Everyone all over the internet seems to absolutely love the new Netflix show Wednesday. It has incredibly positive reviews and it is currently trending on TikTok with people dressing up as the titular character and dancing to the choreography of the now iconic dance scene (although for some reason on a speed up version of Bloody Mary by Lady Gaga, rather than the original song??? I really do not understand the internet).
All of this leaves me baffled and confused, like as if I have watched a completely different show than everybody else. The show, in my opinion, is just not very good. Or better, it's just really bad.
From the butchering of the main themes of the original Addams family, to the ridiculous storyline, the predictable writing, the cringy dialogue, the acting (exception made for Jenna Ortega's Wednesday, which literally carries the show), the dull love triangle, the teenage drama, I could go on forever.
But let's tackle this one issue at a time.
Let's start by talking about the original Addams family. The whole point of the Addams family was to satirize and completely invert the trope of the perfect ideal American family. To do so, the original comic book (and the subsequent 60s tv show and 90s films) sets this family of "outcasts" (as the show likes to call them), where everyone dresses in black, is pale, has fascination for the macabre, and simply doesn't care about what society thinks or expect of them, in the most normal place you could think of: the suburbs. And that is where the strength of the original saga comes from: this contrast between the seemingly perfect American family, where everyone is preoccupied with their appearance and how society perceives them, hiding how secretly unhappy they are, and this grim loving family where between torture and grave digging, everyone is happy and loves and cares for one another.
The Wednesday show however decided to take a different route, by placing the titular character away from her family, in a special school for outcasts. However, by placing Wednesday in a school full of werewolves, vampires, sirens, and other cliché monsters from "The Monster Mash", she just loses her spark. Are we really supposed to believe that literal monsters are scared and weirded out by a regular girl who dresses in black, doesn't blink often and sometimes plays the cello? For this reason, and since I guess the original sociopath with murdering tendencies was too boring for Tim Burton, the writing team decided to give her a superpower: the ability to randomly see the future when she least expects it, just like in the much better "That's so Raven" (good job Mr. Burton!).
Changing the setting however wasn't enough for them, so they decided to insert some drama in the family, to spice things up: a secret murder backstory for the beloved Gomez and Morticia, who lack any trace of chemistry (unrelated but I had to point it out), and by adding an unnecessary conflict between Wednesday and her mother. And for what concerns the last point, I have seen many people defending it by saying "she's a teenager, every teenager has conflict with their parents at that age. It's perfectly normal family dynamics". But that is exactly where the problem is: the Addam's family, by definition, is the opposite of normal, so this classic teenage drama and rebelliousness doesn't really fit the character.
But let's move on to the storyline, shall we?
To keep it simple, Wednesday gets sent by her parents to this school of outcasts, where a monster is on the loose, killing both students and normies (that's how the show refers to regular people). Among this chaos, Wednesday has a vision of impending doom, having to turn herself into a hero and investigate in order to save the school, while dealing with school drama and a love triangle, where she has to choose between a boring and plain white guy that vaguely looks like Evan Peters, and another boring and plain white guy that also vaguely looks like Evan Peters, but with slightly longer hair (Oh boy, can't wait to see who she ends up choosing). All of this is accompanied by some of the cringiest dialogues I have ever witnessed, gifting us with lines such as:
"Wow, you're in black and white... Like a living Instagram filter" "When I look at you, the following emojis come to mind. Rope. Shovel. Hole." "You're just kind of kooky" "I prefer spooky".
The plot is extremely predictable, including its numerous alleged twists, and it culminates in an extremely silly battle that looks as if it came out straight from a Disney channel original movie, with a zombie pilgrim from the 1600 who vouched to burn all outcasts, who uses his magic staff to try to burn the school down. Wait, but if he can use magic, doesn't that make him and outcast too? Also in the flashback he didn't really use magic, or am I wrong? And what was the point of reanimating him anyways? I don't know and I simply don't get it.
One more thing and then I swear I'll be done. This is more of a pet peeve of mine, so it's not really a big deal, but it still really bothers me. Thanks to Wednesday's vision, the show introduces us to an Addams family's ancestor from 400 years ago: Goody Addams (yes, I agree, it's a really silly name). The whole witch thing and vision powers is implied to come from Morticia's side of the family, which is also the main reason of the conflict between the two. It's Morticia the only other person in the family that has visions. It's Morticia that gives Wednesday additional information on this ancestor. It's Morticia that gives her the magic amulet that later, with the help of Goody, will save Wednesday's life.
But Morticia's last name is not Addams, it's Frump. So I guess she got the witch power from both her mom and her dad? Couldn't they simply make her an ancestor from the mother side, to fit the storyline that they wrote more? Also, I find it hard to believe that they managed to maintain the same family name for 400 years. Especially, considering that Goody is a woman, and we live in a patriarchal society were we take our father's name. Did the writers thought that if they gave her different last name, or no last name at all and just called her Goody to make it simpler, the audience would have been too stupid to understand that they were related? Even though the character in the flashback is played by the same actress? I know it's a stupid hill to die on, but it really bothers me.
That said, the show manages to not be a complete disaster simply because of Jenna Ortega's performance, who as I said before, literally carried the show. She really managed to portrait a more mature and emotional version of the character without losing the essence. And considering the script she was given, she did an absolutely phenomenal work, especially in the dance scene, which was truly iconic. Thanks to her, and her alone, a show that would have been completely unwatchable, turned into mediocre but easy to binge series, raising the rating from 2/10 to a 4.5/10. So, koodos to her.
P. S. Having a subplot about a girl failing to turn into a werewolf and therefore failing her parents expectations, who want to send her to a conversion camp, implying a clear parallelism with being gay in a conservative family, to later have her suddenly and randomly turn into a werewolf just for the thrill of a final battler is kind of shitty.
All of this leaves me baffled and confused, like as if I have watched a completely different show than everybody else. The show, in my opinion, is just not very good. Or better, it's just really bad.
From the butchering of the main themes of the original Addams family, to the ridiculous storyline, the predictable writing, the cringy dialogue, the acting (exception made for Jenna Ortega's Wednesday, which literally carries the show), the dull love triangle, the teenage drama, I could go on forever.
But let's tackle this one issue at a time.
Let's start by talking about the original Addams family. The whole point of the Addams family was to satirize and completely invert the trope of the perfect ideal American family. To do so, the original comic book (and the subsequent 60s tv show and 90s films) sets this family of "outcasts" (as the show likes to call them), where everyone dresses in black, is pale, has fascination for the macabre, and simply doesn't care about what society thinks or expect of them, in the most normal place you could think of: the suburbs. And that is where the strength of the original saga comes from: this contrast between the seemingly perfect American family, where everyone is preoccupied with their appearance and how society perceives them, hiding how secretly unhappy they are, and this grim loving family where between torture and grave digging, everyone is happy and loves and cares for one another.
The Wednesday show however decided to take a different route, by placing the titular character away from her family, in a special school for outcasts. However, by placing Wednesday in a school full of werewolves, vampires, sirens, and other cliché monsters from "The Monster Mash", she just loses her spark. Are we really supposed to believe that literal monsters are scared and weirded out by a regular girl who dresses in black, doesn't blink often and sometimes plays the cello? For this reason, and since I guess the original sociopath with murdering tendencies was too boring for Tim Burton, the writing team decided to give her a superpower: the ability to randomly see the future when she least expects it, just like in the much better "That's so Raven" (good job Mr. Burton!).
Changing the setting however wasn't enough for them, so they decided to insert some drama in the family, to spice things up: a secret murder backstory for the beloved Gomez and Morticia, who lack any trace of chemistry (unrelated but I had to point it out), and by adding an unnecessary conflict between Wednesday and her mother. And for what concerns the last point, I have seen many people defending it by saying "she's a teenager, every teenager has conflict with their parents at that age. It's perfectly normal family dynamics". But that is exactly where the problem is: the Addam's family, by definition, is the opposite of normal, so this classic teenage drama and rebelliousness doesn't really fit the character.
But let's move on to the storyline, shall we?
To keep it simple, Wednesday gets sent by her parents to this school of outcasts, where a monster is on the loose, killing both students and normies (that's how the show refers to regular people). Among this chaos, Wednesday has a vision of impending doom, having to turn herself into a hero and investigate in order to save the school, while dealing with school drama and a love triangle, where she has to choose between a boring and plain white guy that vaguely looks like Evan Peters, and another boring and plain white guy that also vaguely looks like Evan Peters, but with slightly longer hair (Oh boy, can't wait to see who she ends up choosing). All of this is accompanied by some of the cringiest dialogues I have ever witnessed, gifting us with lines such as:
"Wow, you're in black and white... Like a living Instagram filter" "When I look at you, the following emojis come to mind. Rope. Shovel. Hole." "You're just kind of kooky" "I prefer spooky".
The plot is extremely predictable, including its numerous alleged twists, and it culminates in an extremely silly battle that looks as if it came out straight from a Disney channel original movie, with a zombie pilgrim from the 1600 who vouched to burn all outcasts, who uses his magic staff to try to burn the school down. Wait, but if he can use magic, doesn't that make him and outcast too? Also in the flashback he didn't really use magic, or am I wrong? And what was the point of reanimating him anyways? I don't know and I simply don't get it.
One more thing and then I swear I'll be done. This is more of a pet peeve of mine, so it's not really a big deal, but it still really bothers me. Thanks to Wednesday's vision, the show introduces us to an Addams family's ancestor from 400 years ago: Goody Addams (yes, I agree, it's a really silly name). The whole witch thing and vision powers is implied to come from Morticia's side of the family, which is also the main reason of the conflict between the two. It's Morticia the only other person in the family that has visions. It's Morticia that gives Wednesday additional information on this ancestor. It's Morticia that gives her the magic amulet that later, with the help of Goody, will save Wednesday's life.
But Morticia's last name is not Addams, it's Frump. So I guess she got the witch power from both her mom and her dad? Couldn't they simply make her an ancestor from the mother side, to fit the storyline that they wrote more? Also, I find it hard to believe that they managed to maintain the same family name for 400 years. Especially, considering that Goody is a woman, and we live in a patriarchal society were we take our father's name. Did the writers thought that if they gave her different last name, or no last name at all and just called her Goody to make it simpler, the audience would have been too stupid to understand that they were related? Even though the character in the flashback is played by the same actress? I know it's a stupid hill to die on, but it really bothers me.
That said, the show manages to not be a complete disaster simply because of Jenna Ortega's performance, who as I said before, literally carried the show. She really managed to portrait a more mature and emotional version of the character without losing the essence. And considering the script she was given, she did an absolutely phenomenal work, especially in the dance scene, which was truly iconic. Thanks to her, and her alone, a show that would have been completely unwatchable, turned into mediocre but easy to binge series, raising the rating from 2/10 to a 4.5/10. So, koodos to her.
P. S. Having a subplot about a girl failing to turn into a werewolf and therefore failing her parents expectations, who want to send her to a conversion camp, implying a clear parallelism with being gay in a conservative family, to later have her suddenly and randomly turn into a werewolf just for the thrill of a final battler is kind of shitty.
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