Like almost everyone else in the country, we are watching the hot new series on Netflix, Wednesday. It is a “supernatural horror comedy” based upon the character Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family. The Addams Family was created by cartoonist Charles Addams in a series of cartoons in The New Yorker over a fifty year period starting in 1938. They first “came to life” in a 1964 TV series on ABC. Even though the show only ran for two seasons, The Addams Family “story” has become a staple of American popular culture that has been “retold” multiple times and heavily influenced American television, film, books, and games since then.
The show open with Wednesday’s brother Pugsley being bullied by a group of boys who are members of the school’s water polo team. Wednesday retaliates by releasing live piranhas into a pool while they are practicing. Wednesday is expelled and her parents enroll her in Nevermore Academy. This is a school for “outcasts” located in Vermont that both her parents attended. Wednesday’s “cold” personality makes it difficult for her to connect with her classmates. She is bright and defiant which gets her in trouble with the school authorities. After Wednesday arrives at the school, she gets pulled into events related to an ongoing series of horrific murders in the area around the school.
Wednesday was created by created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Tim Burton directed four of the episodes. It stars Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, Isaac Ordonez, Gwendoline Christie, Riki Lindhome, Jamie McShane, Fred Armisen, and Christina Ricci appear in supporting roles. Jenna Ortega does solid work with the main character. Teresa and I both felt that Guzmán and Zeta-Jones really didn’t deliver as Gomez and Morticia Addams. The look, style, and chemistry are “off”. It was cool that Christina Ricci who played Wednesday Addams in the 1990s movies was cast as botany teacher Marilyn Thornhill in this show.
Here are a couple of videos from the show. The first is the Season 1 trailer and the second is the dance scene everyone is talking about.
I usually miss the big “cultural events” when they are happening on TV. I never watched Lost or Survivor (We are actually steaming it now). The Sopranos and True Blood were both late starts. Did watch Dallas for the “Who shot J.R.?” craze, added the ending song from each Mad Men episode to my playlist that day, and caught who got killed off next with Game of Thrones every week. We almost were not going to watch this one, but I am glad we decided to give it a try while everyone else is watching. If you haven’t watched yet, we are giving it a thumbs up!