‘Daredevil’: Why Season 3 Is the Bounceback Marvel TV Needed

This latest round of adventures for the Man Without Fear couldn’t have come at a stranger, more necessary time for what’s left of the Marvel/Netflix experiment. A week before this season debuted on October 19th, Netflix canceled the oft-mocked Iron Fist. Luke Cage then followed his frequent comic book partner out the door a few hours after Daredevil‘s premiere.

Disney is busy setting up its own streaming service, which will reportedly feature higher-budget Marvel shows featuring higher-profile Marvel characters like Loki and Scarlet Witch, with Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, et al. reprising their roles from the films. These will come directly from Marvel Studios, whose executives are responsible for all the hit movies, even as they look down their noses at their TV counterparts. Daredevil was introduced as the first in a mini-Marvel universe of street-level hero shows that could have expanded for years and years. Disney branching off on its own, and letting a different team develop these shows, left the Netflix shows as dead-enders, unlikely to inspire more spin-offs or ever appear alongside their more famous MCU peers.