Wednesday is a show I wish existed when I was a teenager - imagine the soundtrack
Wednesday Addams returns this week - but I wish this show had existed when I was a teenager 🕷
- Wednesday will finally return to Netflix this week.
- The second season arrives after a nearly three-year wait.
- But catching up, all I could think about is how I wished it had come out when I was a teenager.
The first season of Wednesday was one of those that just passed me by. You know how it is, a new show comes to Netflix, you add it to the watch list, and then three years go by, and you are still meaning to get around to it.
What can I say, it happens to the best of us! But with the second season creeping up like a disembodied hand, I finally had the push needed to catch up on this hit streaming show.
All I really knew heading into the show was that it was about Wednesday Addams (and maybe the rest of the family), it involved Tim Burton, and there was a dance that went viral. But that was about the extent of my knowledge before I hit play… what was waiting for me on the other side?
Wednesday is a show that I wish existed when I was a teenager
I am unfortunately about 15 years removed from being the target audience for this show, but it did make me wish I had been the right age for it. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty still to enjoy. It is macabre, gothic, and funny, with a killer lead performance from Jenna Ortega. Christina Ricci is also a brilliant bit of nostalgic-bait casting for those of us who love the 1990s movies.
The school setting is well realised, for the most part. It really does have the nostalgic feel of one of those 2010s fantasy-romance film adaptations that came out in droves after Twilight hit it big. In fact, it does occasionally feel like an adaptation of a book, even if one does not actually exist, especially when it comes to the pacing around the big school events. We are suddenly in a big school boat race, for example, or a dance arrives without much build-up before it, and it makes the pacing feel ever so slightly off.
However, when it comes to hitting the brief of being a young-adult series, it executes that extremely well, featuring the tropes without getting bogged down in them. There is a love triangle, adults who ignore the clever kids, and a school dance (featuring the aforementioned viral scene).
I know that if I had been 13 or 14 when this show came out, I would have been obsessed. It has spooky stuff, a mystery, gothic vibes, and of course, the love triangle. Unfortunately, I am more than a bit past that age.
Like many of us, my teenage years were awkward ones, and I gravitated towards media about outsiders and the weird. I remember counting down the days until the next volume of episodes of Supernatural was released on DVD (in the days before streaming).
I feel like Nevermore Academy is exactly the kind of place my teenage self would have longed to exist in. Undoubtedly, as a werewolf (being on Team Jacob).
Alas, that bus has come and gone, and Wednesday is here instead for misfits growing up during the age of lockdowns and social media. Even still, while I am not the target audience, there is still a lot to like. Even if you can see the first season twist coming a mile off, it is a fun way to refresh the Addams family for a new generation.
It also feels very Emo, which may be down to the Tim Burton connection. I couldn’t help but find myself wondering about just how good that soundtrack would have been in the late 2000s, early 2010s.
We would have had cello covers of My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Linkin Park, and Evanescence for sure. I can almost hear it now, echoing from the depths of my subconsciousness.
But that is the march of time, and fortunately, a whole new generation of TV watchers has had the chance to discover the Addams family through a more-ish 21st-century lens. Every generation of oddballs and misfits deserves a weird, spooky show/ book/ film that they can imagine themselves finding a place inside.
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