After a whole year without anything new from Marvel Studios, I was worried. I had recently watched Wonder Woman 1984 and thought maybe superhero films and TV don’t excite me anymore. Have people had enough time away from superhero products for this moment in film history to pass on? Marvel had announced their large line up of upcoming shows and films and Disney+ is riding at an all-time high with The Mandalorian but all of their eggs are in the Marvel basket for now.
Wandavision, a show which I would say they would never make if asked me after I saw Iron Man back in 2008, is yet another example of the quality over quantity approach that is going on at Disney+. As far as original ideas go Wandavision has to be up there for ideas that really can’t be done again afterwards. What Jac Schaeffer and Matt Shakman have created is a show that so far keeps you guessing whilst being genuinely entertaining at the same time.
Like most Marvel products Wandavision is connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it is itself something different to everything else they’ve made. This is a formula that Kevin Feige has appeared to have perfected so far, Ant-Man is a heist film, the Spider-Man films are high school films, The Winter Soldier is a thriller and so on. Wandavision explores one of US televisions greatest exports, sitcoms.
Each episode is and will be a different sitcom era and the way in which episode is shot will be different and with different theme songs to match as well, god I miss theme songs! The homage works well with the first two episodes so far, especially the second episode and it’s homage to Bewitched. Wanda Maximoff and Vision are living their new married life in the suburbs trying to fit in but they feel as if something isn’t right, with Wanda feeling it much more than Vision.
The first episode is filmed in front of a live audience! How’s that for timing with the world the way it is, I personally dislike fake audience laughing in shows but its weirdly calming now hearing people in a crowd. The first two episodes are created perfectly with real gags and effects which is just that little bit of extra attention to detail that Marvel put into their products.
At the heart of the show is the overall mystery behind it and it isn’t necessarily thrown in your face but has the perfect amount of teasing so far. We, the actual audience, knows something is up but I’m excited to learn along the way with Wanda as I personally have missed a show with some mystery, that’s why I’ve been watching X-Files recently.
The only downside the show has really is if you don’t know the characters and what has happened to them then you could find yourself being a little lost. These aren’t new characters like in The Mandalorian so new fans can’t just jump in and learn later they kind of have to know straight away because the show is certainly going to be more appealing to a Marvel fan than someone who has signed up to Disney+ just to watch Disney films.
In the end, Disney has sort of successfully ruined watching TV for me. That sounds bad but their two main shows so far are at such a high quality that its hard to watch other shows on other platforms because that high quality just isn’t there. Disney+ has made yet another hit show and showing that it is worthwhile spending the money on Disney+, a service that can be half the price of Netflix.
In 2020 I watched and became a massive fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a show that WandaVision director Matt Shakman is a frequent director of. Always Sunny is great because its a genuinely funny and original show that goes further to achieve its higher level of comedy. Marvel is one of those studios that go that extra bit further to give the fans what they want and it really shows with WandaVision, they know what the fans want even if the fans have never thought of it before. WandaVision isn’t jarring to watch or low quality, Marvel’s shift to TV series has worked perfectly! I just hope we get an Always Sunny themed WandaVision episode.