Series For the woman who lost everything (Mild Spoilers!)
The show initially caught my attention for its weird premise, something that we weren't used to with Marvel. We are presented to this strange reality where everything is saccharine and full of sitcom shenanigans. Wanda is married to Vision, who is unexplicably alive. They live in the suburbs now and have wacky adventures with conflicts that always end well because of some funny coincidence.But the reality often "cracks", suggesting that there's something very dark beneath. This cracks on reality lead to some scenes with a lot of Surreal Horror and Surprise-Creepiness.
Now, halfway through, the show starts taking a more conventional "Marvel Production" approach, which may dissapoint the people who wanted the show to stay experimental and weird, but I think that's not a bad change. Although the sitcom gimmicks were interesting, they would've overstayed its welcome if we weren't only left with them. After all, there is a plot that needs to move forward. And in my opinion, this is the part where the show really starts to shine. What was a wacky affectionate parody of sitcoms with creepy moments in the middle becomes a story about loss, trauma, grief and escapism. I came for the weird creepy stuff and the misteries, but I stayed for Wanda's character exploration.
Wanda was a character that always had a lot of potentional story-wise, but was often reduced to a supporting role and overshadowed by the main events of the plots she was involved in. Because of that I gotta admit that I wasn't very invested in her character that much. But Wandavision makes you realize that "holy sh*t, Wanda is such an interesting character!". We're before a woman that just kept losing everything she hold dear since a very young age. She lost her parents, then she lost her brother and her home, then she was forced to kill the love of her life AND THEN she was forced to watch him get killed AGAIN by a space tyrant. But also, when angry, she was powerful enough to force said tyrant to call an aerial attack on his own troops to save his skin. The show adresses those two aspects of her character in a very satisfying way while fixing some questionable choices of her origin story.
The series certainly has some lows: I found the S.W.O.R.D. B-plot rather weak at times. Hayward as an antagonist leaned to much on the stupid side of evil for my taste and some of the conflicts related to the organization and their resolutions felt too contrived and cartoony. Another negative aspect of the show is this big cameo that seems to be setting up something big for the future but end up being just a Casting Gag. I'm not very fond of fans over-theorizing everything in a show but I can understand their dissapointment over that specific point.
Overall, I deeply enjoyed Wandavision and I think that the MCU finally did justice to the character. I hope that Multiverse of Madness keep exploring Wanda's character in such an interesting way!
Series Wandavision is unwatchable. 📺 ❌
Wandavision is unwatchable. 📺 ❌
I have zero good feelings about sitcoms from the 60s and 70s, so there's that.
But sitcoms are supposed to be funny.
Meta-fail on every level.
Agents of Sword now repeating the Agents of Sheld Framework arc, except much worse. Not engaging, not funny, no characterization, no arc... very disappointing.
I understand that others may have differing opinions and that's fine. I'd offer to update my review of Wandavision after viewing more except I won't because I immediately cancelled my Disney Plus after seeing the first two episodes.
That's two hours I can't get back and two hours of enduring a boring parody of a boring era of boring television.
There's lots of good "mindfuck serialized fiction."
Wild Palms, Tekwar, Max Headroom, Lain, GITS SAC, Twin Peaks, Black Mirror, Altered Carbon, Stranger Things, Dolls, Lost until it jumped the shark, Highlander likewise, Nikita, Westworld etc.
Wandavision just doesn't happen to be one of these good serialized weirdness shows.
Short review after watching eps 1 and 2 Jan. 17, 2021. Updated due to feedback January 18, 2021.
Series Brilliant work of off-putting horror (spoiler free)
I love horror. It's one of my favorite genres for how creative and interesting it can be. WandaVision is one of the only things recently to give me legitimate chills, in combination with the mystery that's drawing me in. My favorite brand of horror is the subtle and unsettling stuff- where you just know something is very wrong- the Uncanny Valley stuff. This series, so far, excels at that sort of thing.
Sure, it'll throw in a Jump Scare or two. And occasionally, the horror will be much more in-your-face. But the show runs on being extremely unnerving and everything just being slightly off. The commercial segments are surreal and linger just long enough to feel off-putting even when nothing's going on, in addition to their psychological elements. The sitcom elements can lull you in to a false sense of safety and familiarity, which gets ripped away as soon as the show reminds you that everything's going wrong. Even the intro scenes for each "episode" have elements that are just strange enough to evoke a bit of that horror.
That's not to say the entire show is scary, but that's what makes the horror even better. The less-scary bits can be genuinely funny, cool, and mystifying, which helps make the horror elements all the more jarring. When you don't know where the next bit of creepiness will be coming from, they're all the stronger, and it makes the show even more interesting.
All in all, good show, and makes good enough use of my favorite horror and meta tropes to make it something I, personally, am loving- at least at the time of this review being posted. Hey, I just caught up with it all and it's on my mind- let me get the gushing out of my system :P
Series Crazy X-Girlfriend
Despite having watched and reviewed a lot of Marvel properties by now, I am hardly a fan of them. This is a bit of an issue when it comes to Wandavision, which presumes everyone has watched every last Marvel movie and remembered every last detail. I can barely remember who Scarlet Witch or Vision are, or what their powers do. Avengers: Age of Ultron was a shit film I forgot about, and I haven't watched either End Game or Captain Marvel, so there are a lot of overt references and call backs I simply don't get.
That issue aside, I liked Wandavision quite a bit. That's because it avoids acting like a Marvel movie or series for as long as possible. Wandavision's conceit is that Wanda Maxmimoff (aka Scarlet Witch) and Vision star in black and white sitcom from the 50s. By episode 2, Wanda and Vision are in another decade, and another new sitcom format. And episode 3 and onwards it does this again and again. Each episode borrows its aesthetics, humour, special effects and even the aspect ratio from tv shows of that era. A lot of the show is just watching these pastiches play out, and in enjoying nostalgic, endearingly dated humour.
Whilst this is all going on, we witness clues that something is amiss, whether it is menacing references hidden in old timey ad-breaks, or moments where the facsimilia starts to break down. The corny comedy stops for just a few moments, and creepiness ensues. Wanda and Vision experience uncanniness for just a few seconds, and then the comedic atmosphere flits back into view again. Naturally the viewer is wondering what the fuck is going on, and Wandavision manages to sustain the mystery for most of its episodes. Even as we finally start to get a glimpse of what is going on beyond the sitcoms we are seeing, the show is still consistently entertaining.
It only really starts to lose its way in the last two episodes, where the show falls back in line with being a very typical Marvel property. We're talking big sky lasers, heroes fighting evil versions of themselves, shooting each other with CGI and punching each other through cars and buildings. I would have liked to have seen the show resolve its plot with something within the more modest and cunning structure it set up for itself. What also sours things is that when we eventually learn something pretty terrible about one of our protagonists, the show bends over backwards to excuse their behaviour. It's a bit hamfisted in its efforts.
I suppose one benefit of the big damn action is that it shows Marvel is now willing to pump more money into its often cash strapped tv series. So Wandavision does get a recommendation, even for (or especially for) people who dislike Marvel.