Streaming on: Disney+
Episodes viewed: 8 of 8
After five years and many other shows, Marvel returns to its original, and arguably best, small-screen project. 2021’s WandaVision was the studio’s most ambitious swing, putting Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and her supposedly dead love, Vision (Paul Bettany), in a surreal sitcom world, created by Wanda to avoid processing her own grief. VisionQuest picks up the title character’s solo story in a sometimes fun, overly complicated off-shoot that lacks its progenitor’s light touch.
After the loss of Wanda and his two fictional children, Vision is now working in a pub in Scotland, hoping not to attract attention. He lives a rich internal life, literally. In his digital mind, Vision shares a big house with other artificial entities from the MCU, including J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D’Arcy), F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady) and, perhaps unwisely, his creator, Ultron (James Spader). Despite possessing the sum of all human knowledge, Vision is still working out who he is, a question further complicated when he meets Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica), who claims to be his child, one who cannot logically exist. Over eight episodes, Vision tries to answer his questions of identity while, naturally, being hunted by mysterious forces.
It’s a bit ‘Doctor Who does The Matrix Reloaded’
In tone, it’s a bit ‘Doctor Who does The Matrix Reloaded’, with a mix of goofy sci-fi and head-scratching philosophy about the blurry lines between man and machine. It’s best when just playing with the characters, letting the various AIs bicker, or having Vision and possible son try to connect, a dynamic made extra-awkward by one being a machine. The cast is excellent, particularly Bettany, now very settled in Vision’s underplayed humour and emotion, and James Spader as Ultron, being deliciously mean to everyone. The plot, sadly, can be a slog, taking a convoluted path to places that aren’t necessarily surprising.
VisionQuest exemplifies something that’s become tricky for the larger Marvel franchise, which sometimes treats plot like a memory quiz, testing how much you’ve been paying attention over the years. This plucks from across the MCU, all the way back to Iron Man, in a way that’s quite clever in its tying together of disparate elements, and might be thrilling to dedicated fans, but is verging on hostile to the casual viewer. If you watched WandaVision, the Avengers movies and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, you should be fine, though if you didn’t bother with, say, Agatha All Along, certain key moments won’t land. All the elements for a great time are here — if only it were less of a test of who’s done their homework.