It’s her day—we’re just allowed to hang out on it. In its first week on the streaming platform, Netflix’s Wednesday pulled in eyeballs for 341.23 million viewing hours, beating out even the hotly anticipated Stranger Things 4 (which had 335 million). The two supernatural tales were both the #1 series in 83 countries in their debut week.
You could chalk this up to any number of factors: The affection many of us adults retain for Christina Ricci’s ’90s version of Wednesday Addams. Love for the Addams Family in general. The perfect deadpan of Jenna Ortega, who plays a barely-blinking Wednesday with crisp confidence. And, of course, the perpetual appeal of Tim Burton.
Reviews for Wednesday are all over the place but generally at least somewhat positive; The New York Times calls it “satisfying only on the level of formulaic teenage romance and mystery,” while a headline in The Guardian calls it “perfect.” The Hollywood Reporter may be more on they money when writer Daniel Fienberg says, “there are enough promising elements that I hope Wednesday gets the opportunity to make a second season with some refinements.”
It is, whatever its flaws, beautifully cast; Ortega is perfect, and Gwendoline Christie towers over everyone (in heels!) as Nevermore Academy principal Larissa Weems. Two episodes in, there’s hardly a character I don’t suspect of something faintly dastardly—excepting maybe Wednesday’s inexhaustibly chipper roommate, Enid (Emma Myers). And having Christina Ricci play the only normie on Nevermore’s staff was a stroke of genius.
Wednesday is now streaming on Netflix.
