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meanwrightI liked Wednesday when I watched it the first time. I think I watched it alone because Y. didn't like it then. I did need to get through the first episode or two to start enjoying it, but I have overall good feelings. Now, since Netflix is advertising the next season, she didn't recognize it and wanted to watch it.
So, I get to watch it again.
Unfortunately, although my general recollection that the show gets better after the clunky dialogue in the first half of the show, on the second watching, the basic plot structure for the series is good, but it's not as fun. I was
Despite the dialog she's given, Jenna Ortega does an excellent job of acting -- kind of like how David Tarrant was able to save Doctor Who despite the awful Mudhoney-like scripts he was given by Russell Davies ("No one knows what happens when the streams of two sonic devices cross!"[1]). With a director like Burton, it obviously looks beautiful as well. However, the writers do try their best to take me out of the story at every opportunity with already-dated political quips in the first four episodes -- which, I suppose, are what are supposed to form the humor in this "horror-comedy."
Emmy Myers' Enid is a great foil for Wednesday and that dynamic carries the show.
The kids at Nevermore Academy are really grating. First of all, they are separated by monster-race, rather than being uniquely weird, which is more Munsters then Addams Family. That never stops being a sore point. which goes 180o from the Addams Family. Second of all, everyone has a completely normal personality except Wednesday. Again, this is 180o from the Addams Family -- where no one had these superpowers.
The idea of rich, superpowered kids being "outcasts" tormented by their baristas who work after their public school gets out before returning to their broken homes at night is kind of weird.
I guess it comes from the producers' therapy sessions. "All your problems come down to how much the government-school redneck kids hated you as a teen."
Season 1
Episode 1
This was as bad as I remembered it. The teaser, with the piranhas in the school swimming pool, would have been enough to make me turn it off -- if I hadn't grown up with the Addams Family. I don't know if your high school had a swimming pool (I'm pretty sure mine did not), but pools that get that much use are highly chlorinated. I mean, turn my adolescent pubes white chlorinated. Fish don't insanely attack swimmers in that circumstance, they suffocate.
I know its petty, but it's like in Black Panther when the bad guy "Graduated from West Point with a Ph.D. at 15" (or whatever). I mean, the piranha scene, like this Marvel movie line, tells me the writers didn't care about the show...so why should I?
And there's the inevitable disappointment that comes with the realization that the Nevermore Academy is just yet another discount Harry Potter rip-off. But the show added some Twilight vibes with the Vampire-Werewolf-Gorgon-Mermaid racialist shit, so I guess it's all okay.
At least there's no sporting event that Wednesday helps her team win to get her accepted at the school, right? And no love triangles for the main character. That'd be lame.
However, after an actual plot emerges, the episode is good. Unfortunately, that's only the last ten minutes.
Sort of like Stand Alone Complex, you have to get through the dull beginning to get to the good stuff at the end. I hope.
Episode 2
I spoke too soon. There is a boat race, no holds barred.
Eugene had some good lines, but they they fell flat because of the delivery. Good character, but not a comedic actor.
However, except for the angsty dialogue and dull-witted and overused refrain of "hatred and bigotry," the base of the story is good.
Episode 3
This episode definitely has time problems. I hate it when it feels like there is too much or too little time for something to happen. In this case it was too much: Wednesday leaves her Pilgrim World [2] volunteer job in what already has to be mid afternoon to wander into the forest and get attacked by the monster...and has time to get to her late afternoon cello recital.
The melting of the Crackstone statue gets five stars for the pyrotechnics, but definitely dates the show and its politics...as malicious endangerment is presented as a reason we should like Wednesday. A second violent fantasy (after the testicle-eating piranhas) showing the hatred of normal people
Oh, and btw, normal people wouldn't call themselves "normies" any more than people who grow up in town call themselves "townies." Those are kind of derisive nicknames used but he rich kids who look down on the working class that supports their elite institutions...like Nevermore Academy or the College of Wooster.
Episode 4
This is really where Wednesday starts to shine, although the teen drama is high.
It has the infamous Goo Goo Muck dance (and I hope Tim Burton regrets introducing the Cramps with TikTok and IG models). I'd pan stealing the Carrie scene, except the like "They couldn't even spring for real pig's blood" and, of course, the Addams Family stole the contract scene from A Night at the Opera to good effect.
Episode 5
This is the family weekend episode. It's a problem because no one seems to get Gomez and Morticia. Not the writers. Not the actors. And certainly not the costuming. Why is Morticia wearing a Vampira dress?
The actors in the flashbacks, however, feel more like Gomez and Morticia.
Too much weird, fake drama.
Episode 6
Although as a story, this episode seems good, its purpose is to point us towards the wrong suspects.
In so doing, it fails on two of my biggest:
(1) It requires omniscient villains that can determine exactly the protagonists know and how to exploit it.
(2) It requires one or two people to perform what would be a four or five day cleaning job in two hours.
Both are common, but they're sloppy and underhanded.
So, the part of the story that I remember as good ends up annoying me on the second, closer watch.
Episode 7
Basic TV logic means that everything Wednesday does here is wrong, and this entire episode is wasted because you know that...as set up by the previous episode.
Episode 8
I'd like to say that the climax is unforgettable, but I'd literally forgotten all of it.
------
[1] Everyone knows: nothing. It sound is a linear wave phenomenon, so the beams will pass through each other without affecting each other.
[2] Is it based on Dutch Wonderland in Lancaster, or the Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia? Probably the latter. I didn't see a roller coaster.
So, I get to watch it again.
Unfortunately, although my general recollection that the show gets better after the clunky dialogue in the first half of the show, on the second watching, the basic plot structure for the series is good, but it's not as fun. I was
Despite the dialog she's given, Jenna Ortega does an excellent job of acting -- kind of like how David Tarrant was able to save Doctor Who despite the awful Mudhoney-like scripts he was given by Russell Davies ("No one knows what happens when the streams of two sonic devices cross!"[1]). With a director like Burton, it obviously looks beautiful as well. However, the writers do try their best to take me out of the story at every opportunity with already-dated political quips in the first four episodes -- which, I suppose, are what are supposed to form the humor in this "horror-comedy."
Emmy Myers' Enid is a great foil for Wednesday and that dynamic carries the show.
The kids at Nevermore Academy are really grating. First of all, they are separated by monster-race, rather than being uniquely weird, which is more Munsters then Addams Family. That never stops being a sore point. which goes 180o from the Addams Family. Second of all, everyone has a completely normal personality except Wednesday. Again, this is 180o from the Addams Family -- where no one had these superpowers.
The idea of rich, superpowered kids being "outcasts" tormented by their baristas who work after their public school gets out before returning to their broken homes at night is kind of weird.
I guess it comes from the producers' therapy sessions. "All your problems come down to how much the government-school redneck kids hated you as a teen."
Season 1
Episode 1
This was as bad as I remembered it. The teaser, with the piranhas in the school swimming pool, would have been enough to make me turn it off -- if I hadn't grown up with the Addams Family. I don't know if your high school had a swimming pool (I'm pretty sure mine did not), but pools that get that much use are highly chlorinated. I mean, turn my adolescent pubes white chlorinated. Fish don't insanely attack swimmers in that circumstance, they suffocate.
I know its petty, but it's like in Black Panther when the bad guy "Graduated from West Point with a Ph.D. at 15" (or whatever). I mean, the piranha scene, like this Marvel movie line, tells me the writers didn't care about the show...so why should I?
And there's the inevitable disappointment that comes with the realization that the Nevermore Academy is just yet another discount Harry Potter rip-off. But the show added some Twilight vibes with the Vampire-Werewolf-Gorgon-Mermaid racialist shit, so I guess it's all okay.
At least there's no sporting event that Wednesday helps her team win to get her accepted at the school, right? And no love triangles for the main character. That'd be lame.
However, after an actual plot emerges, the episode is good. Unfortunately, that's only the last ten minutes.
Sort of like Stand Alone Complex, you have to get through the dull beginning to get to the good stuff at the end. I hope.
Episode 2
I spoke too soon. There is a boat race, no holds barred.
Eugene had some good lines, but they they fell flat because of the delivery. Good character, but not a comedic actor.
However, except for the angsty dialogue and dull-witted and overused refrain of "hatred and bigotry," the base of the story is good.
Episode 3
This episode definitely has time problems. I hate it when it feels like there is too much or too little time for something to happen. In this case it was too much: Wednesday leaves her Pilgrim World [2] volunteer job in what already has to be mid afternoon to wander into the forest and get attacked by the monster...and has time to get to her late afternoon cello recital.
The melting of the Crackstone statue gets five stars for the pyrotechnics, but definitely dates the show and its politics...as malicious endangerment is presented as a reason we should like Wednesday. A second violent fantasy (after the testicle-eating piranhas) showing the hatred of normal people
Oh, and btw, normal people wouldn't call themselves "normies" any more than people who grow up in town call themselves "townies." Those are kind of derisive nicknames used but he rich kids who look down on the working class that supports their elite institutions...like Nevermore Academy or the College of Wooster.
Episode 4
This is really where Wednesday starts to shine, although the teen drama is high.
It has the infamous Goo Goo Muck dance (and I hope Tim Burton regrets introducing the Cramps with TikTok and IG models). I'd pan stealing the Carrie scene, except the like "They couldn't even spring for real pig's blood" and, of course, the Addams Family stole the contract scene from A Night at the Opera to good effect.
Episode 5
This is the family weekend episode. It's a problem because no one seems to get Gomez and Morticia. Not the writers. Not the actors. And certainly not the costuming. Why is Morticia wearing a Vampira dress?
The actors in the flashbacks, however, feel more like Gomez and Morticia.
Too much weird, fake drama.
Episode 6
Although as a story, this episode seems good, its purpose is to point us towards the wrong suspects.
In so doing, it fails on two of my biggest:
(1) It requires omniscient villains that can determine exactly the protagonists know and how to exploit it.
(2) It requires one or two people to perform what would be a four or five day cleaning job in two hours.
Both are common, but they're sloppy and underhanded.
So, the part of the story that I remember as good ends up annoying me on the second, closer watch.
Episode 7
Basic TV logic means that everything Wednesday does here is wrong, and this entire episode is wasted because you know that...as set up by the previous episode.
Episode 8
I'd like to say that the climax is unforgettable, but I'd literally forgotten all of it.
------
[1] Everyone knows: nothing. It sound is a linear wave phenomenon, so the beams will pass through each other without affecting each other.
[2] Is it based on Dutch Wonderland in Lancaster, or the Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia? Probably the latter. I didn't see a roller coaster.
