'Moon Knight' Season 1 - TV Review

The first season is six episodes of 50-55 minutes each.

The story starts with Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac), a socially awkward man who works in the gift shop at the British Museum. He straps himself to his bed at night, and has a habit of blacking out and waking up in odd places. He has a vast knowledge of Egyptian mythology. In the first episode, he has a run-in with both a cult leader (Ethan Hawke) and a mythological Egyptian jackal - which leads to the reveal that he has another personality named Marc Spector, who is an American mercenary and also the avatar of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu.

I loved the Moon Knight comics as a kid. I probably only read about three of them, but they made a lasting impression. To the point that this is only the second Marvel TV series I've bothered to watch - mind you, having Oscar Isaac as the lead is definitely a plus. (The other was the first season of "Legion.")

Oscar Isaac is good in his dual role. Production values are very good - but there are too many CGI creatures/gods. They're pretty good, but the more you look at them the less real they feel.

A few comments about a couple episodes. #4 "The Tomb" ... it would have been better to watch the 1999 movie version of "The Mummy" again - it's similar, better, and funnier. #5 "The Asylum" borrows from episodes of "Legion" and "Doom Patrol" set in an asylum.

I have a LOT of logic issues around the creation of Moon Knight's multiple personalities: if Mark is dominant, when did Steven have the time to learn a shit-tonne about Egypt (and that's setting aside the last episode mid-credits reveal, which implies immensely more time for ... well, that).

The directors are fascinating: four episodes are by Mohamed Diab, who's a rising star from Egypt, and the other two were directed by the team of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson - who have together directed some of the more interesting SF/Fantasy/Horror films of the last decade ("The Endless" and "Synchronic" both got a fair bit of exposure).