The Falcon and the Winter Soldier – the upcoming series from Marvel Studios – debuts Friday on Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar worldwide, including India. Like WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier will air new episodes every week. But unlike WandaVision, there are only six episodes in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. They last longer – each episode will last 40-50 minutes. Prior to the premiere, Disney gave critics access to episode 1 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier for review purposes. But I won’t be reviewing the new Marvel series just yet. Here’s why. No spoilers here, don’t worry.
Every review you see out there is based on your experience of watching just one episode out of six. Watching an episode is like watching about 17% of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. For me, that’s not enough to deliver a proper review. For comparison’s sake, it’s like watching 20 minutes of a Marvel movie — they’re usually two hours long — and giving a review. Some movies are slow at first and improve later on, while others start well before succumbing to plot demands. This also applies to TV shows.
Everything you need to know about the Falcon and the Winter Soldier
For The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Disney considered that reviews cannot be published before Thursday (morning in the US and evening in India). Early reviews for the new Marvel series will begin arriving at 9:30 pm IST / 9 am PT / 4 pm GMT. Many reviewers will meet this deadline and people who want to take a look at how The Falcon and the Winter Soldier begin will no doubt find this helpful. But my review will only be published after watching all six episodes. I asked Disney for more episodes, but that wasn’t possible – and while a reason wasn’t given, Marvel’s concerns about spoilers are well known.
That’s why, for example, with WandaVision, critics had access to the first three episodes. The fourth episode had a big reveal that Disney undoubtedly wanted to make sure it wasn’t spoiled for the most enthusiastic fans.
Not getting every episode is actually quite common for many shows. The bigger the show, the fewer episodes. With WandaVision, critics saw three out of nine. That’s 30 percent, which is relatively much better. With Netflix’s The Witcher, we had access to the first five episodes out of eight. That’s over 60 percent, even better. It can always be worse. Game of Thrones did not make screeners – the industry term for film or TV offered under early access – in later seasons (the reason was also spoilers and piracy).
With the second season of The Mandalorian, Disney hasn’t bothered to preview the series either. You can do this when you have Baby Yoda.