The appropriateness of his casting and storyline in terms of race was also widely discussed, while the season's fight sequences were criticized as an important element that were poorly acted, choreographed, and edited.

[1] In October 2013, Deadline reported that Marvel Television was preparing four drama series and a miniseries, totaling 60 episodes, to present to video on demand services and cable providers, with Netflix, Amazon, and WGN America expressing interest.

[25] John Dahl, Cindy Holland, Allie Goss, Alison Engel, Kris Henigman, Alan Fine, Stan Lee, Joe Quesada, Dan Buckley, Jim Chory, Jeph Loeb and Buck serve as executive producers on the series.

[14] Clifton Davis,[12] John Sanders,[17] and Elise Santora[18] portray Lawrence Wilkins, Donald Hooper, and Maria Rodriguez, respectively, members of the Rand Enterprise board.

Also returning from previous Marvel Netflix series are Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth,[19] Tijuana Ricks as Thembi Wallace,[20] and Suzanne H. Smart as Shirley Benson.

[53] Additional music heard in the season includes "So Fresh, So Clean" by Outkast, "Krystal Karrington" by Camp Lo, "Heat of the Moment" by Killah Priest, "Black Mags" by The Cool Kids, "Hang N' Bang" by Vince Staples, "Blockbuster Night, Pt.

"[57] The season makes references to the events of The Avengers, the Hulk, Stark Industries, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Seagate Prison,[58] and mentions the Dogs of Hell biker gang, New York Bulletin editor-in-chief Mitchell Ellison and reporter Karen Page,[59] Roxxon Oil and Midland Circle.

[15] David Betancourt, reacting to the trailer for The Washington Post, compared the story it presents to that of Batman Begins (2005), and questioned the fact that Iron Fist's comic costume was not shown.

[62] Eric Francisco at Inverse noted that the trailer was widely criticized on Twitter for the season's depiction of Rand as an "insufferable college hippie".

[64][65] The first season of Iron Fist was released on March 17, 2017, on the streaming service Netflix worldwide,[66] in Ultra HD 4K and high dynamic range.

This was the largest drop in retention for a Marvel Netflix series, indicating "that people started binge-watching the show in its first few days and then didn't come back to finish the season the next weekend.

Jumpshot, which "analyzes click-stream data from an online panel of more than 100 million consumers", looked at the viewing behavior and activity of the company's U.S. members, factoring in the relative number of U.S. Netflix viewers who watched at least one episode of the season.

[77] Reviewing the first six episodes of the season, Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter found Iron Fist to be the "first big misstep" for Marvel and Netflix, lacking the "street-level authenticity" that their previous series had.

After criticizing the pacing, action, general characterization, production design, cinematography, and dialogue, Ryan suggested that Henwick should have been the star of the season instead of Jones.

[26] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone criticized Jones' performance, calling him "totally devoid of charisma, more cub than lone wolf."

He also felt the character was missing humor and inner turmoil, and said Rand's "mystic Zen quotes go over like a Wayne's World set-up minus the punch line.

Iron Fist starts to show signs of life in its sixth episode... but the slog in getting there is too great an ask, especially when the vast majority of the principal characters [are so] underdeveloped.

[81] Uproxx's Alan Sepinwall felt of the first six episodes, "It's easily the worst of the Netflix Marvel shows", criticizing the pacing and "miscasting" of Jones.

They're just making a mostly faithful but personality-free adaptation because someone at Marvel decided four years ago that Danny had to be [in The Defenders, and as a result,] we got a show that's so lifeless that I have no interest in finishing out the season".

Jolin concluded, "Iron Fist works some fantastical flavor into the MCU's down-to-earth Defenders nook, but it needs more proper kung-fu flair than showrunner Buck allows.

"[50] Jones later attributed the negative reviews to the fact that his character, "a white American billionaire", was similar to Donald Trump who had become "public enemy number one, especially in the US" between the making of the season and its release.

[84] In an article for Vox, Alex Abad-Santos said Jones was just attempting to "pass the blame" away from himself when the real problem with the season was "no one thought about what makes the character human".

Abad-Santos suggested that the season be a warning to others telling stories about superheroes, who he thought needed to ensure they were "using established characters to touch on other topics—mental illness, parenthood, race, trauma—instead of simply rehashing old plots.

"[85] Feinberg, in his review, criticized the fight sequences in the season, calling them "weakly staged and all-too-brief, without any effort to even pretend that the show's leading man is doing any of his own stunts" and felt "Danny's strength and his enhanced abilities are barely explained and inconsistently depicted.

[86] Aloysius Low at CNET also compared Jones's fighting in the season to that of Chan as well as Jet Li, saying, "There's none of that elegance I expect from a kung fu master, and he gets hit way too easily for a trained expert."

He said that any extra Asian-American representation onscreen would be positive, but that he was not comfortable with the idea of the first major Asian superhero in film or television being a martial artist.

Chow focused on the lack of Asian-American representation in mainstream television and films, the fact that the character's story would not have to change to accommodate this difference, and how it would stop elements of the "white savior" trope being depicted where a "white-guy-is-better-at-being-Asian-than-the-Asians".

Chow started the hashtag #AAIronFist on Twitter, beginning a movement that received support from "high profile people" such as Lexi Alexander and Gail Simone.

[96] His colleague Katharine Trendecosta later added, after watching the completed season, that an Asian-American Danny Rand would have been more interesting than the final version, especially in being able to explore how he felt about returning to America having become more of a stereotype, and feeling out of place in K'un Lun due to being American while feeling out of place among the high-society circles of America due to being Asian.

[97] In response to these criticisms, Jones agreed that "there needs to be more diversity in film and television" but was confused why Iron Fist in particular had been targeted by internet commentators and said that they should get angry at "real problems in the world" instead.