The novelty of Marvel Studios’ What If…? Animated series has worn off, though that shouldn’t come as a great surprise. The series’ third season is here and the reviews say it’s the worst batch of episodes yet.
Marvel Studios first launched its animated anthology series What If…? on Disney Plus in 2021. The show adapted the comics anthology of the same name, providing a playground for “imaginary” stories based on Marvel Comics with no impact on the live-action MCU. At first, that was everything fans could have wanted — but over the years things have changed.
According to the reviews lodged by critics and fans on Rotten Tomatoes so far, this is the worst season of What If…? to date.
At the time of publishing 12 critics have lodged reviews for the new season collectively giving it a score of just 75 percent, while fans feel much worse with the Popcornmeter currently sitting at 47 percent with over 250 reviews lodged.
What If…? season 3 is the final outing for the animated season and many had high hopes that it would produce some of the best moments that fans had seen so far. However, as it currently stands the show is sitting noticeably lower than the previous two seasons of the show on Rotten Tomatoes. Though, to be fair it doesn’t appear to be a disaster either.
Season 1 of the animated show became certified fresh with a solid 89 percent critic rating paired with a 92 percent score from fans. This momentum was carried into season 2 where the show landed a 90 percent critic score, however, this might have been where the cracks began to show as fans only managed to get the Popcornmeter to 65 percent. Of course, the new season has failed to reach these levels on either metric.
From the lodged reviews for season 3 of the series the contentious seems to be that the show continues to deliver impressive visuals, but its story falls short and fizzles out in an unsatisfactory fashion. ComicBookMovie.com’s Josh Wilding put it clearly saying “Season 3 has its moments but fails to take full advantage of its premise, resulting in a silly, superfluous, and shallow final batch of episodes.”
Fans are treating the new episodes more harshly, with many taking to the review platform slamming the season for having little creativity, a rushed production, and poor storytelling. If there’s any silver lining, most people seem to agree that the season’s first episode which sees the Avengers go head-to-head with Kaiju is a blast to watch, so there are redeeming qualities here.
If you’re a fan of the series so far then check out What If…? season 3 and form your own judgment of the season’s conclusion, but temper expectations if you were hoping for a special finale this time around. You can stream all of season 3 alongside the first two seasons of Marvel Studios’ What If…? on Disney Plus right now.
Published: Dec 30, 2024 03:50 am