Featured image: Paul Bettany. Photo: Kevin Paul / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
The Lowdown
Everyone agrees Bettany and Spader are great together. The split is over everything around them. VisionQuest is carrying the weight of being Marvel’s last big live-action streaming swing, and that is a heavy load for an eight-episode show about a robot’s inner life.
Key Takeaways
- VisionQuest, the final installment of the WandaVision trilogy, premiered on Disney+ on October 14 (Polygon).
- Terry Matalas (Star Trek: Picard) created the series, which has eight hour-long episodes (Polygon).
- Polygon called it the sendoff Marvel’s streaming era deserves (Polygon).
- TIME’s Judy Berman called it frustratingly conventional next to WandaVision and Agatha All Along (TIME).
The Story
VisionQuest arrived on Disney+ on October 14. It picks up with the rebuilt Vision, played by Paul Bettany, who is hiding in Edinburgh, working at a pub and spending his real life inside a digital mind populated by Tony Stark’s AIs, including E.D.I.T.H. (Emily Hampshire), F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady) and J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D’Arcy). He has also kept Ultron, played by James Spader, imprisoned there (Polygon).
Polygon’s Jake Kleinman was enthusiastic, calling it a brilliant sendoff for Marvel’s streaming era and praising Bettany’s performance. He did note some stalling across the eight episodes and said the show has little to say about real-world AI (Polygon).
TIME’s Judy Berman was harsher. She praised Bettany and Spader together but wrote that the story is unwieldy and too conventional compared with the first two parts of the trilogy (TIME).
The series arrives as Marvel scales back its live-action TV. Polygon noted the studio recently confirmed Daredevil: Born Again will end with its upcoming third season (Polygon).
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