New Marvel TV Series: Marvel's Most Wanted

Yeah, I know it's got a different title.
I'll do a new one some time.

It’s official:  There is a third Marvel series coming to ABC!  Yes, that heavily-rumored Mockingbird/Hunter spinoff from April has been ordered to pilot, with a full-season order likely to follow.  The series is titled Marvel’s Most Wanted, which doesn’t tell us too much about it—though maybe John Walsh will be joining the cast as the show’s host!—but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate on what this show will be about.

Let the speculation begin!

Premise

If I had to guess at the premise for this series, Marvel’s Most Wanted will focus on either an elite team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or just the two main characters, who are tasked with taking down major threats.  This series will keep the number of super-powered characters to a minimum, though a few of the “Most Wanted” will have superpowers.

Another possibility comes to mind.  This series could take some of the lesser villains who have appeared previously and join them together into a team.  This could either be a Masters of Evil-like team or a Thunderbolts-like team.  In the first case, the villains would be banding together in order to fight S.H.I.E.L.D.  In the second case, the villains would have been “recruited” by Coulson to form a second super-powered strike team (as a counterpart to the Secret Warriors) which would fight for S.H.I.E.L.D. against major threats—threats they would prefer not to use the Secret Warriors against.

Cast

The two main characters of the series are Bobbi Morse, played by Adrianne Palicki, and Lance Hunter, played by Nick Blood.  There may be a couple of other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who either come over from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or are introduced in the series, but I doubt there will be a large ensemble cast, which would allow them to focus on the characters and their relationships.

I expect that Mack and Coulson will also make appearances on the series, though they will remain regulars on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Crossover

Unless Marvel decides to do something a weird with the timeline—make this a prequel series or something like that—I am going to assume that Marvel’s Most Wanted and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will run concurrently (with the episodes’ events occurring within a week or so of each other).  Consequently I expect there to be ample opportunities for crossover between the two series.  As mentioned above, I think Coulson and Mack have the highest likelihood of appearing on Marvel’s Most Wanted often.

Additionally, I expect Bobbi and Hunter to appear on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. once or twice a season, with some of the other minor characters on their show appearing on AoS slightly more frequently than that.  However, I couldn’t begin to speculate on how many “crossover episodes” (where the events of the two shows are linked together) the shows will have.  I’m thinking at least once per season, but I could be completely off.

Image Courtesy www.twitter.com/AgentsofShield

Differentiation from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Whenever you think about a spinoff series to an existing series, you need to think about how the two will be different.  If the two shows are exactly alike, then you’re just going to run through your material twice as fast and expect viewers to watch the same thing twice a week.  That is why the NCIS spinoff focused on technology.  That is why The Flash focuses on metahumans while Arrow focuses on mysticism.  That is why these two series can’t just be two different S.H.I.E.L.D. teams going on the same kind of missions.

I am going to assume that one of these series will continue to focus on the Inhumans plotline and explore the idea of superpowers while the other series will focus on Hydra and the espionage element.  I’m just not sure which series will do which.  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to have a team of super-powered agents starting this season with the Secret Warriors, so it would seem logical for AoS to continue with the Inhumans and superpowers.  However, I think the espionage elements are really at home with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., so I guess this could go either way.

Regardless, I don’t think Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Most Wanted will have the same tone and focus.

When It Will Premiere

They haven’t given any indication of when it will start airing, but at least one place suggested Fall 2016.  I think it would be possible for them to produce the first season and start airing it either Winter 2015/2016 or Spring 2016.  It all depends on how they are planning to use Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 to set this series up.

Conclusion

This early in the game, we really can’t say all that much for certain about Marvel’s Most Wanted.  However, I am really excited to see what they are going to do with this series and how it will tie in with the events of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3.

What are your thoughts about Marvel’s Most Wanted?  Are you excited to see more Marvel TV?  Let me know in the comments!

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