Is ‘Agatha All Along’ being Disney’s least-expensive live-action series a major red flag for Marvel?

Marvel films and shows have long been accused of being formulaic. Agatha All Along, however, is proving that there’s still some creativity left in the entertainment juggernaut.

The WandaVision spin-off starring Kathryn Hahn as the titular Agatha Harkness might still only be midway through its first season, but it has impressed critics and viewers alike. Best of all, the quirky series has managed to do all of this while reportedly being the cheapest live-action series Disney has produced since it bought the rights to the MCU.

Although no official budget has been released for Agatha All Along, the series is said to have been cheaper than the previous least expensive Disney/MCU production, Echo, which cost around $40 million. This is in stark comparison to The Acolyte, which cost around $30 million per episode, totaling $180 million for the entire first season. The budget for Agatha All Along is even more astounding when compared to something like the Avengers franchise. Avengers: Age of Ultron, for example, is said to have cost $365 million, most of which was spent on special effects. Despite only half a season being released, it seems safe to say that Agatha really has managed to stretch its budget effectively.

Some have marketed this as a Marvel achievement, but because this is the internet and we can’t have anything nice, others have taken the very worst interpretation of events, pointing out that this efficient use of a budget might not be a good thing.

Agatha All Along not only has a female lead, but a female-dominated cast, so it isn’t totally unreasonable to think that the relative cheapness of the series is a case of the very real and documented Hollywood gender pay gap rearing its ugly head. With that said, you will always find terrible, pessimistic, and downright wrong takes on social media, and this falls into that category.

There are plenty of more likely explanations for the smaller budget, namely that the series has a comparative lack of CGI in it than many recent MCU products. For something that can often render terribly on-screen, the technology is remarkably expensive. With less of the technology for the showrunners and writers to fall back on, the creative team behind the series seems to have focused on making something good rather than something flashy. After what has felt like an endless kaleidoscope of formulaic plots and over-the-top CGI, Agatha‘s relative realism and reliance on practical effects is a breath of fresh air.

This, plus some great performances from big names like Aubrey Plaza, Debra Jo Rupp, and Patti Lupone, is one of the reasons audiences are appreciating Agatha All Along. While Marvel is known for its star-studded casts, it doesn’t always work out as well as it has with this series (as MCU fans who were excited for Secret Invasion will tell you). There’s also the fact that the show is wrapped up in its own world, ensuring the well-documented MCU continuity errors don’t take away from the experience. In many ways, Agatha All Along is one of the least Marvel-y pieces of content in the franchise, and it’s all the better for it. Perhaps Disney and Marvel are finally learning that you can still do a lot with a little.