First season of Marvel’s WandaVision expanded to 9 episodes on Disney+ 

Marvel and Disney+ has kept things fairly nebulous when it came to the episode count for its upcoming original series WandaVision, with initial estimates in the 6-8 episode range being touted when the show was announced. Well, turns out the high-end number was correct — plus a little bit more.

Disney+ has confirmed the first season of the series, the first new Marvel show to tie directly into the MCU and feature big screen heroes, will consist of nine episodes. The series premieres Jan. 15 on the Mouse House’s streaming service, and stars Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, and Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau (a name that should be familiar to comic readers, and keen-eyed Captain Marvel film fans).

The series looks to be a twisty, reality-bending thriller taking inspiration from classic sitcoms such as I Love Lucy and Bewitched — but with something far more sinister and mysterious lurking beneath the surface. Marvel has been fairly stingy when it comes to details on the series (namely, exactly how Vision is back in the world of the living in the wake of the latest Avengers big screen team-up), but hopefully we’ll have some answers soon enough.

As for the episode count, it’ll be interesting to see if the 9-episode total is something that will become somewhat uniform across the MCU streaming projects, or if they’ll take each show on a case-by-case basis when it comes to length. Marvel still has original MCU projects Loki, Falcon and Winter Soldier, and Hawkeye set for later this year — with shows based on She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Armor Wars, Secret Invasion, Ironheart and Moon Knight in various stages of development for 2022 and beyond.

Looking to Marvel’s previous TV output at Netflix (which, yes, these new projects are from completely different corners of the Marvel creative team), it would make sense to let the project dictate the length, as opposed to the other way around. One of the few complaints about hits like Daredevil, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were that they kind of dragged in the middle to fill out their 13-episode season orders — and of course the slog of Iron Fist’s first season would’ve arguably made more sense as an extended TV movie. This time around, it seems the focus is more quality than quantity. Here’s hoping, at least.