Some of these reviews are a little late. We’ve been having some technical difficulties but we hope these issues have resolved, so without further ado, here’s our first Geekly TV for 2015.

Marvel’s Agent Carter

Jim’s Review

Agent Carter’s first episode managed to hold true to the titular character, and add some charm with a few supporting characters. Jarvis works well as a side-kick here, and the Sousa character gives us someone else within the agency to pull for.

Speaking about the rest of the agency, that’s where the writing irks me. They use the retro, post-war setting well, but the other characters’ relentless chauvinism goes a bit too far. It makes the show feel like it’s trying too hard to make a point. That was made even more so by the use of the Captain America radio broadcasts that kept popping up.

The use of Cap as a background figure can be tricky. The show is meant to take place a year or so after the events of The First Avenger, and so it stands to reason that Peggy would still mourn Cap’s loss, but if it keeps up, they could run the risk of leaning too heavily on the movie to sell the show.

With a few concerns in mind, I’m optimistic that the show can even out through the duration of its run. Oh, and full disclosure; I am of the opinion that Hayley Atwell is the reason saxophone music and slow motion were invented, so I’ll be watching the show regardless.

Verdict: It’s a pretty good start.

Kyle’s Take

I love the use of setting and most of the supporting characters. I enjoy the main character a lot – comics can use as many strong females on the big and small screen as they can get – but I have to admit that they use a Gang Busters of this is a man’s world. They need to tone this down as well as the Captain America references.

I don’t think this led to Agent Carter’s lower ratings (6 million viewers compared to the Agents of SHIELD pilot’s 12 million viewers). The show didn’t get poor ratings, but I think Agent Carter isn’t helped by being a midseason replacement and it doesn’t help that audiences last saw Peggy Carter in the first Captain America film.

Since then, Avengers has been released and there’s been a second Cap movie. We’re even less than four months away from a second Avengers movie. Yay! But talk about striking when the iron’s ice cold. Nonetheless, this was a good start for Agent Carter, and I foresee a lot of cold showers for Jim on Tuesday nights.

Bob’s Burgers

Kyle’s Review

I’ll preface this review by saying that this episode of Bob’s Burgers suffers from airing after a string of seven fantastic episodes. If it had aired any other season, it might have fared better. It gave me some chuckles but not at the level prior to the midseason break.

The biggest issue is that the main story makes little sense. Tina’s about to receive a promotion as hall monitor – I vaguely remember an episode two seasons ago where she was a hall monitor – when she fails to deliver Zeke to the principal’s office. Tina lies and covers up her failure in order to keep her promotion. This is very un-Tina.

Tina’s the girl whose conscience got the best of her during an insurance scam dust-up, perpetrated by a character voiced by Bob Odenkirk. She was the only honest person in a sea of lying adults (her father Bob included) and now she lies to keep a promotion as hall monitor. I could see Tina lying to protect her Thundergirl status, but this has been touched on in the past, too—in fact, it was done right before the midseason break. Tina lying to protect her hall monitor status doesn’t track.

What also didn’t track was Regular-Sized Rudy’s admiration of Tina. He’s hardly had any airtime with her, so this came out of nowhere. Kind of like the secondary story in this episode of Bob as a terrible artist. Why does he care if he can’t draw a burger?

Let’s hope this episode is a speed bump to an otherwise stellar season.

Verdict: A shaky episode to put it mildly, but this may be due to some Tina-fatigue. Yes. Tina’s a great character, but we need more Louise, Gene, Linda, and the rest.