If You Haven’t Seen “Wednesday” Yet, You Should
It’s been a while since I’ve shown up to blog, I’ve been swamped with my day job and launching my book which, it turns out, is quite an involved process. But there’s no time like the present. I’m sitting under a buzzing flood light on the sidelines at my son’s soccer practice. Boys on the field are grunting commands to one another while the dad sitting next to me blurts, keep going!’ Such is the soccer parent life.
I never did get to tell you about Wednesday on Netflix and you’ve probably seen it by now, but even if you have it still deserves to be talked about because they did a lot of things right on that show.
1. Aesthetic consistency. One of the most notable things about the show is how visually interesting and sticky they made the outfits, colors, buildings, creatures, and all sorts of other things. The artistic consistency went beyond just visuals however and extended into the music, mood, and overall tone of the whole thing. Even Wednesday’s zany high school dance number was a mix of weird, hilarious, and incredibly charming. If you haven’t seen Wednesday and don’t plan to, at least watch this scene.
2. Classic Mystery Genre. I am a big fan and believer in genre as an organizing concept when it comes to storytelling. It was extremely clever of the writers for Wednesday to create a classic ‘who dun it?’ rather than giving us something more expected, maybe like a story about fitting in. Don’t get me wrong, those stories work, but I didn’t expect a detective mystery baked into this story about a cookie teen whose only friend is a severed hand.
3. A Fresh Perspective. In case you didn’t know, Tim Burton directed Wednesday. If you’re my age, you’ll know that Tim Burton directed Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and that all these movies (maybe not so much Nightmare) had a similar look that was signature Tim Burton. Not Wednesday. Although I have no doubt that Tim Burton’s artistic expertise is to praise for the pleasing compelling look of Wednesday, it the aesthetic was something new entirely. Gosh even the soundtrack was a mix of old and new, with Spanish ballads and rock-n-roll oldies next to the latest in emo pop that I’ve never heard before because I just can’t keep up with music anymore.
So. Check out Wednesday. It’s just eight episodes. But watch out for the Hyde.
