Tuesday TV Touchbase: Wednesday

 

This week's Tuesday TV Touchbase is my timely post on the Netflix series Wednesday.

OK, not so timely. The series dropped in November and it took Andrea and I until the middle of February to finish it. 

Look, if you're looking to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You for up to the minute reporting, well, you are a sad, strange little blog reader and you have my pity. 

Anyway, today I'm going to post about Wednesday.  

The series follows 16 year old Wednesday Addams as she is sent off to a boarding school after putting piranha in the pool of the high school swim team (they had bullied her brother Pugsley and nobody tortures her brother... except Wednesday.)  

She narrowly avoids the shame of having "attempted murder" on her permanent record. ATTEMPTED murder? Oh, the embarrassment of being known as having FAILED to murder the high school swim team. 

So Wednesday Addams winds up at Nevermore Academy, a gothic structure that serves as a boarding school for weirdos and outcasts. Think Hogwarts but with less charm.  

Wednesday's roommate is Enid, a golden haired embodiment of happiness and positivity.  

Wednesday says this of Enid: “She’s been smothering me with hospitality. I hope to return the favor. In her sleep.”

Enid's perkiness aside, she has her own struggles as both weirdo (she's a werewolf) and outcast (from her own kind. Enid can pop claws but otherwise cannot fully transform into a wolf.)  

Wednesday makes clear here intent to escape from Nevermore so she won't have put up with this shit. But then she is enticed to stay for a compelling reason.   

The murders. 

Bodies are being discovered in the woods ravaged by a vicious beast.  Sheriff Galpin of the nearby town of Jericho tells the public and the press it's a bear but he thinks it's a monster and he's pretty damn sure that monster is at Nevermore Academy.  

The town of Jericho and Nevermore exists in an uneasy state of detente. Of course the small town residents are bigoted and distrustful of the weirdos and outcasts of Nevermore. But the Academy has a great deal of wealth and contributes a big chunk of change to the town's tax base. Jericho can have nice things because Nevermore helps pay for them.  

Wednesday's investigation into the murders exposes her to more secrets such as some sketchy shit her parents Morticia and Gomez were up to when they were students at Nevermore.  

And there is the matter of the very, very old painting with a girl who looks like Wednesday in it.  Possibly an ancestor of her's?

And if all of that isn't enough, Wednesday has to contend with the damn visions that pop up at irregular and inconvenient intervals, visions of past horror, present danger and terrible portents of the future. 

Wednesday is also forced to interact with the students at Nevermore which she finds distasteful but necessary if she is going to unravel whatever the hell is going on. She joins a bee keeping club but it only has one member, Eugene, who is so happy to have someone else in the club who are not bees. 

And since Wednesday is 16 years old, she's got boy troubles whether she wants them or not (and she doesn't.) Despite being a cold, distant sociopath that makes her seem weird even to the weirdos and outcasts of her school, she's drawn the attention of Nevermore art student Xavier and Jericho barista Tyler who is the son of the sheriff but doesn't share his father's disdain of Nevermore. And Eugene's crushing on her hard.  

(And yes, there are shippers out there who want Enid and Wednesday to be a thing. I can see it but I'm guessing those shippers should not get their hopes up.)  

Wednesday actually dresses up and goes to a school dance. Where she seems to... enjoy herself? I mean, she doesn't crack a smile but she's a really energetic and distinctive dancer. 

(Clips of that dance sequence have been burning up the internet for months. In case you missed it, it's Your Friday Video Link this week.)   

Basically, this series takes someone out of the Addams Family and plops them in the middle of Riverdale.  With some Nancy Drew and Vampire Diaries mixed in.  

Wednesday is the Addams Family as a CW show. 

Which is not me saying this is a bad thing. 

Let's start with the character of Wednesday Addams.  Christina Ricci defined the part in the Addams Family  movies of the 1990s with her deadpan snarker. Alienation from others is not a bug but a desired outcome for the prepubescent Wednesday.  As good as Ricci is as Wednesday, she only has to hold our attention with her brutally cold dead wit for parts of the movie. 

The new adolescent Wednesday has to carry an entire series and that's where Jenna Ortega has some seriously heavy lifting to do and she pulls it off quite well. 

Ortega's Wednesday employs a lot of the morbid and sharp wit of Ricci's version but it's leavened with small bits of humanity that slip through the cracks of Wednesday's practiced persona. For example, she experiences guilt when Eugene goes off on his own to investigate the mystery and winds up being nearly mauled to death by the monster in the woods.  There are no tears or other outward expressions of remorse, just Wednesday standing silent vigil in Eugene's hospital room. 

Ortega's Wednesday is bereft of the support of the Addams Family.  Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán as Morticia and Gomez make appearances in a couple of episodese. Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester shows up near the end. Besides Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday, the one family member with a regular role is Thing, the disembodied hand.

For a disembodied hand, Thing has a lot of personality.   

But this is Wednesday's story, a coming of age where alienation changes from a life goal to something to be overcome. 

Stylistically,  Wednesday is beautiful to behold with it's gothic architecture covered in the sinister dark. Jenna Ortega as the title character is a strong and engaging performance and she's surrounded by a game and interesting supporting cast.

 And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week, we've got the start of the 3rd season of Star Trek Picard.   

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.