Secret Invasion

Marked essential on position and it is the worst-received thing Marvel has made. The verdict above is about the plot it moves, not the show: it changes the status of two significant characters and sets up Captain America: Brave New World, both of which that film restates.

The premise should have worked. A paranoid thriller about shape-shifters who have been embedded in world governments for thirty years, with an aged and diminished Nick Fury who no longer has an agency behind him, is a good idea. The source comic is about not being able to trust anybody in the room.

The series never generates that. The infiltration is revealed early, almost nobody of consequence turns out to be a Skrull, and the show resolves on two digital figures fighting in a field. The opening credits, generated with artificial intelligence, caused their own controversy and set a tone of carelessness the series never shook.

Samuel L. Jackson is given more to do than in twenty films and is good with it; Olivia Colman is the only person who appears to be enjoying herself. Emilia Clarke and Ben Mendelsohn are both wasted. Six episodes, and the first two are the only ones worth the time.