The mail slot in the door of his country estate reads “The Vision”—capital T, capital V, technically capital H-E-I-S-I-O-N, too, but that’s a stylistic choice. It’s the T and the V that matter, the definite article, the dividing line between synthezoid and something distinctly more human.

VisionQuest is, at its core, about Vision’s (Paul Bettany) journey to understand where he falls on that spectrum. It’s the latest Disney+ TV series from Marvel Studios, and the third part of a trilogy with WandaVision and Agatha All Along. The first two episodes, “No Strings” and “Theseus,” set up an ambitious premise that is, like many Marvel projects, trying to do too many things at once, but there’s still a lot of promise here.

That’s the opening monologue that Vision delivers in VisionQuest episode one, “No Strings.” Part recap, part thesis statement, it plays over footage of past Marvel Cinematic Universe films and television series, showing the relevant moments of Vision’s story so far. It sets up the main conflicts of the show with remarkable efficiency: nature vs. nurture; artificial vs. human; father vs. son; understanding the concept of love vs. actually feeling it.

In the back room of the Old Selkie pub in Edinburgh, Scotland, there’s a TV playing an episode of Sanford and Son. Lamont (Demond Wilson) is telling his father, Fred (Redd Foxx), that he wants to visit “jungles, deserts, mountaintops.”

“Well, they got that at Disneyland,” Fred replies. “See, you just ain’t been on all the rides.”

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