SUMMARY:
In the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, former Avengers WANDA MAXIMOFF (Elizabeth Olsen) and VISION (Paul Bettany) are living a quiet, idyllic life in the American suburban town of Westview, New Jersey. Between their nosy neighbor Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) and the pitfalls of relationships, this unusual couple certainly has their work cut out for them. Yet, there are some nagging questions that need answering: How did Wanda's powers get stronger? Why does her idyllic life look like sitcoms of past decades? And isn't Vision supposed to be dead?
-----------------------
One of the benefits of re-watching the various entries of the MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE is hindsight, how past films or characters that were taken for granted or generally ignored could be examined with the benefit of what comes after or recently. That is most certainly the case for characters of Wanda Maximoff and the Vision. First properly introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015, these two characters have always been in the periphery of the adapted heroes in the films. They definitely are important comics characters and have had important things happen to them that propel the plot of the films they star in, but they are still the backup dancers when compared to the heavy hitters like Captain America, Iron Man and Thor. And it's not like they got their own separate films either like Spider-Man or Black Panther; Wanda and Vision starred in only four of the 23 current MCU films, and all of them Avengers-dominated. While we did get hints of these two, we never were given a reason why we should care about them...until now.
WANDAVISON is the first of the Marvel Studios shows on the streaming service Disney+, as well as the beginning of Phase 4 of the MCU in the wake of Avengers: Endgame. Unintentional or not, I felt WANDAVISION needed to set a precedent for this new paradigm of fully supported Marvel Studios productions beyond films, especially during the state of the world of late 2020-early 2021. WANDAVISION needed to show that MCU television shows can work after the mixed results of the past, and get the audience to love two characters that had little reason for investment. And through a combination of excellent writing, unique presentation, and great acting, WANDAVISION succeeded with flying colors.
The first to be praised are the leads, and Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany were fantastic. As this is a story focused on them, and a television story of roughly six hours instead of a movie story of two-three, the actors and their characters are given so much more depth, nuance, personality and emotion than ever before. It's as if the four previous films they starred in gave only a taste of what they really were, and in fact thanks to WANDAVISION, this previous taste is now stronger with this movie and television continuity. By the time this show is over, you will have cared so much more for Wanda and Vision than ever, want these two to get their happy ending, and make you uncertain for the future that's in store for them. The insight and drama into the two characters is legitimate and well-handled in my opinion, and if you don't care for these two by the end, I don't know what else can be done to get you to like them.
Another of the cast that also deserves praise is Kathryn Hahn as the nosy, friendly neighbor Agnes. Without going too much into spoilers, I really liked the wide range she gave in her performance as being both friendly and unsettling as the show progressed, and will make you hope that she will come back again in the future. And it is great seeing Kat Dennings and Randall Park reprise their roles as Darcy Lewis and Agent Woo from the films, even allowing us to see their own character development. And though she still has yet to properly show her stuff, Teyonah Parris did pretty good as Monica Rambeau, giving us some good progression from the character's time in the Captain Marvel film and showing promise for future appearances in the MCU.
Second to be praised is the sitcom angle, as I feel it serves to be a great hook more so for the casual viewers instead of the fans. Oh sure the fans will really dig into this show for the characters and continuity, but for the casual viewers the sitcom stuff works well as practically everybody has seen at least one sitcom in their lives. The angle of the episodes presenting a sitcom from many eras allows for tons of fun and creativity, as it homages shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, Malcolm in the Middle, and Modern Family with pride. Thus each episode is influenced by the sitcom eras in a number of ways, whether it's Aspect ratio, the coloration of the show, musical style, writing, and even comedic sensibilities. Even the "commercials" that play during the episodes are of the different eras, and in my opinion are particularly inspired because of the humor and continuity nods on the surface, while deeper analysis of them reveals a more unsettling and dramatic mystery.
If I had to give any negatives against the show, it's the runtime and episode count. The runtime of the episode is roughly 30-40 minutes, which was fine for the early episodes. As the show moved forward and reached its ending though, I felt that maybe the length should've been extended to an hour to allow as much storytelling to be done as possible. This also extends to the episode length. Nine episodes is most certainly great and this could just be me, but why NINE? Why end one short of a perfect TEN? On top of that, ten episodes again would allow for much more to be accomplished.
But if episode count and length are my only nitpicks, that speaks volumes of the show's overall quality. WANDAVISION was outstanding and befitting many of the adjectives that Marvel uses on their comics: Amazing, fantastic, incredible, sensational, etc. It's a superb start to Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is highly recommended to any who have and will eventually have Disney+. It shows tons of promise for Marvel Studio's future projects in this format, and even divorced from all these Marvel elements it's still a well-written and well-made series.
