I'm gonna burn this place to the ground! I'll show you where my desk is - you can start there.

Starting my trip down Empire's Top 50 TV Shows of 2021

#10 : Loki

Tom Hiddleston's God of Mischief was always one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's greatest assets: as cacklingly malevolent as he was fascinatingly insecure. So it seems only right that his first solo outing would prove to be among the MCU's best small screen offerings. With a Whovian sense of time — the story freewheelingly jumps between ancient history and the end of all things — director Kate Herron and head writer Michael Waldron found vast sci-fi ambition in some retro bureaucratic stylings, the addition of the seemingly all-powerful Time Variance Authority reshaping the universe beyond all recognition (they keep their Infinity Stones rattling around in a drawer!). The finale, meanwhile, was a boldly understated affair that left more questions than answers, set up a key character for the wider universe, and teased a second season, the first MCU show to get a sophomore hit. Loki, it seems, is burdened with more glorious purpose than even he thought possible.


Skipping over Call My Agent (#20 here, #24 in The Guardian's list), Starstruck (#19/#9), Cobra Kai (#18, not on The Guardian's list and there's no danger of me watching it, but my youngest loves it), We Are Lady Parts (#17/#15), Sex Education (#16, not on The Guardian's list and I might have watched it, but this is season 3 and I'm not going to start here), Only Murders In The Building (#16/#25), Foundation (#15, not on The Guardian's list - the season 2 write-up gives you the idea, but it doesn't really get going until season 3), Unforgotten (#14/#31 - this is very good), Time (#13/#7) and Line Of Duty (#12/#19) brings us, finally, to this (phew!). 

And it's one I watched at the time and enjoyed, so obviously I can describe it in great detail to you, can't I? Errr - well it's got Loki in it (quite a few Lokis actually, but more on that later) and we know that Tom Hiddleston is always good value in this role, don't we? The plot is insanely complicated around the control of timelines - it makes some kind of sense at times (provided you have the sort of mind that accepts that Marvel films can make some kind of sense) but it also goes a bit bonkers in places. On his travels through time and space, Loki meets several different versions of himself ("variants") which include Kid Loki, Boastful Loki, Classic Loki, Alligator Loki and, errr, Sylvie - this certainly can't be accused of taking itself too seriously and Tom has the required lightness of tone to handle such things.

In a very decent piece of casting, he often has to play against Owen Wilson and they work very well together with hidden depths to be found under several layers of froth. All in all, it's got a very decent cast with Sophia Di Martino, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Wunmi Mosaku all standing out in strong female roles and Richard E Grant obviously having a blast in a relatively minor role.

For something that is pretty bonkers, it has been thought about quite a lot and is actually quite ambitious. It also has quite a decent finale to it which does make its own kind of timey-wimey sense, but Marvel were somewhat unfortunate that it set up a character as the "big bad" going forwards for several films who was portrayed by an actor who was then found guilty of assault and harassment which did somewhat change their plans - to be fair to Marvel they simply dropped him and got on with things (although unfortunately things have taken a bit of a dip ever since).

In addition to being well written and acted, it's also very nice to look at - it has a nice retro-futuristic feel to it (I really like Miss Minutes) which gives it its own style and works very well. Marvel obviously had a spare bit of cash floating around at this point and it's been used well here on several fronts.

Marvel have done quite a few TV series and it's fair to say the quality has been "somewhat" variable but it's generally accepted that Loki is towards the top end of the scale - particularly season 1 (they try a bit too hard with the quirk for season 2 for me). It won't be for everyone but I really enjoyed this and if you enjoy the Avengers movies (particularly from around this period) then it's well worth a look if you can't find anything else you fancy watching.

2022 - Another year-end write-up
#5 - Well this wasn't at all what I expected

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