Agent Carter

If it weren’t clear already, we’ve officially entered the superhero TV arms race. Not content with Daredevil or its three followups into The Defenders, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has officially begun development of a new potential spinoff for ABC, but who might take the lead, and what does it mean for Agent Carter?

Agent Carter, Marvel's second live action TV show set in its cinematic shared universe, made its debut with a two-hour double-bill on ABC on Tuesday night, with Hayley Atwell reprising her role as spy Peggy Carter. Atwell's Carter debuted in the 2011 movie Captain America: The First Avenger, based on a character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and she's now the second character from the movies to spin off into her own show, following Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) in Agents of SHIELD. Agents of SHIELD is now on its second season, and trying to recover its energy after a largely awful first season. Agent Carter will run for only eight episodes across seven weeks, rather than a standard 20+ episode season -- a format arguably closer to what Marvel plans to do with its Netflix TV shows -- so it may be the better test of Marvel's TV ambitions. In Cartergraphy, I'll be recapping the show every week using my new 'S.S.R.' method, breaking it down into Strategic Review, Scientific Analysis, and Reserved Englishness.

The demands of filming a television series -- especially a highly anticipated one like Marvel's own 'Agent Carter' -- often lead to some strange side effects that bleed over into real life. For star Hayley Atwell (the eponymous Agent Peggy Carter herself), that apparently included having to run errands while done up in full post-World War II regalia.