Online Series: Tim Burton's 'Wednesday'

[tacogeoff]

Wednesday as a character reminds me 100% of April from Parks and Rec. Great show so far

 

[Jussi]

Color me an ignorant slut- but what does CW stand for?

CW network.

 

[trostol]

Color me an ignorant slut- but what does CW stand for?

lol you know what..i had to look it up if it actually stood for anything it does..but its awfully long-winded answer..but mostly it is a broadcast TV station i am assuming in just the states that seems to carry a lot of superhero/teen drama-type shows

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Haven't read any of the posts and I'm only half way through the first episode, but Wednesday is insufferable.

 

[Jussi]

Really liked the first season.

Bottom left one.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

2 eps in and i’m hooked. Very good so far. Not at all what I was expecting from an Addams Family spinoff (good thing)

 

[Hockeyfrilla]

Enjoyed this one! Jenna Ortega is awesome

 

[Raekwon]

Ortega is gonna be a star!
fantastic show

 

[Super Cake]

I enjoyed it

 

[TNT87]

I'm hooked after 2 episodes.

 

[S E P H]

Really solid show, it isn't perfect (some stupid storyboard elements) and the bloke who played Fester was a complete nightmare of an actor, but I like that Burton made it a crime mystery instead of a dark comedy skit.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Really solid show, it isn't perfect (some stupid storyboard elements) and the bloke who played Fester was a complete nightmare of an actor, but I like that Burton made it a crime mystery instead of a dark comedy skit.

Fred Armisen is the actor. I didn't really enjoy his rendition of Fester either tbh but overall didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the show

 

[S E P H]

Fred Armisen is the actor. I didn't really enjoy his rendition of Fester either tbh but overall didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the show

I agree that he was such a minor segment, but I am scared that he's going to get a greater role in season II and beyond.

 

[HanSolo]

Binged it. By the halfway point of the season I was really just watching for Jenna Ortega. She's the best part of the show by far. One note deadpan can be hard to pull off but she invested the right amount in showing glimmers of sympathy and vulnerability that it was kind of captivating just to watch her be posed with different situations to see how she plays Wednesday's reactions.

The problem is, without Ortega being excellent, this was barely above cookie cutter CW Network schlock. Which is insane to me considering the level of Tim Burton's involvement. Legitimately the only thing I thought was done well aside from Jenna Ortega's performance (and some HMs to Zeta Jones, and Christie in certain scenes) was the backstory surrounding Morticia and Gomez. The dialogue was sharp, when it was written for Wednesday. It's like they hired two writing teams. One for Wednesday, one for everyone else. Most of the supporting cast was average to downright bad (Wednesday's roommate and her primary love interest in particular were pretty much insufferable). The general story writing started strong...ish, and I excused some of the camp and corniness of the first half of the season as a show not taking itself too seriously. But some of the stuff in the back half of the season pushed my limits and the plot itself made my stomach hurt.

I'm going to have to spoiler tag my biggest gripe

Spoiler

but they have Wednesday boldly proclaim she's figured out who the monster/killer is three times before she finally gets it right. I'm all for an otherwise hypercompetent lead being flawed and making mistakes, especially a teenager who's solving murders for the first time, but it's three separate times where they have the Sherlock/Benoit Blanc deductive reasoning flashback montage with the conclusion of the killer is only to wrench it away and say "nope, that wasn't it. Keep binging to find out dumbass." But it comes at the expense of staying invested in Wednesday's competency as the whodunnit hero. By the time Wednesday finally clues into the identity of the real killers you can pretty much figure out who it is by process of elimination. It was exhausting. To say nothing of how f***ing ridiculous it was that one of her accused, Xavier, got thrown in jail because of how wrong she was and he was still romantically interested in her after the fact. It'd be one thing if he reluctantly helped her save the day but his anger at her in the jail was pretty justified and absolutely should have carried over.

Another gripe but it's frustrating that shows like this aimed at a younger demographic insist on love triangles as a selling hook. I may be pushing 30 at this point but I don't think even when I was in the teen years that I needed a love triangle to be interested in a story.

And last, I get it's Netflix and it's a limited budget but holy shit the big bad monster had the most unintentionally hilarious design I've seen in a good long while. Nothing about it made me even unnerved. I just had to laugh at how bad it was.

Idk. I liked the first half, like I said, for the most part but I don't know if Jenna Ortega's performance in this role is enough to make me come back for a season 2. Hope to see her in better projects going forward.

 

[beowulf]

Ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would. Can't wait to see where it goes next.

 

[Fripp]

Binged it. By the halfway point of the season I was really just watching for Jenna Ortega. She's the best part of the show by far. One note deadpan can be hard to pull off but she invested the right amount in showing glimmers of sympathy and vulnerability that it was kind of captivating just to watch her be posed with different situations to see how she plays Wednesday's reactions.

The problem is, without Ortega being excellent, this was barely above cookie cutter CW Network schlock. Which is insane to me considering the level of Tim Burton's involvement. Legitimately the only thing I thought was done well aside from Jenna Ortega's performance (and some HMs to Zeta Jones, and Christie in certain scenes) was the backstory surrounding Morticia and Gomez. The dialogue was sharp, when it was written for Wednesday. It's like they hired two writing teams. One for Wednesday, one for everyone else. Most of the supporting cast was average to downright bad (Wednesday's roommate and her primary love interest in particular were pretty much insufferable). The general story writing started strong...ish, and I excused some of the camp and corniness of the first half of the season as a show not taking itself too seriously. But some of the stuff in the back half of the season pushed my limits and the plot itself made my stomach hurt.

I'm going to have to spoiler tag my biggest gripe

Spoiler

but they have Wednesday boldly proclaim she's figured out who the monster/killer is three times before she finally gets it right. I'm all for an otherwise hypercompetent lead being flawed and making mistakes, especially a teenager who's solving murders for the first time, but it's three separate times where they have the Sherlock/Benoit Blanc deductive reasoning flashback montage with the conclusion of the killer is only to wrench it away and say "nope, that wasn't it. Keep binging to find out dumbass." But it comes at the expense of staying invested in Wednesday's competency as the whodunnit hero. By the time Wednesday finally clues into the identity of the real killers you can pretty much figure out who it is by process of elimination. It was exhausting. To say nothing of how f***ing ridiculous it was that one of her accused, Xavier, got thrown in jail because of how wrong she was and he was still romantically interested in her after the fact. It'd be one thing if he reluctantly helped her save the day but his anger at her in the jail was pretty justified and absolutely should have carried over.

Another gripe but it's frustrating that shows like this aimed at a younger demographic insist on love triangles as a selling hook. I may be pushing 30 at this point but I don't think even when I was in the teen years that I needed a love triangle to be interested in a story.

And last, I get it's Netflix and it's a limited budget but holy shit the big bad monster had the most unintentionally hilarious design I've seen in a good long while. Nothing about it made me even unnerved. I just had to laugh at how bad it was.

Idk. I liked the first half, like I said, for the most part but I don't know if Jenna Ortega's performance in this role is enough to make me come back for a season 2. Hope to see her in better projects going forward.

I agree with everything you said. The ending was one predictable trope after another, and, when combine with Netflix-bloat, the last couple episodes really dragged and could have been a chore to get through, and I likely won't be back for a second run - but, f***, Jenna Ortega really was that good.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Binged it. By the halfway point of the season I was really just watching for Jenna Ortega. She's the best part of the show by far. One note deadpan can be hard to pull off but she invested the right amount in showing glimmers of sympathy and vulnerability that it was kind of captivating just to watch her be posed with different situations to see how she plays Wednesday's reactions.

The problem is, without Ortega being excellent, this was barely above cookie cutter CW Network schlock. Which is insane to me considering the level of Tim Burton's involvement. Legitimately the only thing I thought was done well aside from Jenna Ortega's performance (and some HMs to Zeta Jones, and Christie in certain scenes) was the backstory surrounding Morticia and Gomez. The dialogue was sharp, when it was written for Wednesday. It's like they hired two writing teams. One for Wednesday, one for everyone else. Most of the supporting cast was average to downright bad (Wednesday's roommate and her primary love interest in particular were pretty much insufferable). The general story writing started strong...ish, and I excused some of the camp and corniness of the first half of the season as a show not taking itself too seriously. But some of the stuff in the back half of the season pushed my limits and the plot itself made my stomach hurt.

I'm going to have to spoiler tag my biggest gripe

Spoiler

but they have Wednesday boldly proclaim she's figured out who the monster/killer is three times before she finally gets it right. I'm all for an otherwise hypercompetent lead being flawed and making mistakes, especially a teenager who's solving murders for the first time, but it's three separate times where they have the Sherlock/Benoit Blanc deductive reasoning flashback montage with the conclusion of the killer is only to wrench it away and say "nope, that wasn't it. Keep binging to find out dumbass." But it comes at the expense of staying invested in Wednesday's competency as the whodunnit hero. By the time Wednesday finally clues into the identity of the real killers you can pretty much figure out who it is by process of elimination. It was exhausting. To say nothing of how f***ing ridiculous it was that one of her accused, Xavier, got thrown in jail because of how wrong she was and he was still romantically interested in her after the fact. It'd be one thing if he reluctantly helped her save the day but his anger at her in the jail was pretty justified and absolutely should have carried over.

Another gripe but it's frustrating that shows like this aimed at a younger demographic insist on love triangles as a selling hook. I may be pushing 30 at this point but I don't think even when I was in the teen years that I needed a love triangle to be interested in a story.

And last, I get it's Netflix and it's a limited budget but holy shit the big bad monster had the most unintentionally hilarious design I've seen in a good long while. Nothing about it made me even unnerved. I just had to laugh at how bad it was.

Idk. I liked the first half, like I said, for the most part but I don't know if Jenna Ortega's performance in this role is enough to make me come back for a season 2. Hope to see her in better projects going forward.

You'll be back and you know it. Just enjoy it for what it is and stop over analyzing everything ffs!!!

 

[HanSolo]

You'll be back and you know it. Just enjoy it for what it is and stop over analyzing everything ffs!!!

I wasn't trying to. I was just getting more and more underwhelmed the longer I watched. In fairness, even the stupid stuff was decently entertaining, and like I said, Jenna Ortega killed it every episode with her take of the character. It's just that by the time I reached the end, too many things were bothering me. My thing is I can enjoy something geared towards kids or teens as long as it's well made enough to be universal. This felt like it had the bones to be a universal teen dramedy but I don't know maybe that's what really bothered me, the overreliance on tired teen mystery tropes while having a virtually nontropey unconventional lead mixed in with trying to imbue the last half with entirely too many twists and turns. I think it's because the show gave the impression that it could be smarter and higher quality than that, I was hoping and expecting it to be.

I agree with everything you said. The ending was one predictable trope after another, and, when combine with Netflix-bloat, the last couple episodes really dragged and could have been a chore to get through, and I likely won't be back for a second run - but, f***, Jenna Ortega really was that good.

Yeah I went through the thread and some user reviews on meta critic curious about how others felt and was surprised that there are those who felt Ortega wasn't good or that Wednesday as a character was insufferable. It's like yeah, this rendition of the character and even past renditions are pretty much supposed to be. I thought she was fantastic. My first time I can recall seeing Ortega in something and the best thing this show did on my personal level is get me excited to see how her career can unfold.

 

[Jussi]

The first 4 episodes, which were directed by Burton, flowed the best.

 

[Jumptheshark]

I liked it--one whinge--too predictable of an ending of who the big meanie was

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I liked it--one whinge--too predictable of an ending of who the big meanie was

Yea it was. Not even the monster but the other person, so obvious. Still really enjoyed it!

Also was officially renewed for the 2nd season the other day.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Yea it was. Not even the monster but the other person, so obvious. Still really enjoyed it!

Also was officially renewed for the 2nd season the other day.

The other person was way too obvious and I hate things thT predictable

 

[Jussi]

 

[mrmovies779]

I'm excited for season 2 and more Ortega