Very early in her WandaVision spinoff collection, Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) involves suspect that the world she’s residing in is perhaps extra restricted than it seems. Oh, positive, from second to second her hometown seems regular sufficient, if an terrible lot like a Mare of Easttown knockoff. However more and more, she been getting the sense that there’s some greater image right here she’s simply not seeing.

She is, after all, proper. By the midpoint of the premiere, she learns she’s been ensnared in a magical lure that offers her the phantasm of freedom whereas in actuality preserving her constrained inside strict boundaries.

That is, not coincidentally, a bit like what it appears like to look at a brand new Marvel venture today. Thought of as its personal entity, Disney+’s Agatha All Alongside (or at the very least the 4 40ish-minute episodes despatched to critics) might be a decently promising new journey, with a lovable solid and a cheeky sensibility but in addition lots of room to develop. However jerky pacing and relentless rug-pulling in the end make it extra persuasive as an train in model extension than as a fascinating journey in its personal proper.

Like its foremother, Agatha All Alongside comes from Jac Schaeffer, who borrows from herself the trick of leaning into popular culture tropes. However the homicide mystery-style opening is one thing of a feint. The brand new saga pulls extra continuously from the lengthy historical past of TV and film witches, beginning with a Yellow Brick Highway-like quest: Having misplaced her powers within the WandaVision finale, Agatha determines that the one option to regain them might be to journey a metaphysical path generally known as the Witch’s Highway. As a result of the principles of her craft (in addition to these of entertaining tv) prohibit this lone wolf from flying solo, she grumpily assembles a coven.

Agatha All Alongside’s best appeal is its solid. Hahn is a sardonic delight as Agatha, capable of shift on a dime between grim and mischievous, snarky and honest. Agatha may technically be a supervillain, however I dare you to dislike a girl who responds to a fellow sorceress bemoaning their neighborhood’s repute for poisoning apples and stealing infants with a deadpan, “Infants are scrumptious.” Within the phrases of Teen (Heartstopper’s Joe Locke), her mysterious fanboy-familiar-sidekick: “Identify a badder bitch.”

Hahn enjoys a fizzy chemistry with all of her co-stars, however she’s particularly crackling reverse her archnemesis Rio, performed by Aubrey Plaza as certainly one of her signature intimidating but oddly magnetic weirdos. And whereas it’s laborious to place an excessive amount of inventory in buzzy soundbites about Agatha All Alongside being the “gayest” Marvel entry but — we’ve actually heard that earlier than — it’s true that their scenes collectively within the first 4 chapters are laced with loads of juicy sexual rigidity that I can solely pray pays off within the subsequent 5.

The remainder of Agatha’s skeptical crew consists of the legendary Patti LuPone, who appears to be having a blast because the type of boho witch you may discover beneath a strip-mall “PSYCHIC” signal; Sasheer Zamata as a extra fashionable potion maker who hawks jade eggs and supposedly natural skincare to Goop sorts; and Ali Ahn rounding out this assortment of spooky-lady archetypes with a Sizzling Subject vibe, although she’s actually an ex-cop who’s the daughter of a cursed musician. Then there’s Sharon (Debra Jo Rupp, coming back from WandaVision), who may not be a witch in any respect however as an alternative suits the “nosy neighbor” cliché that Agatha as soon as posed as.

As anybody may count on of such a stacked solid, it’s a pleasure merely to hang around of their midst. That all of them high-key hate Agatha, for apparently good cause, simply provides to the enjoyable. I may watch episode after episode of those ladies sniping at one another whereas begrudgingly placing apart their variations to beat no matter fantastical impediment confronts them that week. And that’s what this present is, type of. Whereas the Witch’s Highway manifests bodily as a forest path illuminated in boring, airless CG, its true nature is as a succession of trials, every tailor-made to a person witch and a corresponding look.

One goes full Nancy Meyers-core, dropping the gang right into a luxe seaside cottage and draping them in tasteful impartial knits whereas they race to undo the hallucinogenic results of a wierd poison. One other brings them right into a lavish ’70s rock star pad, stocked with devices and glittery outfits in order that they could have interaction in a supernaturally mandated jam session. The logic behind every aesthetic isn’t at all times clear, but it surely’s amusing sufficient as an excuse to present the costume and manufacturing design groups (led by Daniel Selon and John Collins, respectively) loads of runway to shine.  

It’s the precise storytelling that tends to be hit and miss. By the requirements of franchise extensions, Agatha All Alongside is blessedly gentle thus far on lore, Easter eggs or references to the “multiverse.” There’s not none of that — it is perhaps good if, say, the query of Teen’s true identification (presumably as a future Younger Avenger or no matter) didn’t so persistently overshadow the extra current concern of who he’s as an individual and what he means to Agatha. However the venture principally avoids feeling like a type of Marvel tales that exists solely to arrange different Marvel tales.

Sadly, it additionally stops wanting feeling like a collection that should exist for its personal sake. It’s not a lot that its flaws all level again to Marvel as it’s that it appears like a present that hasn’t discovered what it’s doing past increasing on profitable IP. Though it has potential, the character-driven ensemble dramedy it may be appears hindered by each the necessity to hurry this plot alongside and its consciousness that Agatha must be the primary attraction.

So the scripts rush by means of the supporting gamers’ backstories, hand-wave away the small print of lore and favor massive splashy moments over intricate world-building. To the latter level, this present loves itself a musical second, and even manages to ship an actual earworm of a portal-opening ballad because of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. However Agatha All Alongside lacks the persistence and the curiosity it wants to actually make its story sing.