Okay first what the series does right, it has 1940s music, it's lit like an early colour film, and they cast actors who are not hollywood pretty boys and look like character actors from the 1940s.
Now what this series does wrong, it is the worst most hamfisted written series I have seen in a long time. It is clearly written by men trying impress woman. All the male characters are sexist idiots just because they happen to live in the 1940s, every single one of them. I know sexism was all over the place but if you look at films from this time period the female heroes were not treated this badly, just listen to some old Superman radio shows, or the shadow, or watch any number of films or shorts. What is more they don't have a braincell between them. I know the hero has to be smarter then everyone around them but if the people around them are written too stupid it just comes off as fake and that is the problem here. Also Agent Carter is way too perfect and doesn't make a single mistake so there is no suspense. True suspense comes from having heroes who can screw up and get things wrong from time to time, I mean look at any much love hero and will see someone who is over their head most of the time and staying just half a step ahead of disaster. Oh and then there is the scene where she threatens to murder a man because he is rude to a waitress. Now don't get me wrong the guy was a jerk but in a world where people get mad at Superman for killing Zod after he killed tens of thousands of people are we really supposed to cheer when a female hero threatens to murder a guy for being rude?! Am I supposed to like this person at all?! I guess maybe extreme violence and cold blooded murder is okay when a woman does it to a man because all men are evil?
So in short this show's world view is the same as cheap 70s rape revenge films,all men are stupid, evil, rapists who woman need to kill. There is no chemistry in the cast, the story has no suspense because we know Howard Stark is okay later and this series goes way overboard making all the male characters look bad just so they can make the female lead look better. You don't have to do it that way. I don't think the writers have any real respect for woman because they seem to think that woman can't stand out as good leads unless all the male characters are made to look evil and stupid. Hey here is an idea if you want your female character to work, why not write everyone as a character and not a stereotype and then have the character who is smarter then the rest just happen to be a woman, you know like how they wrote Ripley in Alien, or how Agent Carter herself was written in the first Captain America movie. They didn't have to make Captain America useless in that movie to get the point across that she was a good agent, so why are they doing it now.
I am sorry this sort of thing doesn't normally bug me but all of the male leads are so useless I feel like I am reading bad fan fiction written by a teenage boy trying to get into a girl's pants and not the writings of someone who has any real respect for woman at all. The sexism on this show just goes way too far over the top and makes everything feel fake and stupid. I wasn't even able to finish the pilot and I will not be tuning in again.
I was really looking forward to this show, it looked like it could be my favorite think in the MCU but the heavy handed writing and a plot that only has suspense if you forget that Howard Stark is okay in the future killed it. ABC you could have had something great here but you killed it. Maybe next time you should try hiring some female writers and producers to run your show with a female lead and they will not feel the need to impress anyone and write the characters as a characters and will write a female lead with some depth beyond being harassed and threatening people with cold blooded murder.
Let me put it this way I am a man and man times in my life I have when out in public had woman that I don't know reach out and touch my butt, so according to this show do I have the right to slit their throats with a knife? Of course not that would be a complete over reaction! Still that was the big moment that was supposed to get a cheer in the pilot of this series???? Fail!
This series should have been great bud sadly for this viewer it crashed and burned and this is coming from someone who liked the pilot of AOS. Avoid this show, Supernatural and The Flash are on opposite this show and they are what I will be watching in coming weeks, they are a much better use of my time.
Sorry if this upsets anyone but it's just how I feel. This show just doesn't work.