One of the very best things about WandaVision was Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness, the chipper next-door neighbor who turned out to be much more than she seemed. So when, almost three years ago, an Agatha spinoff series was announced, there was much rejoicing in some quarters.
And now, after a couple of name changes, we have the first trailer for Agatha All Along, and it looks like a B-tier CW series from the mid-2000s. What happened?
This is a rhetorical question that sadly I cannot answer. The series has an all-star cast that includes Aubrey Plaza and Patti LuPone, but the trailer is tonally chaotic (and not in a good way) and visually the opposite of compelling; everything magical has a dated, CGI’d to death look. You’re in a weird place when Agatha’s false mundane life as a detective looks more appealing than her colorful witch life.
The synopsis, according to Variety, goes like this:
The infamous Agatha Harkness finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious goth teen helps break her free from a distorted spell. Her interest is piqued when he begs her to take him on the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing. Together, Agatha and this mysterious teen pull together a desperate coven, and set off down, down, down The Road.
Still, there are reasons to keep being excited about Agatha, if at a slightly lower pitch than previously. There’s Hahn herself, who has never been less than fantastic, and there’s WandaVision’s head writer Jac Schaeffer, who is also the head writer for this show. And technically this is only a teaser trailer; presumably a trailer trailer will come along and cast a more powerful spell before the show’s September 18th premiere on Disney+.
