The well-known fictional Addams family is back with a new spin off series! This bizarre family created by American cartoonist Charles Addams has developed from single panel cartoons in the 1930s and 40s all the way to hitting the big screen with several different versions of the family’s story. The one thing in common between all of these remakes is that they all focus around the whole family. Well-known director Tim Burton wanted to go a different route in his remake by focusing his new series based solely on Wednesday Addams, the daughter of the family. Burton’s decision to create a series centered around Wednesday has led to major success. Netflix has declared that Wednesday has reached the second most-watched English series of all time beating Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, but falling just below Stranger Things Season Four. Wednesday has brought in over a billion views since premiering on Nov. 23, 2022. 

The series starts with Wednesday being dropped off at her parent’s old school known as  Nevermore that is specifically for the outcasts. Wednesday’s first impression of the campus was to find a way to escape, but as the plot continues to evolve, she begins to change her thoughts toward leaving Nevermore as she finds out that the school has plenty of secrets that she wants to uncover, some of which relate directly to her parents. Not only is Wednesday strained with the secrets she wants to unlock, the whole town of Jericho is on edge with the murders executed by a mysterious unidentified beast. This series is made to keep viewers on their toes as they follow Wednesday’s personal mission to untangle the web of lies and find the truth about Nevermore. 

The whole atmosphere of this series is phenomenal. The overall dark and gloominess of the setting emphasized the message that Jericho is not your typical small town setting. Personally, I felt a connection with the Harry Potter series right at the first shot of the Nevermore campus. This realization made me more excited to watch this series as I am an enjoyer of shows that have a mysterious type setting. The series was filmed in Romania which I believe greatly impacted the dark visual effects present throughout the show.

One of the most essential decisions when directing a show is to find the perfect actor/actress to play the main character. Tim Burton personally contacted the actress Jenna Ortega herself with the job offer of being Wednesday Addams. Despite the fact that Jenna Ortega is only 20 years old, she has had a large amount of acting experience. You can truly see the talent Ortega has due to her adapting perfectly into the gloomy character of Wednesday Addams. Lots of viewers have overlooked the fact that Ortega did not blink while portraying Wednesday. This difficult task really emphasized the strange characteristics of her character. I genuinely enjoyed watching Jenna Ortega playing such a unique character and believe that she executed her performance flawlessly. 

The time and effort put into filming really paid off for those involved in the production. Wednesday already has nominations for highly prestigious awards such as the best comedy series in the AACTA International Award show, a nomination for The Golden Globe award for best television series, and actress Jenna Ortega herself is nominated for the Golden Globe of best actress. These nominations are only the beginning of the amount of awards Wednesday will be nominated for as it is one of the most successful series to ever be released. Due to these nominations and the overwhelming success of the series, Netflix announced that Wednesday has been renewed for a second season. Overall, I enjoyed watching this highly anticipated series and will be looking forward to watching the next season.