Wednesday's Child Is Full of Woe

I was always fascinated by the macabre version of the traditional 20th century family the Addams have always meant to be as invisioned by creator Charles Addams. Particularly Christina Ricci's excellent performance in the 1990s movies on the role of Wednesday. A personal favorite of mine. And the most interesting aspect of their shows and movies was of course their interaction with the rest of the world.

So it's no surprise that a show created by the duo that wrote Smallville and Spider-Man 2, directed by king of the macabre Tim Burton and featuring the most cynical, precocious and strong female teenager with a brilliant premise that is placing her in today's social-media-infested, internet-addictive society; in a school of outcasts like herself would be the best possible idea for today's era of entertainment.

With layers over layers of social critique, eloquent rhetoric, interesting new characters, brilliant characterisation by everyone in the Addams family (particularly Caherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia) and new characters; it is bound to be one of my favorites yet. I only wish this show had come out during Halloween month as Tim Burton's set and visual design and filmmaking permiates throughout this first episode. Delightfully grotesque yet sophisticatedly goth, the show has very visually interesting designs, set, clothing and framing choices that bring a unique flair to what essentially feels like a high-school-teen coming of age story. Which I adore and am glad and very engaged with the several character plotpoints presented ever so slightly but cleverly strong in this first episode.

Every scene in this first episode is gold. Especially the excellent fencing scene, which is the better executed version of the James Bond's Die Another Day one. But every scene fulfills at least one, and at times even more, of the essential narrative elements like character building, backstory and setting development or presentation of all the story threads we will be following in the show. I felt engaged and intrigued by the many subplots we are to explore and laughed at the dark comedy and excellent writing and characterisation the show has. I hope it can keep it up.

An outcast's been expelled, now her parents are compelled, enrol her in another school, hope she'll follow all the rules, but she's not fully compliant, more devoutly dark defiant, has a plan to make escape, won't be moulded into shape, but the school of Nevermore, has taught this loner type before, and the Principal's familiar, with the crooked and nonlinear, so she's watched, observed and viewed, while she plots, schemes and colludes, though she's started to get visions, that leave some less well provisioned, sets the scene for wanting more, if you like gothic folklore, the creatures conjured and created, may leave you feeling quite elated.

After watching this episode, I had no doubt that Wednesday would be a good series. They set up everyone's character perfectly and even got us started on mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode and truly can not wait to watch the rest of this original Netflix series!

It's very fast paced and gothic. The way it's set up is all about Wednesday moving to Nevermore after she is expelled from her other schools. It's apparently a school for outcasts and her parents say she'll fit in. She doesn't, but she makes friends with some other members and is beginning to like it there. It's a real cliffhanger.

Wednesday Addams is sent to the Nevermore Academy.

This is an enjoyable opening episode with decent humour and character moments.

The plot sets the scene, introduces characters and kicks off a central mystery pretty well inside one hour.

I am a fan of the Christina Ricci version of the title character and I'm happy to say that Jenna Ortega plays it in the same deadpan spirit. How much a single Addams character can carry an entire show will be interesting to see, but the writers definitely chose the right one.

The humour is typically Addams Family, by satirising social norms with Wednesday's reactions and one-liners towards various people. Plus it has all the macabre jokes that involve pain, suffering and death in some shape or form. How much of this will stay fresh for an entire series remains to be seen. I particularly like the opening sequence and a memorable line from Wednesday relating to social media.

Visually it's excellent, with strong cinematography and superb art design, that feels typically Burton, especially the scenes where various shades of colour contrasting with Wednesday gothic appearance.

There are some moments that feel a bit forced to try and add a degree of coolness to the character such as the martial arts. The related jock-bully type antagonists appearing again near the end to increase the stakes, after already proving inept as threats, feels contrived and a bit pointless to me.

For me it's a 7.5/10 but I round upwards.

I have been looking forward to the launch of the series with bated breath ever since it was first announced. The plot doesn't appear to get off to a particularly good start here, coming off as more of a stereotypically angsty teen drama than a "Addams Family" adaptation, taking itself far too seriously most of the time, and failing to imbue the satirical, tongue-in-cheek humour I was obviously expecting from the franchise. As a result, I'm not overly enthusiastic to report that.

It's not the worst thing ever, but it's also not the best thing ever. However, in general, it does give the impression that it is creatively masquerading as something that it is not, being nowhere near as sharp or self-aware as it has to be in order to compete with previous incarnations that have ingrained themselves in the history of popular culture.

Even Tim Burton's direction doesn't add much because his unique style can't break through Netflix's visual framework, which makes all of their properties look the same.

Aside from that, the pilot was a clear rip-off of Sabrina, and the supporting teenage actors all appeared to be paid to be bored, so I won't be tuning in for episode two.

It's not a problem, as I've said... On the other hand, this degree of apathy is a great deal lower than I had hoped for.