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1/27/2023 0 Comments Wednesday (season 1) IP may defiantly remain king, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still room for creative expression. Take Netflix’s newest breakout hit - series creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar could easily have settled for an umpteenth variation of The Addams Family - the devilishly morbid riff on the traditional nuclear family first dreamt up by cartoonist Charles Addams, whose popularity has endured for close to 85 years. Instead, they chose - rather ingeniously - to build a show entirely around Wednesday, the Addams clan’s dispassionately deadpan teenage daughter, who - let’s be honest - is most people’s favorite character anyway (particularly following Christina Ricci’s iconic portrayal in the 90’s live action films). The result is a ticklishly macabre teen horror comedy - like a subversive reimagining of Veronica Mars tricked out with a tantalizing fusion of gallows humor and gothic flair.
Jenna Ortega assumes the title role, and she enjoyed a breakout year in 2022 - appearing in the horror films Scream and X, as well as the SXSW-winning indie The Fallout. It’s hardly a stretch to suggest that the show rests entirely and unequivocally on her diminutive, pigtailed frame. The character of Wednesday is a deceptive quandary for any actress - her stoic moroseness both exceptionally easy and exceptionally difficult to play. But Ortega is game, and commits fully to the role. She fixes her face with a dour, recalcitrant scowl that appears impregnable, her lips pursed with scorn and her eyes heavy-lidded with preemptive boredom (Ortega supposedly never blinks in the entire series). Her monotone delivery rarely quavers… yet she commands a wide spectrum of emotions that breach her otherwise impassive features in impressively subtle ways; in this case, the minute adjustment of an eyebrow or facial muscle, or the precise angle she tilts her head conveys volumes. If Ricci seemed more preternaturally suited to the role, that’s only because Ortega is called upon to do far more. If her previous films hinted at her potential, this is the performance that cements her stardom. After an unfortunate incident involving piranhas and the boys water polo team, Wednesday is expelled from yet another high school and subsequently finds herself enrolled at Nevermore Academy - her parents’ beloved alma mater. Luis Guzman and Catherine Zeta-Jones are well-cast as Gomez and Morticia, but they’re basically limited to a pair of early episodes (Fred Armisen pops up as Uncle Fester later in the season) - it really is Wednesday’s show lock, stock and barrel, and only the disembodied hand Thing (a marvelously expressive triumph of FX work) can be counted as a series regular (even in their limited screentime, Ortega’s chemistry with Zeta-Jones is considerable; it would be a shame if their relationship weren’t utilized more fully in season two). Nevermore suggests The Academy of Unseen Arts from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but it feels more like Hogwarts with a heavy infusion of Tim Burton’s kook-goth DNA (the veteran filmmaker helms the first four episodes and is such a natural fit on both a spiritual and stylistic level, one almost forgets it was actually Barry Sonnenfeld who directed the films). To a certain extent, the show wants to have it both ways. Nevermore is a haven for supernatural freaks and oddballs and weirdos (they’re literally referred to as “outcasts”)… and yet Wednesday is somehow depicted as a disruptive force, swimming upstream against the typical high school social currents. It doesn’t help that virtually no other character on the show is a genuine match for her - not Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) as Nevermore’s tight-faced principal Larissa Weems; not mooning townie Tyler (Hunter Doohan) or brooding classmate Xavier (Percy Hynes White), who form the opposite and the adjacent to Wednesday’s hypotenuse in a would-be love triangle; not the town sheriff (Jamie McShane) or Wednesday’s court-mandated therapist (Riki Lindhome); and not resident Queen Bee Bianca (Joy Sunday) or her siren cohorts or the secret society known as the Nightshades. The one exception is Emma Myers as Wednesday’s almost pathologically bubbly werewolf roomie Enid - her vibrant pastels and Wednesday’s monochromatic gloom separated by a demarcation line that literally bisects the stained glass window that dominates their attic dorm room (Wednesday, explaining that she’s allergic to color - “I break out into hives and then the flesh peels off my bones”). But their rapport is joyously good… and when the emotional payoff between them comes, it’s a moment that’s so fully-earned that even the hardest heart is bound to quicken. It’s one of the most endearing female friendships on TV. Wednesday further evokes the Harry Potter formula in terms of the everyday rhythms and rituals of school life being juxtaposed against a larger mystery to unravel… in this case a murderous creature whose trail of bodies triggers Wednesday’s inner-sleuth (not to mention her recent tendency towards psychic visions). The payoff isn’t terribly difficult to suss out - each red herring fairly obvious in intent - but that doesn’t detract from the show’s mordant sense of fun (Tyler, trying to appeal to Wednesday’s fondness for horror films, screens Legally Blonde for her. “That was torture. Thank you,” she remarks afterwards). Watching Wednesday command the entire school’s attention with a blistering late-night cello rendition of “Paint It Black” is an obvious highlight, but the season’s most universally beloved moment (if legions of TikTok videos are to be believed) comes when she cuts loose to “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps at the Nevermore dance - her eyes widening as if possessed, her normally repressed limbs goosed into life, as if by electrical current. But then that has always been the appeal of Wednesday Addams - an icon to those who chafe at the pressure of trying to fit in, a patron saint of eccentricity, an unapologetic outsider who’s completely comfortable in her own deathly pale skin. “I act as if I don’t care if people dislike me. Deep down… I secretly enjoy it.” Nonetheless, by season’s end, Wednesday has managed to amass her own fiercely loyal Scooby gang, and it’s an appealing group… the sort that make the prospect of a return to Nevermore a giddy no-brainer. But then that’s the show’s most unexpected, unlikely triumph - Wednesday’s child may be full of woe, but Wednesday’s Netflix series has a big, bloody, beating heart.
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 Those who claim irony is dead, almost certainly watched an episode or two of the new Netflix series Blockbuster. Netflix, of course, was one of the driving forces (if not *the* driving force) behind the video store monolith’s high-profile downfall, and now they’ve produced an actual sitcom about the last remaining Blockbuster on Earth (a sitcom whose thematic stance is that brick-and-mortar video stores are vital because they offer the sort of human connection you can’t get from a streaming algorithm). On second thought, irony isn’t simply dead; it’s been hanged, drawn and quartered. If the fit seems off (beyond the obvious), that’s because Blockbuster feels for all the world like an NBC comedy that took a wrong turn and somehow landed on streaming. The show largely comes across as Superstore’s dorky sidekick… and manager Timmy (Randall Park) channels some serious Leslie Knope-style positivity as he tries to soldier on in the video rental game without corporate backing. His staff is the usual cross-section of endearing misfits, including secret crush Eliza (Melissa Fumero); would-be Tarantino Carlos (Tyler Alvarez); daffy, doe-eyed Hannah (Madeleine Arthur); and middle-aged den mother Connie (Olga Merediz). Park and Fumero (coming off Fresh Off the Boat and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, respectively) are reliable sitcom veterans… and the entire cast is perfectly likable (including the ever-invaluable JB Smoove as Timmy’s best friend and landlord Percy). But the writing sputters, and there’s something oddly disconnected in the way the show attempts to leverage nostalgia for the early aughts while pretending as if Blockbuster literally went out of business last week. In fact, the series never really seems to have a handle on why it even takes place in a video store. Creator Vanessa Ramos was undoubtedly inspired by the real life “last remaining Blockbuster” in Bend, Oregon… but that place endures, in part, because it’s made that gimmick the cornerstone of its entire identity. Since Blockbuster largely overlooks the time capsule quality of its setting, it mostly functions as a generic small-business comedy with some movie jokes sprinkled in. A few of these hit the mark (“We may have a parental situation. I mixed up The Hungry Caterpillar and The Human Centipede again”). Most do not (“The last time I went on a date, we all hated Anne Hathaway for some reason”). A workplace comedy requires at least a degree of specificity, and most of these storylines (including Timmy and Eliza’s “will they/won’t they” romantic tension) are pulled from the all-purpose sitcom writing bin. Nothing about the show feels particularly fresh - sadly, it comes packaged with multiple “pre-owned” stickers.  The smartest thing Mythic Quest ever did was presenting itself as a comedy about a video game studio… in which the video game is completely beside the point. For all the talk of the creative genius of Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney), Mythic Quest’s vainglorious creator, the titular game is little more than a deliberately generic World of Warcraft knock-off, its presence reduced to a few transitional cut-scenes here or there… which in no way detracts from the comical dysfunction that goes into making it. It’s a show that intuitively understands just how much to draw from the gaming industry without succumbing to myopic self-indulgence.
To be completely honest, the third season of Mythic Quest is slightly less terrific than the first two. Not surprisingly, McElhenney and his creative team looked to shake things up at the end of season 2, as Ian and his long-suffering lead engineer/co-creative director Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) struck off to start their new company “GrimPop”… leaving henpecked middle manager David (David Hornsby) behind to mind the MQ store. Much of the season is thus spent feeling out these new dynamics (which includes corporate shark Brad (Danny Pudi) finishing his stint in prison for insider trading and rejoining the MQ team… as a janitor). Poppy remains an absolute delight, one of the most endearing characters on TV (two words: “the brunch”)… but she’s better when she’s positioned as the grounded (and frequently exasperated) counter to Ian’s raging narcissism. Instead her own neuroses are cranked to the max, leaving her and Ian’s personalities to ricochet wildly off one another within the confines of their futuristically dystopian office space - which sort of looks as if Steve Jobs and George Orwell collaborated on the set design for Solaris (former tester Dana is eventually added to the GrimPop mix to help modulate things somewhat, but her presence only goes so far). Of course, Mythic Quest established itself as one of the sharpest workplace comedies on TV thanks to its cast, and that hasn’t changed (even if the show disappointingly bids farewell to F. Murray Abraham as hack fantasy novelist CW Longbottom). Hornsby remains an obvious standout, a Jedi master in the art of fumbling beta subservience, as does Jessie Ennis as his unnerving, Machiavellian assistant Jo. Brad steering the guileless, wannabe SJW Rachel (Ashly Burch, who also writes, directs and happens to be one of the industry’s top voice actors) towards the dark side of video game monetization also pays comedic dividends. Much of the season ultimately feels like a write-off, as Ian and Poppy return to the MQ fold (and GrimPop seemingly goes the way of The Michael Scott Paper Company), but it was a necessary course correction; the series runs in optimized performance mode (4K 60fps) when the characters maintain a tighter orbit with one another. 1/3/2023 0 Comments The Crown (season 5) The problem with the new season of The Crown is that series creator Peter Morgan remains beholden to the basic tide of history. The first two seasons of his Netflix flagship - which featured an impeccable Claire Foy as the fledging Queen Elizabeth - were cultivated from tremendously fertile soil. Foy’s was an Elizabeth forced to learn on-the-job not only what it means to be Queen, but also precisely how intransigent her duties to the Crown truly are… and when you can build scenes, episodes, even entire narrative arcs around her formative relationship with Winston Churchill (two of the most significant British figures of the 20th century - one at the dawn of her service to England, the other at his twilight), it could almost be considered a dereliction not to produce narrative gold on-screen. The first season in particular set the bar incredibly high; a triumphant apex the show has often struggled to match.
One could hardly have asked for a better successor to Foy than Oscar-winner Olivia Colman at the start of the third season… but her iteration of Elizabeth was framed as a resolutely cold fish, thematically moored in middle-aged rut. It was a disappointing tenure (through no fault of Colman’s own), but Morgan found rich veins to mine in other subplots… mostly involving the splendid Josh O’Connor as the young Charles (learning Welsh and embarking on his vastly misguided courtship of young Diana Spencer), as well as the colorful dramatics of the Margaret Thatcher era (embodied by a loopy - albeit Emmy-winning - Gillian Anderson performance that could best be described as “nuanced caricature”). Season five ushers in further cast turnover, and the results are mixed. Imelda Staunton brings a welcome touch of grandmotherly twinkle to Elizabeth, but hardens just as easily into a posture of indomitable steel when challenged… not unlike a porcupine raising its quills. Yet it’s telling how rarely she feels like the show’s actual focal point (likewise Jonathan Pryce lends suitable gravitas to the role of Philip, but his usage rate fades badly)… instead the season is inevitably dominated by the tabloid disintegration of Charles and Diana’s marriage - exhaustively traveled terrain that’s frankly a drag more than anything. As the Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Debicki - with her octopus-like limbs that seem to go on forever - adeptly captures both Diana’s doe-eyed poshness and the stress fractures simmering beneath the surface of her porcelain facade (no explanation given for how she seemingly sprouted a full foot over Emma Corrin between seasons)… but she isn’t given anything fresh to play here, no uncharted corners of Diana’s complicated persona. It’s a greatest hits medley. So much of the season sees Morgan straining to make thematic connections that feel beneath his talent. The impending decommission of the royal yacht Britannia is likened to the Queen’s own stagnating and out-of-touch Monarchy - a rather leaden allegory that drives both the premiere and the finale (it doesn’t help that the season opens with Foy christening the ship in 1953 - how terribly the show misses her presence!). Philip’s speech to Diana about the Royal Family being less a family in the traditional sense and more of a meticulously regimented “system” would be more impactful if Morgan hadn’t been writing variations of it for the past five years. The subject of Margaret’s doomed romance with Group Captain Peter Townsend is litigated yet again, for the sole purpose of juxtaposing it against the messy marital missteps of Elizabeth’s own children (the Timothy Dalton guest spot a welcome highlight otherwise). By the time Charles and Diana’s impending divorce is contrasted with the irreconcilable differences of “ordinary” British citizens, the cringe levels are trending uncomfortably high (but only because the series has achieved so much better). Morgan is still capable of crafting a great stand-alone episode - as evidenced by the season’s obvious highlight, which chronicles the rise of self-made Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed and his determination to integrate himself into British high society (by earning a face-to-face audience with the Queen that never quite materializes). Morgan's always been at his best when he’s able to compress his focus onto these lesser-known pockets of history. And certain scenes manage to stand out, such as when Charles and Diana assess their failed marriage over scrambled eggs in the kitchen of Kensington Palace - the tone of rueful conviviality quickly giving way to jabs of still-raw acrimony (or when Diana peevishly calls in to a televised poll concerning whether the Monarchy still has a purpose in British society to repeatedly vote “no”). But the season on the balance feels oddly shapeless and anticlimactic, the connective tissue all rather tenuous. It’s hard to feel particularly bullish about the show moving forward… unless it’s building towards an eventual meta wrinkle in which Claire Foy rejoins the cast as herself, having just been hired to play the lead in a new Netflix series about the Royal Family called The Crown, much to the Queen’s obvious consternation. |
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