buck, is expected to enter production in the summer to air in very late 2016 or early 2017. The second season of Daredevil airs next month, and a second season of Jessica Jones is expected to start production imminently to air around November. Luke Cage's first season just wrapped shooting and is expected to air in the summer.

JESSICA JONES renewed for a second season

Marvel and Netflix have confirmed that Jessica Jones will be returning for a second season. The show, part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was released on 20 November 2015 and attracted widespread critical acclaim for its writing, acting, direction and unusually mature way of dealing with adult themes in a superhero setting.

Jessica Jones is the second of five shows Netflix and Marvel are developing. Daredevil already aired its first season at the start of the year, and its second season will be released this March. The first season of Luke Cage will debut later this year. Iron Fist will likely debut next year, with the key characters from all four shows then joining forces in a Defenders mini-series, likely in 2018.

Netflix and Marvel have also indicated they are looking at expanding their series roster with a new series based on The Punisher. The infamous Marvel anti-hero has been featured in several films but nonve of them have really taken off. However, Netflix and Marvel are excited about the character starring in the second season of Daredevil, where he will be played by The Walking Dead's Jon Bernthal, and are actively discussing a new series featuring him. Whether the Punisher would then play a role in the Defenders TV series or would be completely unrelated is unclear.

Netflix and Marvel have previously hinted that Ghost Rider and Blade TV series could also be in in development, the latter possibly with the involvement of Wesley Snipes (who played the character in three films). However, so far those two series remain unconfirmed.

An airdate for the second season of Jessica Jones has not been announced, but assuming it starts filming in March or April, it could be released in November as with last year.

Jessica Jones: Season 1

Hell's Kitchen, New York. A private investigator named Jessica Jones makes her living from exposing cheating spouses, whilst trying to play down her former life as a superhero (due to being endowed with super strength). This becomes impossible when her former nemesis, Kilgrave, returns to New York. Kilgrave has the ability to control minds, making him a near-unbeatable foe. To defeat Kilgrave, Jones will need to call upon allies, her powers and confront her own motivations.

Jessica Jones is the second in a series of collaborations between Marvel and Netflix, following on from Daredevil and due to be followed by Luke Cage, Iron Fist and culminating in The Defenders, which will unite the four heroes into their own team. For that reason it might stand to reason that viewers should be expecting Jessica Jones to be an action pulp thriller, stylish but ultimately fitting into the "conflicted hero" mould pioneered by Daredevil. However, the show has absolutely no problem with going in a completely different direction.

Jessica Jones opens as a standard procedural, with Jones (Krysten Ritter) investigating yet another case of infidelity and running into Luke Cage (Mike Colter), a barman who also has superpowers. Jones and Cage's initially firery romance becomes problematic when Jones discovers that she was inadvertently responsible for a tragedy in Cage's life, one forced upon her by Kilgrave (David Tennant), a monstrous and egotistical man with the power to control minds. When Kilgrave returns to New York, intent on winning Jessica's heart and soul, Jessica at first wants to flee but then decides to stay and face her abuser. Given the utter formidable nature of his powers this proves to be a herculean task which forces the normally independent Jessica to call upon various friends and allies for help.

The result is a show which is focused not on superpowers and heroics (although both are present, they are treated matter-of-factly compared to other Marvel films and TV shows) but on psychology, survivor's guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder and revenge. There are moments of biting comedy, pathos, romance and tragedy, with a few major stunt set pieces and some real heroics put into play, but ultimately this is a much more adult, nuanced and subtle TV series about people with powers than we have seen before.

The series works well because it is not afraid to make Jones do things that are unlikable. She is sarcastic, rude and often apparently ungrateful, but is forced by events to rely on her friends for help and assistance in bringing Kilgrave down. As with Daredevil's first season, this results in what is effectively a 13-hour origin story as Jones the hero gradually emerges from the shell of Jones the survivor. Ritter plays this complex character well, by being able to retain viewer sympathy and empathy even when makes selfish or silly decisions.

Ranged against her is Tennant's Kilgrave, described (not without justification) as a walking example of white male privilege. As with Daredevil, the writers here chose to develop Kilgrave as the antagonist almost as well as Jones, peeling back the layers of his character to reveal someone shaped by a difficult childhood into an uncaring monster. Cleverly, the writers reveal that he is an incomplete character, desperately seeking a destiny and identity. These are among the things he hopes Jones can give him, but these also expose him as an insecure and needy character. It's also fascinating to encounter a villain who is ruthless, amoral and intelligent, but also remarkably unambitious. When you can walk into any apartment or mansion in the world and take it over for as long as you like, plans like conquering or destroying the world become rather moot. The lack of a grandiose plan for the villain is honestly rather refreshing, and makes the conflict feel more personal and more real. Tennant's intense performance is the perfect mix of Machiavellian planner, childlike anger and creepy stalker. The only negative here is one that's not really Tennant's fault: the producer's decided to have Tennant adopt an English accent in the role rather than an American one, or his native Scottish accent. The only other major role Tennant has played with an English accent is Doctor Who, which leads to moments of tonal disjointedness for viewers who are also fans of the latter. Once you adjust, that's not really a problem.

The battle between the abuser and his former victim forms the main through-line of the series, but other storylines come into play. Malcolm Ducasse (Eka Darville) starts off as Jessica's "junkie neighbour" cliche but rapidly evolves into the show's beating heart and soul. Luke Cage belies his appearance as a hunky motorcycle-driver to show someone suffering real emotional pain. Colter's acting is excellent, and bodes well his stand-alone show later this year. Carrie-Ann Moss also turns in a strong role as lawyer Jeri Hogarth (the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first major lesbian character), whose disintegrating marriage unexpectedly collides with Jessica's investigation into Kilgrave. Rachael Taylor also turns in an intriguing performance as Patricia Walker, a former child star now living in a fortified apartment out of fear for her safety.

The thirteen hour running time gives the writers time to experiment with the story, follow up on intriguing secondary characters and flesh out storylines and characterisation to the maximum. There is even time for experimental episodes, such as Jessica being trapped for an episode in her childhood home and Kilgrave in turn being interrogated in a cell designed especially for him and his powers. However, as with Daredevil, there is the feeling that thirteen hours is just a bit too much. With at least a couple of episodes shaved off, the result would have been a tighter focus which would have eliminated a few flabby storylines (the adventures of ex-soldier-turned-cop Will Simpson are completely uninteresting, not helped by Will Traval's indifferent performance). In addition, given the status of Kilgrave and Jones as mortal enemies and the tremendous danger of Kilgrave's powers, the way Jones continuously exposes herself to him seems recklessly dangerous. This is eventually - sort of - explained, but there is the feeling in a few mid-season episodes that the reason Kilgrave survives is because they need to pad out the running time, not because it makes much sense in the story. There is also a late-season crossover with Daredevil which is doubly jarring, because the tonal difference between the two shows is so huge they they don't feel like they take part in the same universe and also because the character in question becomes highly prominent in the episode for absolutely no reason unless you've seen Daredevil as well.

These are fairly minor complaints, however. At its best, Jessica Jones (****½) is cleverly-written and boldly inventive, with surprising-but-justified twists for many of its well-played characters. It's a show that works both as a stand-up thriller and a more nuanced study of grief and abuse. The first season is available now on Netflix.