Jessica Jones

[Thrudd]

I overall like the MCU, but I'm wondering whether to continue with the Netflix series. I felt that the first Daredevil season was some of the best-made TV I've ever seen. But while the second one was also amazingly well-crafted, it slipped from "adult-themed" to "miserable". As far as I can tell, the only thing Daredevil actually achieved was rescuing those people kidnapped by the Hand in the final episode. The rest was just failure, misery and doom.

And I like Jessica herself, but... the show is about a woman recovering from horrible abuse by a guy who's more Ted Bundy than supervillain, who goes around constantly committing petty acts of extreme cruelty. I mean... an innocent girl forced to murder her parents is way up there on the human misery pole, and daily life depresses me enough without exposing myself to fictional horribleness.

Given what I've said, should I even continue watching JJ, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Defenders?

JJ was satisfying, for me at least. You should finish the series, it gets better. Luke Cage was ok, but I was disappointed a bit by the final arc of the series. Iron Fist was a huge disappointment from an action standpoint. It has some good moments, but they wasted a ton of potential with the characters and setting from a story perspective, and a rushed filming schedule resulted in some underwhelming set pieces.
I'm guessing some of the Iron Fist plot is going to connect to the Defenders plot, so that's the only reason I'd say to watch it.
Of course I'm going to watch Defenders. There's too much potential for those characters playing off one another, and for awesome action pieces combining their abilities. It could be disappointing, too, there is a lot of room to underwhelm me in that department - but I think the poor handling of Iron Fist in his own series will be mitigated by the fact that he'll be in an ensemble this time. And I think, hope, pray, that the action choreography and fight training was given more attention for Defenders than it was in Iron Fist.

edit: after reading a bit about what they're doing with Defenders, I'm not so sure Iron Fist's plot is going to tie into it. So it might not be necessary at all. It also is only going to be 8 episodes rather than 13, so it's not quite so much of an investment of time to check it out when it comes out in a couple months.