Since its creation in 2019, Disney+’s collection of original content could be best described as mixed. Though the streaming service has built its library on the shoulders of some of entertainment’s most beloved properties — Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel Studios — many of its original television shows have flown under the radar orearned mixed reviews from fans and critics alike. For every breakout hit like Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Disney+ has released even more titles that prompted shrugs from subscribers.
When it first launched, Disney+’s strongest asset appeared to be its access to Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), but even then, the streamer has produced varying results. The shows made specifically for these franchises have earned both praise and criticism in equal measure; while several titles have won over fans and scored critical acclaim, others have struggled to drum up significant interest and match the heights the properties are known for. In the former category are some of the best shows Disney+ has released: WandaVision, Andor, and The Mandalorian. All have smartly expanded their respective universes and pushed the boundaries of what they’re capable of.
The very best in this arena, though, remains the two-season Marvel effort Loki, for several reasons. According to FlixPatrol, the series ranks No. 5 on Disney+’s TV chart as of September 30 in the U.S., keeping the sci-fi standout in the spotlight ahead of Avengers: Doomsday.
‘Loki’ Is Character-Driven Sci-Fi Storytelling at Its Best
Tom Hiddleston‘s portrayal of Loki, the dastardly god of mischief who toes the line between villainy and heroism, has long been a fan favorite within the MCU, stretching all the way back to his first on-screen appearance in 2011’s Thor. Up until the creation of the TV series Loki, the character was kept to supporting status for the adventures of his frenemy/adopted brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth), meaning his eponymous show was a fascinating creative opportunity to explore a personality audiences were deeply familiar with, but had only earned a surface-level depiction thus far.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which MCU Character Is Your Best Friend? Steve Rogers · Tony Stark · Peter Parker · Shuri
Pick where you meet, what they text you at two in the morning, what they hand you on your birthday and what the two of you keep arguing about. Four very different people are waiting on the other side: the one who never leaves, the one who is exhausting and worth it, the one who replies in four seconds flat, and the one who will roast you and then fix your life.
🛡️Steve Rogers(Captain America)
🛠️Tony Stark(Iron Man)
🕸️Peter Parker(Spider-Man)
🐆Shuri(Black Panther)
01
Where do the two of you meet? Nobody in this universe makes a friend somewhere normal.
02
Your phone lights up at two in the morning. What does it say? You find out what kind of friend somebody is by what they send at that hour.
03
It is your birthday. What do they hand you? The present is never really about the present.
04
What does a good Saturday with them actually look like? Superheroes have days off, and this is how they spend them.
05
You have your worst day in years. What do they do about it? This is the part of a friendship nobody puts in the trailer.
06
Every real friendship has one fight it keeps having. What is yours? The thing you argue about is usually the thing you like most about them.
07
The alarm goes off and you are both in the field. What is your job? You get one role on the team, and it says a lot about who you want next to you.
08
Ten years on, what do you want this friendship to be? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who picks up the phone.
The Line Is Ringing Your Best Friend Is…
Four people, four completely different ideas of what it means to have
somebody in your corner. Here is who picked up, what they would ask of you, and what you would get
back.
Captain America · Marvel Studios · Since 2011
Steve Rogers
You want the friend who does not leave. Steve is the one who
turns up at the door without being asked, who remembers what you said you were worried
about, and who has never once made you audition for his attention.
His entire character is built on a single sentence, which is that he will not abandon
somebody just because it has become expensive to keep them.
He is far funnier than people give him credit for, and the joke is almost always at his
own expense rather than yours.
The friendship comes with a cost, since being close to Steve means being dragged into
fights that were never yours and being glad about it later.
You would get a friend who tells you the hard thing to your face and then defends you to
everybody else in the room.
Iron Man · Marvel Studios · Since 2008
Tony Stark
You want the friend who is genuinely exhausting and completely
worth it. Tony will forget your birthday, then build you something at four in the morning
that you did not know you needed, and hand it over as though it were nothing.
He is bad at saying the warm thing out loud, so he says it in hardware instead, which is
why everybody around him ends up with upgraded everything.
Being his friend means putting up with the disappearing, the deflecting and the jokes
that arrive about ninety seconds too early.
What you get in return is somebody who will spend an unreasonable amount of money and
effort on a problem the moment it becomes yours.
He is the loudest person in the room and the one most likely to be quietly panicking
about all of you.
Spider-Man · Marvel Studios · Since 2016
Peter Parker
You want the friend who replies in four seconds and apologises
for it. Peter is earnest in a way that is almost unfashionable, and he will take on far more
than he can carry rather than admit that he is struggling.
He is the only one on this list who needs looking after as much as he looks after you,
and that balance is exactly what makes it a real friendship.
Nobody in the MCU is better at the small stuff, from remembering the thing you were
nervous about to showing up with food you did not ask for.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrived in July 2026 and put him back where he works best,
which is broke, local and carrying the weight on his own.
You would get a friend who is sincerely, embarrassingly happy for you when something
goes right, with no edge to it at all.
Black Panther · Marvel Studios · Since 2018
Shuri
You want the friend who insults your shoes, fixes your phone and
then quietly rearranges your entire life for the better. Shuri does not do soft reassurance,
and that is the reason you would believe her when she says you are fine.
She is the smartest person in almost any room she walks into and treats that as a reason
to tease you rather than a reason to lecture you.
The teasing is the affection. When Shuri stops making fun of you, something has gone
seriously wrong and you should probably ask her about it.
Her story is the one on this list that goes somewhere genuinely dark, which is what
turned her from a scene stealer into the emotional centre of the films.
You would get a friend who never pities you, never softens the truth, and never once
lets you take yourself too seriously.
Whereas other Disney+ shows haven’t always lived up to their ambitious premises, Loki‘s creative team, led by head writers Michael Waldron and Eric Martin, made the most of the opportunity they had before them. Episode 1 wasted no time in digging into Loki’s psyche, having the version of the character who stole the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame revisit all of his biggest MCU moments to date. It used meta storytelling to question and expand the kind of person Loki was, and from there, the series threw him into a sci-fi-heavy plot that was bolder than anything the MCU had previously attempted.
Starting with a thread where Loki was recruited by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) to hunt down a variant of himself, the series gradually wove a bigger tapestry that defined the MCU’s multiverse and asked deeper questions about free will and individuality. Loki comes face-to-face with numerous versions of himself, thus forcing him to examine what truly makes a Loki, while traveling across time and space to hold a splintering multiverse together. All the while, Hiddleston got to show the true breadth of his talents by revealing every side of his character: the funny, the mischievous, and the vulnerable. Loki‘s character-first approach to a thorny, fascinating sci-fi premise made for a deeply compelling watch that highlighted all the things Disney+ could achieve if it used its resources properly.
Every Element of ‘Loki’ Serves To Make It Stronger
As the title suggests, Hiddleston and his character were the show’s biggest drawing points, but Loki had so much more to offer than a single person. The cast was filled with strong performers, all capable of holding their own opposite Hiddleston, such as Owen Wilson as dedicated TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius and Sophia Di Martino as renegade Loki variant Sylvie. It even featured recent awards contenders Ke Huy Quan and Wunmi Mosaku in solid supporting roles.
The talent extended beyond the camera as well. Loki drew praise for Kasra Farahani‘s retro-futuristic production design and Natalie Holt‘s layered, epic score. At a time when streamers were often criticized for allocating massive budgets for shows that didn’t seem to use them wisely, Loki lived up to the notion that streaming sci-fi projects could have a cinematic scope while telling thoughtful, long-form stories. As all Marvel shows, it had ample CGI, but it also managed to feature several practical sets, making it one of the best-looking MCU projects to emerge in a while.
It also wasn’t afraid to get a little odd. This show introduced an alligator version of its title character and gave Loki a romantic connection with, essentially, himself. To this day, Disney+ hasn’t released another show like Loki, and it remains a high-water mark for the streaming service. Even sci-fi fans with little interest in the wider MCU can find things to appreciate, from its standout rendering of a planet on the verge of destruction to its game-changing reframing of the multiverse. With Loki set to return to the MCU in this year’s Avengers: Doomsday, one can only hope his next appearance lives up to the impressive standards of his last.
