Wednesday: Is it worth the hype?
By Amirah Datwani
On November 23, 2022, Netflix did not know it yet, but they had just released the first episode of one of their most-watched shows of all time. Less than two months have passed, and Wednesday has already given rise to many TikTok trends, garnered hundreds of positive reviews, and has propelled the fame of lead actress Jenna Ortega.
The show is based on the highly popular “The Addams Family” comic strip from the 1930s, which has been adapted many times, such as 1991’s The Addams Family. Wednesday is just one of these, although it is one of the most successful, breaking multiple records in the two weeks after its release. The show did well both critically as well with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 72%, and a Metacritic score of 66, both of which are good for their respective websites. For reference, season 5 of critically acclaimed show Grey’s Anatomy has a 68 on Metacritic. The user-reviewed scores on each website are 8.2 and 86%. After a few days of the show being almost unbearably hyped up, and my friends begging me to watch it, I decided to.
The main character Wednesday is named after a line in her mother Morticia’s favourite nursery rhyme, which goes, “Wednesday's child is full of woe.” The show is set after Wednesday, having been expelled from many other schools, is sent to Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts that her parents went to. The large cast of characters includes Wednesday herself, who is sinister with a passion for writing, her roommate Enid who has the complete opposite personality to her, Tyler, the barista at the cafe and Wednesday’s main love interest, and Xavier, her secondary love interest.
The show centres around a murder mystery, with Wednesday working out that a monster is behind the murders, and that she knows the monster. The reveal at the end was utterly unpredictable and shocked me immensely since the monster’s identity was very unexpected and there are many twists and turns along the way. Seemingly unrelated plot points come together in the electrifying season finale. The show also ends with a cliffhanger, perfectly setting up for a second season.
However, there were some parts of the show that I did not enjoy. The most pressing of these was the love triangle between Wednesday, Tyler and Xavier. The romance subplot was unnecessary and clearly only incorporated so teen audiences would stay interested.
Overall, the show was very good, but it could be better if the romance was removed. I would still recommend the show for others to watch and am very excited for the next season.