The Addams Family has been a staple of horror-comedy since it was a New Yorker cartoon in 1938. But in the fall of this year, Tim Burton is bringing something new to that spooky mansion with the Netflix series Wednesday. It’s all about everyone’s favorite Addams Family daughter, and she’ll be returning to the screen, finally, in a show that’s all about her. And it seems like Wednesday is the series we’ve been waiting for since pigtails were tied into black hair.
There’s a lot to get excited about aside from Tim Burton directing, which is a huge thing in itself. The past Addams Family movies and shows have been a menagerie of the whole family, displaying how each member is creepy in their own way and working towards a bigger theme. But Wednesday has always been an interesting character, not just because of how emotionless and enigmatic she is, but because of how inconspicuous and frighteningly intelligent she is. And this series will look at a Wednesday who is just becoming a teenager, whereas before, we’ve only seen her as a devilish child. The character is expected to garner a layer of complexity in her very own coming-of-age story. So there are a lot of surprises in store for fans.
Here are some things we hope to see from the series.
Wednesday: Something Old
Naturally, we want everything we can get out of Wednesday. We all took great joy in watching Wednesday abuse her brother Pugsley in the Christina Ricci movies. She would design ghastly experiments and create horrifying traps, all while Pugsley willingly consented, time and time again, to be her guinea pig. Most times, Pugsley would be fully strapped into the electric chair or be inches away from having his head cut off before being casually rescued by one of their parents.
But these sorts of deadly games were always dismissed as children playing, and it’s time for Wednesday to grow up. So, it’s likely we won’t see much of Pugsley. The IMDb page for the Wednesday cast says we’ll only be seeing Pugsley twice in this 8-episode series. And that’s a good thing. While it would be nice to see a few callbacks to the old days of Wednesday and Pugsley’s shenanigans, it’s important that the show takes its new direction seriously and explore this newer, more 3-dimensional character in earnest.
Wednesday: Something New
The show has several surprises in store. Netflix says this about this plot:
“The upcoming eight-episode series is a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday’s years as a student at the peculiar Nevermore Academy. Wednesday's attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the supernatural mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago - all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships of the strange and diverse student body.”
There’s a lot to get excited about just from that announcement; first and foremost, Wednesday’s “emerging psychic ability.” Now, that’s something to cheer for. It adds a very peculiar dimension to the show but fits so well that it seems like it should’ve happened all along. Wednesday growing into psychic powers seems as natural as gargoyles on a mausoleum. It's a good sign that the writers are familiar with the character and can get creative with the show.
Another thing that seems very appropriate for the show is this “Nevermore Academy,” which, from character details, seems to be a creepy boarding school, which is a perfect setting for Wednesday. A boarding school for supernatural gothic children is the ideal place for dark and dangerous hijinks to occur without parental supervision. The characters listed in the series are mostly other students, and some of them have strange abilities. Yoko Tanaka (played by Naomi J Ogawa) is a cool vampire that hopefully will suffer a few Twilight jokes. Bianca Barclay (played by Joy Sunday) is said to be a siren, and of course, she’s popular. Wednesday will also have a roommate and a therapist, and god help both of them.
But going on in Nevermore Academy and the surrounding town appears to be some sort of “supernatural mystery” that Wednesday will be involved in solving. The Netflix announcement hints that these killings and some 25-year-old happenings are somehow connected to the Addams Family, but we’ll have to wait and see how. Hopefully, Wednesday and Thing will be enough to unravel whatever is happening in her new life.
But regardless of what happens, the show is bound to be just the right kind of weird. With Tim Burton at the helm and a new age of outlandish things ready to happen, fans are more than ready to see this new macabre masterpiece.