Wednesday shows a world that is charming in a sneaky way. This has a lot to do with the cartoons from The Addams Family by Charles Addams, which first appeared in The New Yorker in 1938. The comics are about the creepy Addams family, who love all things scary and don’t care if their strange way of life makes other people uncomfortable. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Wednesday, which is named after the family’s daughter and is about her, is very original and fits well into its funny and strange world.
We start with Wednesday’s move to Nevermore Academy after some bullies on her swim team and piranhas got into a fight. Nevermore, where Wednesday’s parents went to school, is a school for “outcasts” of all kinds, including werewolves, vampires, gorgons, and more. The school sets up a world full of exciting possibilities, like love triangles, teachers who can change their appearance, deadly competitions with no rules, and, of course, attempts to kill. Add to this the legacy of director Tim Burton and a Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) who doesn’t care about anything and is full of sharp wit and cynicism, and you have the makings of a show you can watch over and over again.
The Addams Family has always had a strong connection to Halloween in popular culture. However, the Netflix show Wednesday, which came out the day before Thanksgiving, is about the painful history between the Pilgrims and Native Americans, which is often overlooked. Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, who made the show, got a lot of ideas from Wednesday’s speech about the Pilgrims’ colonization in the 1993 movie Addams Family Values. The Addams Family has always been a symbol of “otherness” and the discrimination that goes along with it, but Wednesday digs in even deeper by putting it in the context of the history of Thanksgiving.
Wednesday’s father Gomez has always seemed like a Mexican immigrant, but the show introduces us to his ancestor Goody Addams, an outcast who started a group in the 1600s to protect her people from the racism of Pilgrim leader Joseph Crackstone (William Houston). Crackstone started the made-up town of Jericho, which is now next to Nevermore Academy. Even though time may have given the town a thin layer of tolerance, it is still very common for outcasts to be treated badly. When a monster nobody knows starts killing them, Wednesday’s knowledge of her past and the sense of duty it gives her drive her to become a detective.
Wednesday has eight one-hour episodes that try to figure out different mysteries. Besides the killer monster, there are Wednesday’s repeated visions of the past and future and the dark secret that her parents seem to be keeping from her. Wednesday puts a lot of effort into keeping the suspense going. This might keep people guessing until the last episode, but the lack of engagement is a big problem with the show.
This starts with how weak Wednesday is as a person. As exciting as she is as an idea, she falls short as the main character. Even though she is smart and has a lot of sarcasm, she isn’t vulnerable enough for us to root for her. Even though she tells us her thoughts over and over, she is frustratingly vague about how she feels about the two boys who like her and about her troubled relationship with her mother, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones). At first, the show gives the impression that Wednesday’s rebellious behavior and even a big part of her personality may be a way for her to try to beat her mother.
She talks all the time about how she doesn’t want to live in her mother’s shadow or let her “control” her. The reasons for this bitterness aren’t clear, but things get worse when the mother-daughter fight is buried on Wednesday with no lasting effects. We’ve seen plenty of snarky female protagonists who hide behind a facade of independence. Sex Education’s Maeve Wiley comes to mind, but what makes them memorable is how their inner lives come to light. We don’t get this chance with Wednesday, which makes the thrill of the chase she so tenaciously goes after less exciting.
This is made worse by the way the plot and supporting characters are handled, which reminds me of Riverdale. There is a prom and many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many (the love triangle between Wednesday and two boys who seem constantly uncomfortable around her is particularly exhausting). Everyone but the one good person in the series is put in doubt, which is a typical thing to do in Nancy Drew’s books. After a while, you realize that there’s not much point in asking questions.
For example, how did the bad guy bring a dead guy back to life when we were told that it was impossible? Or, how did Wednesday get into that man’s car when he didn’t hear the trunk shut? Wednesday is very good at fencing, so why doesn’t she dodge the villain’s knife attack? With eight hours to work with, Wednesday’s suspense takes too long to build up, and the “anything goes” attitude of the previous episodes makes it hard to look forward to the show’s climax. The show is so focused on the questions it keeps asking us that it never stops to think about whether or not we still care.
Wednesday’s voice asks us at the end, “The suspense is killing you, isn’t it?” This makes us think that there might be a second season. We really wish it were true.
You can watch Wednesday on Netflix.
Is Wednesday Kid Friendly?
With a TV-14 rating for fear, language, and violence, some parts of the show might be too scary and mysterious for kids under 14.
Is Wednesday a Horror Series?
Wednesday is an American supernatural comedy horror streaming TV show based on the character Wednesday Addams by Charles Addams. It is about a girl coming of age and dealing with supernatural things.
Final Words
The show stars Jenna Ortega as the Addams family’s daughter Wednesday. She plays an outcast at a school for “outcasts” of all kinds, including werewolves, vampires, and gorgons. Wednesday puts a lot of effort into keeping the suspense going. The lack of engagement is a big problem with the show. Wednesday’s main character falls short the main character because she isn’t vulnerable enough.
We’ve seen plenty of snarky female protagonists who hide behind a facade of independence. With eight hours to work with, Wednesday’s suspense takes too long to build up. After a while, you realize that there’s not much point in asking questions. The show is so focused on the questions it keeps asking us that it never stops to think about whether or not we care.
