The pilot opens very well, with big-screen superhero action and excitement up in the skies - the first 10 minutes are the best Marvel TV show ever, actually, and for a short while it looked as though they were going to finally get it right and give the fans what they wanted, the way The Mandalorian did with Star Wars. Very welcome surprise to see MMA legend Georges St. Pierre as the head bad guy, too.

Anthony Mackie, as The Falcon, is easily the best thing in the show, and he adds a lot of depth and feeling to his performance, making a lot out of an otherwise forgettable script. It's nice to see him finally getting a starring role after paying his dues for so long in all those Marvel films.

The Winter Soldier, on the other hand, is unfocused and unlikeable, seeming little like his role in the Captain America films, and alternating between being gloomily impotent and endlessly guilty and then engaging in light sit-com-like quips and awkward humour, which are ill-fitting in tone and poorly-judged, and don't add up to any recognizable personality. The writers have given us nothing to like in him.

Every other character is similarly underdeveloped and dull. There's the usual forced diversity quotas and political messaging, though they are relatively subtle for 2021. But regardless, every white man on the show is, as usual, either flawed, weak or evil, and all minorities and women are wholesome, brave and good. It seems very likely the show is going to slide more strongly into racial politics as it goes along, but they did at least keep a loose rein on it for the first episode. My experience of modern television makes me doubt very much it will get any better from here, though.