Yes, OK, seeing as the show has been available on Disney + since spring, this title is a little far-fetched. I did try to find a more Christmassy and less geeky blog subject, but the film I watched in order to achieve this goal (A Boy Called Christmas) proved oddly blog-resistant – it wasn't great, nor was it terrible, it didn't hit the sweet spot for me, but I'd feel mean criticising it. So Loki it is.
As a whole string of blog posts testify, I did a lot of Marvel prep in order to be able to watch this series. So was it worth it? Yes – partly because I liked the Marvel films more than I expected, quite irrespective of their Loki content. Also, I enjoyed Loki the series a great deal (especially after a few episodes – I'll come back to that). All the same, given that Loki is my favourite Marvel character by a mile, I was just a little bit disappointed too. I felt more could have been done with a series which is supposed to focus on him, but doesn't always. In fact, I'm not sure I got that much closer to Loki as a person than I did in the Marvel movies.
The first two episodes were a bit of a slog for me. I found myself thinking "Is it bad that I enjoyed WandaVision more?" (yep, I've watched the much-talked-about WandaVision now, and I have to admit my geeky heart loved it). The premise is this: because of the Avengers' tampering with time, Loki got a chance to escape his fate as described in the Infinity Saga and nab one of the Infinity Stones for good measure. We saw this in Avengers: Endgame, but it was never addressed how it played out or how it didn't affect the heroes' plan not to disrupt time, especially not the Infinity Stone-related events. Now we know... sort of. The Time Variance Agency, the TVA for short, makes sure Loki's escape doesn't alter the course of events by apprehending him and "pruning" the timeline he created. Loki is taken to the TVA's headquarters to stand trial. He is told he is a "variant" who has broken out of the "Sacred Timeline" and will thus be "pruned" or executed in order to preserve the timeline in question. What saves him is that another Loki variant is causing havoc, and one of the Time Agents, Mobius, thinks Loki could be useful in apprehending this bigger threat. With me so far?
I don't blame you if you're not, because I'm barely with myself. The whole explanation of variants and The Sacred Timeline, although pedagogically relayed in a TVA infomercial narrated by the sinisterly cheerful Miss Minutes, had me scratching my head. Loki is needed for the whole Infinity Saga to play out the way we've seen it, so how is the TVA executing him going to fix things? The best I can make of it is that his time infraction, or the TVA's interference, means that another Loki – let's call him Loki Prime – is living out his life the way he's supposed to, while what we're seeing is a separate Loki who is no longer needed and can therefore be disposed of at any time. This could have been made a lot clearer, though.
That it takes two whole paragraphs to outline the premise of the show highlights one of its flaws. WandaVision was complicated too, but you could get into it without knowing a lot of geeky stuff upfront – it was handed out to you piecemeal as the series went on. The premise of WandaVision is easily summed up in a few sentences. Wanda and Vision are living a blissful married life that plays out just like an old sitcom. But they're not sitcom characters, and we know Vision is dead. So what's happening here?
In contrast, Loki hands us a lot of exposition in the first episode which is supposed to clear things up but doesn't quite manage to, while not being a blast entertainment-wise either. The TVA is a curiously boring setting. I can see that the analogue character of the bureaucracy we're seeing is a considered choice, highlighting the TVA's tenacity and un-hackability compared with our own shiny, digital, transigent world. But even I, a self-confessed bureaucrat, didn't get much of a kick of TVA's dreary corridors of power. Variant Loki watching videos of how his life would have turned out and the mistakes he made, though a useful "previously on"-ploy for the viewer, felt like a forced way to get the protagonist through several movies' worth of character development in one go.
And then the other Loki variant is introduced, who turns out to be... a woman, who prefers to go by the name of Sylvie. Now, I know (thanks to YouTube) that the series didn't come up with the female Loki idea – there was already a Lady Loki in the comics. Even so, the last thing I (and I suspect a lot of Hiddleston fangirls) wanted to see was the Marvel Loki we'd grown to know and love be slapped around by some female version who's supposedly cleverer and more competent. When Sylvie is introduced in episode two and hisses to Loki "This is not about you" (er... yes it is, or ought to be. the series is called Loki!) my heart sank. Loki seemed to be on the way to become the Useless Male Love Interest in his own series.
Luckily, there's a course correction as the series continues. The two Loki variants, when stuck on an adventure together, start to appreciate each other and indeed fall for each other. It was a relief to me that this was a mutual thing, not just Loki pining for Sylvie. All the same, and though they have some genuinely sweet moments, I couldn't quite warm to Sylvie: firstly, because there's still some unspoken assumption hanging in the air that she's the "better" version of Loki (she is not); secondly, because I never quite bought that she and Loki were versions of the same character.
The high points to me were instead Tom Hiddleston being charming in the lead role, the growing friendship between Loki and slow-but-sure Mobius – like Thor, Mobius trusts Loki too much, and for that very reason Loki finds it difficult to dismiss him – and the fun over-the-top villain who's revealed at the end and knows how to make a lot of expositional gobbledegook a captivating viewing experience. This isn't the new Doctor Who, though Hiddleston's Loki has traits in common with both the Doctor and the Master. Given that travelling in time and space is literally what the TVA does, this has surprisingly little importance for the plot. But it's a fun show for geeky villain-lovers, and I'm excited for season two.
Still, I think WandaVision is my favourite Marvel TV show. And no, Marvel's Loki has not replaced Once Upon A Time's Rumple as my major villain crush. Nice try, though.
