“Wednesday” Season 1 Review
“Wednesday” is the new Original series by Netflix all about the Addams family’s murderous daughter. Directed by Tim Burton the show is advertised as a horror comedy but it’s got a fair bit of detective in it too, in fact, it’s more detective than it is horror or comedy.
Netflix’s Newest Smash Hit?
OK so I’m going to get the bad stuff out of the way first because I really don’t want to say anything negative about the Wednesday, I have to be honest though. Without getting into spoiler territory, the entire show felt confused. Like it didn’t know what it wanted to be so it checked all the boxes to be safe, not worrying about the inevitable pacing issues that approach would bring. It has many branching storylines, Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) herself openly states that all of them are likely connected she just doesn’t know how yet, here’s the issue with that; the storylines are all over the place. One is brought up every episode and is a constant, being used as a way to heal the bonds between Wednesday and Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), think about this story for one second though and it crumbles immediately. One overarching story is used as a way to tell another, less focused on story, the issue is that it doesn’t make any sense. Constant comparisons are made between Wednesday and Morticia in an obvious attempt at mirroring how similar but also how different they are.
Some of the mini plots are built up over 4 hour long episodes only to be solved in a few minutes by the fifth, how they’re going to link that story to the others I don’t know. It’ll likely just be forgotten, much to my dismay. The show feels like it knows what it’s doing but, perhaps because of it’s various plot threads or maybe just because it’s poorly written, the big mystery of this season is pretty much solved within one a half episodes as such watching it in it’s entirety can sometimes feel like the writers are insulting your intelligence a bit.
Let’s Skip To The Good Parts
The soundtrack, as expected is out of this world good. The cello rendition of “Paint It Black” in episode one made me think “yup, this is something special” the acting is good. Jenna Ortega is a good Wednesday but her attitude definitely started to grind on me a bit, her Wednesday is so 2D until she needs to be something more then she changes, it’s inconsistent but that could be a writing issue. The supporting cast however were fantastic, I can’t see myself re-watching this show but if I did it would be solely for them.
Wednesday is a show that has me torn between “I don’t really need to watch that again” and desperately begging for a second season because I want to know how everything connects.
