The Addams Family began in 1938 as a series of wry cartoon panels from Charles Addams for The New Yorker magazine. Then came the black-and-white 1960s sitcom with its iconic theme song (snap, snap). Then came the movie adaptations, because Hollywood loves nothing more than repurposing intellectual property over and over again. Well, the Addams Family is back again — all IP shall be mined into infinity! — this time as a TV spinoff for Netflix called “Wednesday,” featuring the original goth girl herself, Wednesday Addams.
Netflix is promoting the series as “from the mind of Tim Burton” and he’s an executive producer and director here (he directs the first half of the season) but perhaps it’s more informative to look at who’s credited as the show’s creators. That would be Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who gave the world “Smallville,” aka Superman/Clark Kent, the teen years.
“Wednesday” is a teen drama as well — one with style, though not an especially inventive one — and it works best when it’s simply being funny. The heavy plotting around a mysterious supernatural something or other? Very, very mid, but you need something to propel the story forward enough to stretch it out for eight episodes.
