With the return of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD to our screens now is a good time to take a look at the miniseries that stood in for the show during its mid-season break. Agent Carter centres on the post-WW2 exploits of Peggy Carter, one of the founding members of SHIELD, as she deals with the SSR’s post-war transition to a Cold-War style intelligence agency, her dismissive colleagues and new and sinister threats. This is one of the first of the coming wave of Marvel television shows and is the first of the new comic book based films and shows to have a female lead. Peggy Carter, first introduced in the original Captain America film and here reprised masterfully by Hayley Atwell, is an excellent choice of character for this project, which feels both fresh and nostalgic and makes for a stylish adventure.

In contrast to the very worldly Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter for the most part keeps the scale small and as such the action and intrigue is largely confined to New York City. However, this is not to its detriment as mid-century New York is perhaps one of the best locations to set almost any story and that axiom holds true here. The style of the period matches the snappy and adventurous tone that the showrunners were aiming for and honestly just looks very cool and fun, from the clothing to the cars and the architecture. There’s always something interesting to look at during this show, be it a typewriter or an early self-serve diner. The story set here is largely about the later days of the SSR, the wartime predecessor to SHIELD, and Carter’s and others roles in tackling burgeoning threats and tying these in to the already decided future of the Marvel universe. The potential prequel problem of knowing the ending is avoided by a clever cat and mouse game regarding a stolen vault of Stark tech, a veiled enemy and, most importantly, good characters.

Peggy Carter is more than a little frustrated by her post-wartime position. As a SSR agent during WW2, she fought alongside Captain America and the Howling Commandos, but when the war ended she found herself drummed out from anything resembling a real assignment and shunted into clerical work for the clearly less experienced agents in her office. Why? Well, she’s a woman and this is 1946. The obstacles that this places in front of her as she attempts to simply do her job and keep people safe is a compelling aspect of the overall storyline and integral to both her and others character development. Carter is self-assured, confident and competent and it is no hard feat to see her in the tradition that eventually leads to people like Nick Fury and Phil Coulson. She must work around the system with the few allies she has, Howard Stark (at times) and his butler Jarvis, as she hunts down Stark’s stolen tech.

Jarvis, played by James D’Arcy, is a great addition to the cast of characters. He provides comic relief while remaining a serious and important character. His growing friendship with Carter and their mutual respect is one of the highlights of the show. They bounce off each other very well, whether bickering, agreeing or plotting. These two characters are the sort that you could enjoy watching as they take a cross-country road trip, open a hot-dog stand or simply walk down the street having a chat. It is a very good-natured dynamic that they have together, serving the show well and making it fun to watch. Jarvis’s presence in this show could be said to be part of an effort on Marvel’s part to make viewers more aware of the character before the release of the Age of Ultron. However, even though the great Paul Bettany provides the voice of Tony Stark’s A.I. version of Jarvis, it is a tad disappointing that James D’Arcy won’t be the one portraying him on the big screen.

The rest of the cast of characters are similarly good. As with Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter has a knack for presenting seemingly one-note characters and slowly digging into their past and pathos and giving them a surprising amount of depth. The villains are similarly treated and add to the increasingly interwoven and interconnected universe that Marvel Studios is building.

Agent Carter is a miniseries that could easily end with these eight episodes and still be immensely satisfying. It had all of the good of Agents of SHIELD and its own wry style and little of the pacing issues that plagued its sister show in the early days. However, it could easily continue as well and I, for one, would love to see Peggy grace our screens once again.