WandaVision’s Opening Act is a Little Bumpy
Take two A-list Hollywood actors in Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, put them in a (popular, at the moment) period setting, in a superhero (also super popular at the moment) story, and hype the ever-loving heck out of it and you have Disney+’s WandaVision.
I promise no real spoilers in the following review.
The First of Two Episodes
Normally, I don’t mind a story/show/series taking a moment, a few episodes even, to set itself up, build its world, and show you the path its planning on following. The thing is, when a story does that, it still has to kinda let you know something.
Now two episodes in, and only nine episodes total planned for this series, they still haven’t told me even what I’m watching. And what they have shown me isn’t making a lot of compelling sense.
The above trailer shows you the final, climax scene of the first episode with a trailer-appropriate level of misdirection, the dinner scene. That scene, in which Wanda Maximoff (Olsen) and Vision (Bettany) have Vision’s boss Mr. Hart (veteran character actor Fred Melamed) and his wife (That 70’s Show‘s Debra Jo Rupp) for a folly-filled boss-comes-to-dinner scene worthy of I Love Lucy leaves you wondering…do I want more of this?
It was obvious that writer Jac Schaeffer and director Matt Shakman were trying to create a tense, disturbing, almost horror-quality scene behind the façade of the Lucille-and-Ricky-esque humor that didn’t quite work, but the end result was an episode ending that left me (and my wife, The Midwest Gal) simply confused.
Also, in stark contrast to what the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been producing since 2008’s Iron Man, which has been carefully crafted, with every character’s actions making at least some degree of sense (or intentional nonsense), the scene with Wanda making dinner, when she literally possesses the ability to conjure items out of thin air (as the next trailer shows with their wedding rings), simply doesn’t make sense within its own context.
That strikes me as lazy writing.
The Second of Two Episodes
The second episode was slightly more compelling, but still missing a key element of what is clearly a fish-out-of-water setup…the fish struggling to breathe.
But where the first episode was all about I Love Lucy, this one is all about I Dream of Jeannie. From what I’ve read, this is the theme of WandaVision, paying homage to various classic television shows in each episode.
As the trailer clearly shows, there is a random beekeeper standing in the middle of the road, clock radios trying to talk to Wanda, and some slightly growing concern as to the nature of the situation, I still find myself more confused than the two hero characters, who according to the releases about the show exist in the modern day (the show, despite appearances to the contrary, takes place after the events of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame) finding themselves in 1950s suburban New Jersey.
At least I think it’s New Jersey.
So, the ending of this one at least gives you some sort of a clue that this is an actual MCU-relevant story, but still, leaves a lot of story left to be told and only seven more episodes to tell it.
Going by the trailers, this show will get more interesting. But I shouldn’t have to rely on the trailers to tell me that.
Here’s What WandaVision Gets Right So Far
The imagination of this show is top notch. For a time in our storytelling history where re-makes and sequels are all the rage, the originality of this technically-not-100-percent-original story is high. Placing two of Marvel Comics’ most powerful superheroes in period TV show settings to try and tell a series-length story is clever.
And the showrunners have really gone above and beyond to pay attention to the detail in the period settings. They’ve been so successful at it, that a cross-section of comic book geeks and mid-century-modern furniture aficionados started drooling over an (apparently very rare and desirable) 60s-vintage Broyhill Brasilia console spotted in the background of a scene in the trailers in this Reddit thread.
As a guy that does PR for a living, I gotta admit…that’s some top-notch PR work there.
Furthermore, the acting so far is on point. The aforementioned Olsen, Bettany, Melamed, and Rupp deserve recognition for their roles so far. Additionally, Kathryn Hahn’s Agnes is a perfect, sitcom-style annoying/nosy neighbor. I don’t like her character, but I’m pretty sure that’s the point. She’s not evil, she’s not a bad guy (at least not yet), but she is the embodiment of every sitcom-neighbor TV trope, and plays that role so well.
However, there’s a real risk in what WandaVision is doing. Specifically, they’re pushing this show hard toward an 18-35-year-old demographic with sitcom callbacks to shows we simply don’t know, and definitely (as a demographic) don’t appreciate or feel much nostalgia for.
Don’t get me wrong, I watched as much Nick-at-Nite as the next early-80s kid, and I still have a deep-seated fondness for Get Smart as a result, but these aren’t my shows. It’s clear from the trailers that the sitcom callbacks progress temporally as each episode goes on, but the newest era I could see in them was the 80s, and while there are plenty of shows I would recognize from that decade, the oldest amongst this demographic feels nostalgia for the 90s, and the youngest amongst that group wasn’t even born then.
But, props to the WandaVision team for taking this risk, even if it doesn’t pay off. I appreciate the taking of creative risks. It challenges me in my own creative endeavors.
As I do with my music reviews, I’ll withhold final judgment on this series until it has a chance to finish telling its story.
But right now, I feel a strange juxtaposition of disappointment (from the episodes so far) and excitement (from the trailers), that I’ll at least finish it off. Let’s hope this story stars moving, and doesn’t wait until it’s out of time.