(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from WandaVision)
Doug (vo): Boy, everybody had an opinion on this. WandaVision was the first new Marvel show to air on Disney+. The trailers were, needless to say, kind of intriguing. I honestly had no interest in this when I heard the title. I mean, I liked Wanda and Vision fine, but I didn't really need to see them in a show. But as soon as I saw this idea of reliving all these classic sitcoms but kind of with this dark edge, I almost thought this was gonna be like a TV comedy version of Get Out, like this satire about how everything looks okay on the surface, but as you dive deeper, there's kind of these really dark, disturbing elements going on. And applying that to the world of sitcoms, where there's literally a laugh track and everybody's happy and things wrap up in a half-hour, I thought this was gonna be brilliant. But when it aired, everyone had their own extreme view of it. Some loved it, some hated it, some say it started out great and got really bad, others say it started off bad and got really great. So, now that time has passed and things have calmed down, my thoughts on the show are...yeah, not that great. But...I don't know. Didn't hate it. I think there's definitely some good stuff in there, and I really love this idea, I just feel like it never took full advantage of it. It felt like they were trying to throw so much at the wall to see what sticks and try to please everybody, and sometimes, that works and it can be done very cleverly, but this time around, it just felt too unfocused.
Premise[]
Doug (vo): The initial idea, without going too much into spoilers, is that Wanda and Vision seem to be the star of their own sitcom. In the first episode, it has kind of a Dick Van Dyke/Donna Reed feel to it, and in the second episode, it has kind of a Bewitched/I Dream of Jeanie feel to it. And every time a new episode starts, they seem to be in a new decade and combine the most popular shows of that decade to represent what kind of domestic problems they're going through. Not surprisingly, as the show continues, we see what's going on in the real world and how this connects to Wanda and Vision's world, and the more it continues, the more answers we get, but then are taken back, but then are revealed again to be what they said the first time, maybe, kinda, but not really, through ethical loopholes.
Review[]
Doug (vo): Okay, so let me talk about the good stuff first. They recreate the looks of these shows flawlessly. As soon as they start, you recognize what decade it is, what style of show they're doing, and can even pick out certain elements in the set that are from the shows they're satirizing. I also like that when something different happens that's not representative of what's on the show, the shots change. Sometimes, the color changes, it mixes things up a little bit more, and you know something's off.
(Clips focusing on Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch are shown)
Doug (vo): The acting from everybody is also really good, especially from Elizabeth Olsen. I couldn't believe how well she could recreate the voices, the looks, the attitudes of these women that were in these sitcoms. I always associate her with being kind of a bland nothing in the Godzilla movie, and, yeah, she was fine as Wanda, but I wouldn't exactly say it's phenomenal acting or anything. This series really allows her to shine and stretch what she can do as an actress, both comedically and, to her credit, dramatically.
(More footage focusing on the show's faithfulness to sitcoms is shown)
Doug (vo): The elements I was talking about before, showing kind of the dark, disturbing underbelly of these sitcoms, is shown later, too, but it's not exactly done like you would think. It's not really satirizing how creepy sitcoms can be when you really think about it, it's more like, "Oh, these people are doing it because someone else just wants them to do it", and I don't know. That sucks out the fun of the commentary you could've had with this. But as I tried to tell myself, I shouldn't judge something on what I want it to be, rather what it is. And for Marvel's first show on Disney+ that looks like they threw a lot of money into it, this was kind of a risky idea. What Marvel fan was saying, "Oh, yeah, you know what I really want to see? Wanda and Vision in, like, a sitcom, but it's, like, all sitcoms, and we're constantly going, "What's going on?" Nobody would say that." Yet, it hooked everybody in. I know it got my interest. So I really give them credit on that front.
(Footage focusing on a mixture between the sitcom world and the real world is shown)
Doug (vo): But after that, I'll be honest, it just didn't interest me. At first, I was hooked in by the satire and mystery of what was going on in the first episode, but then the second episode kind of just does the same thing with very few clues, and it's not like I need a lot of clues to the mystery, I'm fine playing the long game, but they're not giving us much else. The sitcom writing isn't very funny, and I don't care how cheesy a lot of these shows are, Dick Van Dyke had brilliant writing, Malcolm in the Middle had brilliant writing. And the more we just kept jumping decades and we see them say these unfunny lines, I was just losing interest more and more. Everyone likes to say this show is about grief. Um...sure. Two episodes, maybe. What? Are the episodes where the agents are trying to figure out what's going on about grief? Is the episode where they're just putting on a magic act about grief? I guess you could say it's analyzing denial, but is it? It's just kind of showing it, not really exploring it. When it does dive more into grief, it's interesting, but it feels like too little, too late. Because they do want to keep the mystery going, we can't really look that much into what someone is going through. Maybe it's one of those things where you have to see it again and you're gonna see all these levels where you really see the tragedy of it, and...yeah, I tried, and...no. It's just more unfunny writing.
(Several clips focusing on the characters that attempt to solve the mystery of Wanda's sitcom world, Monica Rambeau, Jimmy Woo, and Darcy Lewis, are shown)
Doug (vo): Even the agents who are trying to figure out what's going on, we have one that's okay, but not really that memorable. The dude from Ant-Man, who, let me tell you, I've seen on Off the Boat and can be incredibly funny, and he is not funny here. And our own female Matthew Broderick, Kat Dennings. Oh, yeah. She gets a lot of screentime in this. You're welcome.
(Footage focusing on the show's final episode is shown)
Doug (vo): When it is finally revealed what's going on, a lot of people complained that the climax had just another generic action scene with laser beams and such, and honestly, I didn't mind too much, at least something was going on. And I actually kind of liked it ended in a logic-off. Again, I won't go too much into spoilers, but I really enjoy that one character had to outwit the other verbally. He had to make him think and question himself, and I thought that was very clever. Aside from that, there's a lot of talks of letting go and living with the sacrifices that have happened, and all I'm thinking is, "Yeah, you can talk about it, but are you really?" Again, there's so many loopholes where people kind of get off scot-free, even though they should be severely punished, or characters they're acting like are dead, but they're not really.
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): This could've been a three or four-part miniseries easy, but they just kind of drag it out and have little hints that sometimes pay off, sometimes don't, some are clever, some are dumb, but I just don't feel like I'm getting to know anyone that much better. Okay, look, if you're one of these people that hates this show and what it was building up and not delivering on, I get it. And if I was really invested throughout the whole thing, maybe I'd be really pissed off, too, but it kind of lost me early on, so I didn't get that angry. With that said, if you're one of these people that's just stuck in quarantine and sick of what's going on in the world and this was kind of your escape, I get that, too. And don't let me, a dumbass who talks about cartoons for a living, take that away from you. I'm just offering the point of view of the impact it had on me, which is...not that big. With that said, I'm totally down for more experimental shows like this in the future. Yes, I don't think this one went all the way, but that doesn't mean you can't make a show that doesn't go all the way. I like when a powerful mainstream studio experiments. If it doesn't work the first time, make it work the second time, or the third, or the fourth, just keep trying it. (An image of the third Disney+ Marvel series, Loki, is shown, with a thumbs-up emoji) But overall, how this fared for me, it was just a very middle-of-the-road meh.
(A scene from the first episode, showing Wanda seeing Vision head off on his everyday job as he transforms into human, is shown)