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Wednesday Season 1 Review

Wednesday is a coming-of-age supernatural mystery series that premiered its first season on Netflix in 2022. It’s a very charming, cozy show.

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“I don’t bury hatchets.

I sharpen them“

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The story revolves around Wednesday Addams, who attempts to solve a murder mystery at her new school. Executive produced by Tim Burton and benefiting from a tremendous cast of performers, this series ended up being a huge hit and is still ranked as one of Netflix’s highest-rated shows. It’s easy to see why it was so popular given that the series is so damn endearing and enchanting.

The choice to mix this property with the elements from the Harry Potter series was a solid one. It led to an overly familiar narrative, but one that was immensely enjoyable, especially for a HP fan and a fan of The Addams Family that I myself count as. The series is not as strong as the second movie from the nineties, but it came awfully close to that level of greatness.

Jenna Ortega was a revelation on this show. Her Wednesday Addams is instantly iconic and she fits the role like a glove. I loved her aesthetic – her cool hairstyle and her goth wardrobe with the very high-platform boots made her very memorable. The character is just as cold-natured and amusingly sardonic as ever and Ortega delivered a powerhouse performance throughout this season, particularly killing it in her facial expressions and excellent comedic timing.

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Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman are just fine as her parents. They are nowhere near as iconic as the previous iterations of these characters, but their roles were minor here, so they served their purpose. The same goes for Fred Armisen’s overly mild and forgettable Uncle Fester. At least Thing is here and how this grotesque but valuable pet hand was utilized into every episode was ingenious. I found the protagonist’s connection with it utterly charming.

Gwendoline Christie was so well cast as the principal and she was endlessly engaging as this mysterious woman whom you never know if she is on your side or not. Christina Ricci was lovely as the eventual villain, though that twist wasn’t all that interesting to me. The entire final episode was overly familiar and a bit lackluster.

Of the other teenagers, Enid fared best as Wednesday’s lovable friend. Eugene also had his moments and was quite funny. This trio was very reminiscent of Harry, Ron and Hermione and mostly for the better. Tyler and Xavier serve their purpose, but aren’t terribly interesting individually. The guys on this feminist show are poorly defined compared to the girls. Bianca, on the other hand, was quite interesting and I enjoyed her competitive relationship with our heroine.

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Netflix’s Wednesday benefits from strong technical aspects. This is one of the better-looking shows on this streaming service. The production design is splendid and imaginative, the cinematography is suitably dark as is the overall aesthetic and the soundtrack is a delight. The show is pleasingly colorful and its CGI is quite polished and amusingly cartoony in its monster designs. The dialogue is very clever as is the show’s dark humor, but the second half focused on the mystery way too much to the detriment of the humor. That mystery was also solved too easily and the twists and turns were just okay. Thus, I preferred the individual elements of this series much more than I did the overall narrative.