Wednesday gets her name from a poem her mother loved which is “ Wednesday’s child is full of woe. “ This was a line from an old English poem that made people believe a child born on Wednesday would be full of bad luck.

 Wednesday’s Woe

Aneysha Berard

The new show “Wednesday” is a comedic yet supernatural fictional television series. Wednesday Addams is the daughter of Morticia Addams and Gomez Addams, who you may know from the original film “ The Addams Family “ or the 2019 animated movie. In this Netflix series, Wednesday is expelled from her “normie” school for releasing piranhas in her school swimming pool while attempting to kill the bullies of her younger brother, Pugsley Addams. Wednesday is sent to a school called Nevermore Academy where her parents went and also met when they were just as old as Wednesday was. Wednesday is now in this school where students are considered “outcasts”. At this time she begins to experience her psychic abilities and struggles with trying to fit in with her peers. Meanwhile, she and officials are trying to solve the mystery of continuous killings in her area. I loved how the creators put this together because it just made me want to watch more and the supernaturalness of this just made it so much more interesting because it fits the Addams Family’s liking. In this show, the character Wednesday is portrayed and starred by Jenna Ortega. Jenna Ortega is an American actress who is now most known for her role in the show Wednesday. Jenna learned to play the cello,took fencing, archery, and many more activities to prep for the role of Wednesday. I really did love how accurate they made the cast and how detailed everything was for this show. Jenna has created a TikTok trend with the song “ Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps with her iconic Rave’N dance that she self-choreographed for a scene. Many people have recreated it due to how amazing it is. It has mostly gone viral because it was so unique and expressed Wednesday herself. Many also loved this because the dance included cultural dancing such as Indian dances and Polynesian dances. It’s amazing that it was able to gain so much recognition. 

This show is now the third most popular English TV series to exist behind Stranger Things 4 and second, Dahmer:Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story! It has now passed over 752.5 million views and had around 341.2 million views within the first week it was released. It was also in the Top 10 on Netflix by the second week of being released. Wednesday holds the record for most hours viewed in a week for its TV series on Netflix. There are a total of 752.52 million hours views in 115 million households!

I was immediately intrigued to find out Tim Burton was a part of this project. I have always admired Tim Burton’s work such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, and Alice in Wonderland. This made me extremely excited to watch this show to see what more he could give and I was not disappointed! I felt that everything about this show was just incredible. The creativity, the attention to detail, the suspense, the dialogue, and so much more. I was shocked by all of the unexpected twists and I think that’s what made me admire this show so much. While I continued to do more research on this show, I viewed audience reviews and one that stood out to me was “I was worried it wouldn’t be able to compete with the other versions of the Addams family but WOW! this was amazing!  Normally I don’t do reviews but I’m just so blown away by the casting the acting to the set design the plot and the storyline, Wednesday has left me speechless in the best way!” I have also asked others that I knew for their opinions and a couple of quotes I got from them were “ I loved Wednesday because of how funny yet weirdly serious it was” and “ I don’t usually watch shows but my friends were all talking about Wednesday so I decided to watch it and surprisingly I actually wanted to watch more, I really liked it.”   It’s just wonderful to see that someone who grew up with the original Addams Family seemed to love the new one and how the show affects people’s liking of shows. It blows my mind how quickly I became so fascinated by this show because usually I’m not the type of person to watch seasonal shows but this show has changed that. Another fantastic thing about this show is that people have used Wednesday as an icon of their own or have become much more confident about themselves. This was because Jenna Ortega came forward about her portrayal on Wednesday. She says “ She’s somebody who embraces her differences and isn’t out to please anybody and I feel like that’s a really powerful thing to see.” For this, People have seen Wednesday as a “ Gay Icon”. Since then, Jenna has ongoingly discussed Wednesday’s impact on the queer community. For example,  Jenna says “ I feel like people want to see powerful women with powerful women.” Wednesday is also given two love interests in the show, Xavier and Tyler. Still, it seems as though she isn’t interested in either. This has given people the feeling that Wednesday might be queer or asexual.   I love that this show has not just brought people together but has solidly affected everyone individually in positively different ways.  Everyone has been questioning if there would be another season and the answer is yes! The estimated release date of season two is Wednesday, November 27, 2024. It may be released earlier or later but for now, that is the best-estimated guess. So this weekend, sit back, take a break, and enjoy the Wednesday show!