WEDNESDAY: SEASON ONE
Starring: Jenna Ortega, Gwendoline Christie, Riki Lindhome, Jamie McShane, Hunter Doohan, Percy Hynes White, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Christina Ricci, Moosa Mostafa, Isaac Ordonez, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Luis Guzmán
Creators: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
AMARÚ
Wednesday has a peculiar vibe I really enjoy: Harry Potter aesthetics, Buffy (good Buffy) campiness, and a Sherlock Holmes-ish family mystery fit for The CW. Some editing and dialogue choices are reminiscent of the “Young Adult Soap Opera” shows on that network, but those are nitpicks when you have a lead as powerful as Jenna Ortega (Wednesday). She is a perfect fit for the role whilst making it uniquely her own, which is all the more impressive considering she’s playing alongside her predecessor, Christina Ricci. I love a well-made teenage show, and Wednesday, the character and the series, delivers that on multiple levels.
PAIGE
This series is very much a mix of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets Riverdale, and with that, I’m afraid to say the choice to go full YA may have been a deadly one here. Wednesday never fully captures the wicked magic that made The Addams Family films oddly enjoyable. If it weren’t for Jenna Ortega’s morbidly good performance as Wednesday Addams, not to mention the charming aid of her handy sidekick Thing, this show would not have worked as well as it does.
