WEDNESDAY (2022)
Netflix original series from Tim Burton finds a teenage Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) being sent to the Nevermore Academy by her parents (Luis Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones) after getting near fatal revenge on a group of boys bullying her brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez). The academy is filled with supernatural misfits and while there, she is starting to show signs of her own psychic abilities while finding herself embroiled in a murder mystery to solve.
Series from executive producer and director Tim Burton is a fun eight-episode show featuring Addams Family classic character Wednesday as a Buffy/Sabrina type anti-heroine with special powers and working to solve a dark mystery. If you can appreciate the dry, droll humor and a delightfully morbid and twisted tone, then you should enjoy this series a lot. It follows Wednesday as the rebellious teen begins to develop psychic visions and discovers there is a killer afoot at the academy…and a mystery that goes back centuries and involves her own family bloodline. She also reluctantly makes some friends, definitely makes some enemies and even might find a little romance. None of the episodes feel like filler as Wednesday gathers clues and begins to find out about herself and her family history, both near past and distant. Jenna Ortega is simply perfect as a teenage Wednesday Addams and there are some colorful and engaging characters in support. The Addams Family members themselves don’t all fair as well as Guzmán and Zeta-Jones are sadly miscast as Gomez and Morticia. They just don’t work and have no chemistry together. Thankfully, aside from appearances by some familiar faces, it’s Ortega’s show and she takes the Goth ball and runs with it. A school dance sequences is a perfect example of just how well she nails the role. It’s a fun and spooky show to binge on a rainy afternoon and despite the before mentioned casting and some weak CGI, it’s otherwise an entertaining Sabrina-esque series giving a classic character a nice update and a wonderful actress to play her. Wednesday also features Christina Ricci as teacher Marilyn Thornhill, Fred Armisen, clearly having fun, as a visiting Uncle Fester, and GOT‘s Gwendoline Christie as the academy principal Larissa Weems. Currently streaming on Netflix!
EPISODE LIST:
- “Wednesday’s Child Is Full of Woe” written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar and directed by Tim Burton
- “Woe Is the Loneliest Number” written by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar and directed by Tim Burton
- “Friend or Woe” written by Kayla Alpert and directed by Tim Burton
- “Woe What a Night” written by Kayla Alpert and directed by Tim Burton
- “You Reap What You Woe” written by April Blair and directed by Gandja Monteiro
- “Quid Pro Woe” written by April Blair and directed by Gandja Monteiro
- “If You Don’t Woe Me by Now” written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Matt Lambert and directed by James Marshall
- “A Murder of Woes” written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar and directed by James Marshall
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