Commentary: The ‘Agatha All Along’ Release Schedule Altered Its Reception
by Frank Martin
In the era of streaming, release schedules are extremely important. Some shows have adopted a binge model of dropping multiple episodes at once. Other shows stick to a more traditional broadcast model of releasing an episode a week. But these two schedules reflect a different experience in the audience. It’s similar to a movie in that a film is meant to be watched all in one sitting as one continuous story. Breaking a season of television up into episodes with a week in between each release can change how an audience receives that particular story. A great example is the first episode of Agatha All Along.
Chronologically, the show picks up several years after the end of WandaVision. Continuing the television show motif from that series, the first episode follows Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) as she’s trapped inside a police procedural thriller show called “Agnes of Westview.” She believes herself to be a detective investigating a murder while interacting with various members of her town. Eventually, she breaks out of the spell in dramatic fashion to become her old self. The events of this episode are replayed from Billy’s (Joe Locke) point of view several episodes later so that audiences could finally see what was really happening to Agatha.
Many fans were confused by how the first episode played out. It was slow and meandering, similar to an actual police procedural program. But this was to keep up the illusion of the spell Agatha was under. The full extent of this spell isn’t revealed until multiple episodes later, so fans weren’t able to experience the true sequence of events right away. They had to wait. However, if the show favored a binge release model, then people who watch the show in one sitting would have been given this insight much sooner. It would have allowed audiences to truly appreciate the creativity the premiere displayed. Instead, its reception was mild given how fans had to wait weeks before experiencing the full context.
Agatha All Along it’s now streaming on Disney+.
