Akhil Arora

Ever since Apple unveiled its Netflix competitor roughly four years ago, it has shown an interest in big-budgeted prestige dramas in a bid to be a part of the conversation alongside the likes of HBO (House of the Dragon) and Amazon Prime Video (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power). But its attempts in the past have been a mixed bag. Save for the excellent trilingual Pachinko, Apple TV+ has failed to land a show that can establish it as a powerhouse. It hasn’t stopped trying, but its many attempts—For All Mankind, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Foundation, Invasion, or See—have been on a gradual scale of satisfying to utterly unwatchable. Enter its latest and most expensive gamble, made on a reported budget of $250 million: Masters of the Air.

Killer Soup—the new Netflix series led by Manoj Bajpayee and Konkona Sensharma—has a fairly good idea of the recipe it’s going for: three to four cups of blood, a splash of dark comedy, and a pinch of camp. More or less along the lines of what Bill Hader gave us on Barry, Noah Hawley’s anthology series Fargo, or Martin McDonagh with In Bruges or The Banshees of Inisherin. But just like Bajpayee in the eighth and final episode, Killer Soup spills a whole can of an ingredient that was meant to be used sparingly. In effect, we end up with an entirely different dish altogether. Over and over, the Netflix series swings wildly into histrionics territory, finding itself further and further away from its genre ambitions. By the end, it’s chaotically overcooked.

In 2023, the overlords of Marvel (finally) realised they had overdone it. After seven movies and seven series in a two-year period—most of which have been utterly forgettable, severely bloated, or downright terrible—he hadn’t overseen, returning Disney CEO Bob Iger decided to slow things down at the superhero giant, worried that Marvel itself may be the biggest contributor to the much-touted phenomenon: superhero fatigue. Under Iger, finished shows have been put on the back burner, scripts have been thrown out and creative teams redrawn, and the 2024 calendar is all but empty. It’s set to be one of the leanest Marvel years, with just one confirmed live-action show (Echo) and film (Deadpool 3) so far. (Though some of that is also thanks to the dual Hollywood strikes of 2023.)