Watched all eight episodes in the U.S.A.'s 2022 Wednesday by Tim Burton. First , we need to remind ourselves that not all of the episodes were directed by Tim Burton, and, second, that the entire series is a deliberate spoof on Nancy and Sluggo's Oona Goosepimple, the Harry Potter characters and series, Scooby-Doo, Carrie, Grimm, Nancy Drew, perhaps even Horror of Dracula, and other vulgarly commercial--or commercially vulgar--series that teens are currently into.  

The series suffers from postured-intellectual, sophomoric dialogue, as though it were written by a student who just graduated from K-12. It tries too hard to be witty and ends up being stilted and artificial-sounding. Examples: "That thing was a fashion emergency not even lightning could resuscitate." "We're original thinkers, intrepid outliers in this vast cesspool of adolescence."

And then there are too many special effects, which are favored over production design, and which is, of course, totally un-Tom Burton. Special effects and production design are two completely different things, and one cannot ever substitute for the other. To begin with, Nevermore Academy is no Hogwarts; it looks like a Lemax Christmas village house. Its architecture and chambers are unclear, and the viewer cannot tell how the rooms are related to other rooms and how far they are from one another. 

I recognized a shadowy Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Madame Pomfrey, and Sirius Black. The performers, though, are no help. Wednesday Addams's consistently deadpan expression gets boring after a while and Principal Larissa Weems is too Meryl Streepy. Morticia's gown is not cut on the bias, so that it does not flow. In Episode 8, it is evident that Eugene, lying in hospital, can actually see without his glasses.

Like all Netflix movies, things get exciting only after half of the entire series has been screened. But, that isn't the only flaw in the screenplay. If, in the beginning, Wednesday is making an effort to not be an Addams like her parents, why doesn't she make an effort to adjust to the normie schools she was initially sent to? During the entire series she is writing a novel, but her narration sounds more like a journal than a novel. And the problem with having a protagonist who experiences psychic flashes is that the flashes are too convenient and too corny a technique for exposition. 

I was expecting this series to be about a girl's serious, albeit macabre, struggle for survival in a world of normalcy, but instead saw an Addams Family Halloween special minus the laugh track.

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