The first season of the American television series Agent Carter, which is inspired by the film Captain America: The First Avenger and the Marvel One-Shot short film of the same name,[1] features the character Peggy Carter, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, as she must balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions for Howard Stark while trying to navigate life as a single woman in 1940s America.

Hayley Atwell reprises her role from the film series and One-Shot as Carter, with James D'Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, Enver Gjokaj, and Shea Whigham also starring.

Despite steadily dropping viewership, critical response to Agent Carter was positive, with much praise going to Atwell's performance, the series' tone and setting, and its relative separation from the rest of the MCU.

[29] Executive producers for the season include Tara Butters, Michelle Fazekas, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Chris Dingess, Kevin Feige, Louis D'Esposito, Alan Fine, Joe Quesada, Stan Lee, and Jeph Loeb.

[41] The main cast for the season includes Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, reprising her role from the film series,[1] James D'Arcy as Edwin Jarvis,[11] Chad Michael Murray as Jack Thompson,[12] Enver Gjokaj as Daniel Sousa,[13] and Shea Whigham as Roger Dooley.

[42] Kyle Bornheimer,[17] Ralph Brown,[20] Meagen Fay,[18] Lyndsy Fonseca,[16] and Bridget Regan[19] also recur as Ray Krzeminski, Johann Fennhoff, Miriam Fry, Angie Martinelli, and Dottie Underwood, respectively, throughout the series.

Beristain uses the Arri Alexa digital camera, along with Leica lenses and silk-stocking diffusion nets, the latter on which he recalled "I had last used in the 1980s in England on videos and commercials.

In addition to all the set extensions required to depict the period through green screen and matte paintings, Duggal also noted difficulty in simulating the imploding bombs and creating a fully CG truck that drives off a cliff.

"[60] Additionally, Lennertz was able to reorchestrate "Star Spangled Man" for the season, which is originally by Alan Menken for Captain America: The First Avenger,[59] and introduced a folk choral piece performed by a Russian men's choir during "The Iron Ceiling".

[61] Markus, talking about the series place in the greater architecture of the MCU in January 2015 said "you really only need to drop the tiniest bit of hint and its connected.

"[62] The season introduces the Red Room program,[63] which would eventually produce Natasha Romanoff,[64] who appears in multiple MCU films portrayed by Scarlett Johansson.

[63] Agent Carter also explores the origins of the Hydra-led Winter Soldier program, as seen by the end tag in "Valediction" when Arnim Zola approaches Faustus about mind control.

[68][69] Footage from the first episode was shown at New York Comic Con on October 10, 2014,[47] and again in ABC's one-hour television special, Marvel 75 Years: From Pulp to Pop!, which aired in November 2014.

Though the trailer itself was received positively, the tagline was criticized as "awful" and "ridiculous",[71] and Alan Sepinwall of HitFix said "I get that one of the themes of the show will be Peggy dealing with the sexism of the time, but these ads exist in 2014, not 1945.

[90] Brian Lowry, reviewing the two-part premiere for Variety, felt that giving Atwell her own television series was "a pretty smart bet" by Marvel, and he called the episodes "considerable fun".

[91] Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly felt that "the show isn't as retro-stylish as it thinks it is ... the first hour of Agent Carter feels like an above-average episode of Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", noting that it tonally aims for His Girl Friday, Dick Tracy, and Alias ("A tough tonal mixture on a weekly broadcast budget, but also an ambition worth pursuing"), but praised Atwell's performance, calling her "a delight" and "firing on all cylinders".

Franich was negative about what he saw to be common MCU tropes, notably "Somebody named Stark invented something dangerous; everyone wants an All-Important Glowing Thing; there's an implicit promise that nothing will be solved for weeks/years to come."

Though he was wary about the series being forced to contribute to the rest of the MCU, he did note that "Agent Carter feels pleasantly segmented off from the greater Marvel Machinery".

He also praised the Peggy and Jarvis dynamic, the MCU tie-ins and connections the series included, such as the Black Widow program, and the strong portrayals of the season's supporting characters.

She praised the "period aspect that's defined so well by music, sets, and costumes" as placing the series "head and shoulders above others", and called the cast "eminently talented".

[94] On the other hand, Lowry ultimately found the series "just didn't have legs", saying that after the premiere it "meandered through several episodes that merely seemed to inch the story along, rallying only slightly in the not wholly satisfying conclusion."

He felt that outside of Atwell's Carter and D'Arcy's Jarvis that characters were not developed enough, and said that the MCU tie-in with Toby Jones' Arnim Zola made the series seem like "a footnote".