.The show starts on Disney+ this Friday, with the first two episodes.
Here’s an article revealing a little more about the show, including what sitcoms are homaged along the way.
Presumably the Malcolm in the Middle-inspired episode will introduce us to twins Tommy and Billy, thus introducing two more Young Avengers to the MCU.
I refuse to give my opinion about this series until I’ve watched it.
I’m not worried about the quality of the show per se, I’m just worried that it’ll be lost on me since I’m quite unfamiliar with stuff like The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Bunch of Brady’s.
They’re mostly formulaic sitcoms that capture the zeitgeist of their times. The Dick Van Dyke Show takes place in the JFK, Camelot-era 1960s. The Brady Bunch is about a blended family in the early 1970s, known for its large ensemble cast of children, sassy housekeeper, and early 1970s aesthetic.
Going by the trailer, it looks like there’s one reference to The Dick Van Dyke Show some people may not get; on that series the network censors had the married couple (Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore) sleeping in twin beds. It’s possible there could be more like that.
If you’re curious, you can probably get everything you need to know about whatever old sitcomcs are referenced by reading wikipedia articles and watching some clips on youtube.
a blended family
Well that was boring as fuck… but I gotta give kuddos to Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen who are both acting the shit out it, and great chemestry between them, but so far it was two episodes of “throwback” sitcom episodes that were painfully bland.
So yeah, it got old REALLY fast… thank god Bettany and Olsen are so good (doesn’t hurt that Olsen is such a beautiful woman I could just stare at her for hours). I hope this isn’t all there is to the show, a formulaic “weekly episode” thing with some weirdness injected through, because bleh…
On the upside, at least it’s getting me used to that fuckin squared format… xD
Edit: The in-show commercials were really bad though, and purely because of the “look, easter egg” thing… like, seriously, that’s the bluntest most boring way of doing an easter egg.
Also, let me just go a little rant for a bit, because this is like the burning question I’ve got after these two episodes, which btw, according to people who got the fisrt 3 for reviewing, most of them say they should’ve released the 3 of them at once, and yeah I can see why… anyways, my burning question is: Who the hell is this supposed to be for?
‘Cause here’s the thing, despite me being born in the 80’s, I did get to see those types of shows on TV, because there was a massive delay back then in terms of content, so yeah I got to see Bewitched and I dream of Jeannie (which was called My Beautiful Genie here in Mexico, fun fact) and therefore I understand both what they’re going for and the beautiful job they did of re-creating the feel, look and acting of those shows…
But there must be a TON of MCU fans who are my age or younger who must be like “what the fuck is this?”, and yes, why should they know or care about those old-ass tv shows? So I’m really wondering what was the idea here? Because those 2 first episodes, in all of their beautiful execution, are a fuckin drag, and that’s to me, someone who “got it”… I can’t imagine what a 20 year old is gonna think about them… =/
It’s a really puzzling decision, is what I’m saying.
I can’t disagree, sadly. I like it but it’s very self-indulgent. I said elsewhere that my biggest concern is that there’d be too much filler, and so far it’s a good 80/90% filler.
It’s kind of similar to Life On Mars, except in that show, the stories that were all happening in John Simm’s head were at least compelling.
I can definitely see why the put two episodes up first, given they were brave enough to do the 50s sitcom pastiche for the entirety of the first episode without giving a huge amount away. Given the second moves into a 60s pastiche (while ramping up the sense of unease and intrigue) I can see the series sticking with that progression through to the modern day, as “reality” encroaches into both the medium of the American family sitcom and whatever kind of simulation/pocket reality thing Wanda is in. I could well be wrong and it abandons this entirely (I hope not) but I’d guess next stop is 70s, with with Brady Bunch/Patridge Family pastiche (or something like Mork & Mindy maybe), then high concept 80s like Charles In Charge or Full House, taboo breaking misanthropic 90s like Married With Children and Everybody Loves Raymond, then, I guess Modern Family for the ’00s?
Yeah, I’m really onboard with this. Even outside of the narrative of the show itself, it’s impressive how they’ve replicated the styles and limitations of each period. The 50s episode was studio-bound, three camera, almost entirely filmed in mid-shots and replicated contemporary techniques for the special effects (Wanda’s levitated items just being on strings, the stop-motion close-up of the broken plate reassembling etc). Then when it goes into the 60s, you get close-ups, reverse angles, location filming, awkward insert reaction shots as well goofy 60s sitcom logic and themes. Even the beds being put together and Wanda’s pregnancy are things that wouldn’t have happened in the previous period and possibly fuelling the progression of the simulation as it adapts to accommodate Wanda’s desires.
I can totally understand anyone not getting it or even getting it and not liking it, but I really like it and I’m keen to see where it goes.
Yeah, I mean we get it, but for like 95% of the audience that’s a big “so what?” It’s fine to do that stuff if everything surrounding those details provides a good reason to watch, but so far if I wasn’t a big Marvel fan it would be mostly a waste of time.
Not being part of it, I don’t really give a fuck about the other 95% of the audience. 
It works for me, that’s all I care about. It’s not like it’s going to tank the MCU, Disney+ or the MCU on Disney+ if it’s not a big hit.
Yeah there was quite an AIM feel to that guy.
I watched it on the torrents (as Disney + is not available here or many other countries). I really enjoyed it, Steve has a point that a lot of Marvel fans may not be looking for a sitcom pastiche but since half of them in the world, including their second biggest market, can’t even watch it it’s seemingly not a huge issue for Disney and Marvel Studios. I think they must be happy the TV material is an offshoot that isn’t essential to the movie crowd.
The performances are really good. Olsen in particular is pretty adept at changing her style to match the period, she’s notably different between the 50s and 60s set episodes.
Mind you, I’m not saying it won’t be good when all is said and done (it feels like it’ll be at the very least a weird interesting show), but they should’ve either merged those 2 episodes, or released a 3rd one or something… I know it was not intended to happen like this, but it’s a very underwhelming start to their Disney + MCU chapter / phase 4… and yes “self-indulgent” is definetly the one word to describe those two episodes, I really hope things start picking up soon (and apparently they do).
But there were actual bees there too! AIM doesn’t have those! Do they?
Yeah, as Paul said, it’s kind of Wanda’s mind interpreting what she’s glimpsed into something that fits with her narrative. Possibly… 
The performances are really good. Olsen in particular is pretty adept at changing her style to match the period, she’s notably different between the 50s and 60s set episodes.
I think the whole thing is technically brilliant. It’s every bit as big budget as the movies – apparently the show has more VFX shots than Endgame – and yeah, Olsen is brilliant.
I still think it remains to be seen whether these first few episodes are anything more than an indulgence.
Beekeeper… from a sewer… nope!
Interesting bits. The use of pixels as the theme for the effects. Red, green, blue to just all red.
Separately, the essential concept is that Wanda and Vision are in this together, but… are they? Vision is suspect as a machine, so I feel Wanda is more the protagonist in the story. She is the one who steps out of character far more than he does. Vision looks to her, so she will have to be the one who takes decisive action.
Which is the essential “lie” of sitcoms, actually. At least sitcoms from the era of classic sitcoms. Despite men having all the power in the real world, sitcoms were fashioned around the idea that everything men did was for their women. At heart, sitcoms were satirizing the Chivalric ethic. All men’s fallibilities could be laid at their service to their women… who really didn’t need much service other than the salary that maintained their homes. The essential lesson of THE HONEYMOONERS or I LOVE LUCY is that everything a husband did was superfluous outside providing the funds for housekeeping.
Separately, the essential concept is that Wanda and Vision are in this together, but… are they? Vision is suspect as a machine, so I feel Wanda is more the protagonist in the story. She is the one who steps out of character far more than he does. Vision looks to her, so she will have to be the one who takes decisive action.
An important supporting element to this theory is that Vision is dead (or deactivated I suppose).
Separately, the essential concept is that Wanda and Vision are in this together, but… are they?
Well no, in theory no because Vision is dead, so he’s most likely a construct of Wanda’s mind… HOWEVER, it is possible that this is a ressurrection of Vision, because Wanda’s powers come from the mind stone, Vision’s existance is tied to the mindstone, and she did kill him with a direct blast to the mind stone, so it’s entirely possible that somehow Vision’s essence got syphoned into Wanda via her powers and what we’re seeing is more than just a construct (and btw, that might be why she’s going cray cray, ’cause she’s carrying Vision’s mind inside her own).
Buuuut, I guess we’ll see how they play it… I do hope they bring Vision back.
Is the Strucker Hydra watch a hint that maybe they have her under their control?
It might just be a memory… Von Strucker gave Wanda and Pietro their powers.
Can someone enlighten me about the helicopter? I’m not that familiar with SWORD beyond the fact they’re a space-faring SHIELD.
As for “Geraldine,” it’s pretty widely known that that character was appearing in the show.
I watched the first two episodes and was hoping for better to be honest.
The central idea is ok and some of the teases are vaguely intriguing, but as an audience we get the sitcom parody element in five minutes, we don’t need to sit through half an hour of accurate reproduction of a mediocre old sitcom episode.
It’s reminiscent of Death Proof and Tarantino – an extremely accurate pastiche of something a bit crap is still a bit crap, no matter how lovingly it’s made.
If they had made these early episodes a series of quicker sketches (before moving onto the meatier stuff that I assume is coming later) it might have worked better, but as it is they feel like a bit of a chore to sit through, even at less than half an hour each.
A show can be as clever and well-observed as you like, but if it isn’t entertaining in the moment, while you’re watching it, then I’m not sure whether there’s going to be a motivation to stick with it.
They may well work better in retrospect as part of the whole series, once we learn more – but we need to be interested enough to stick with it to that point, and at the moment I’m struggling to care.
Is Geraldine the black girl? If so, yes, that was kinda spoiled ages ago… Although, I didn’t realise it was her… didn’t put 2 and 2 together while watching.
Is the Strucker Hydra watch a hint that maybe they have her under their control?
Honestly, I’m not sure if they’re hints, memory bits, or just “easter eggs”… the way they presented them was more in the later fashion, in a very blunt and lazy manner I might add, so I hope they’re more than that… The helicopter was more subtle and an obvious hint for sure.
If they had made these early episodes a series of quicker sketches (before moving onto the meatier stuff that I assume is coming later) it might have worked better, but as it is they feel like a bit of a chore to sit through, even at less than half an hour each. A show can be as clever and well-observed as you like, but if it isn’t entertaining in the moment, while you’re watching it, then I’m not sure whether there’s going to be a motivation to stick with it. They may well work better in retrospect as part of the whole series, once we learn more – but we need to be interested enough to stick with it to that point, and at the moment I’m struggling to care.
Yeah that’s exaclty how I felt about it, and actually there’s a lot of reviewers who are basically saying the same, so at least we’re not crazy, bitter, jaded or something like that… xD
didn’t put 2 and 2 together
The Beekeeper outfit reminds me of AIM in the comics. Not sure what happened to AIM after Iron Man 3, though.
I hope there’s a Seinfeld in there.
A little Easter Egg spotted in the opening titles for episode 2. Probably just put there by the artist but with this show, who knows!
It’s a villain who’s very tied up with Vision, but only really in the comics – in the MCU, Simon Williams and his brother don’t feature in Vision’s origin.
Also, the neighbor “Agnes” some people are thinking she’s AGatha HarkNESS, but maybe it’s just a reference to the actress who played the mother in law in Bewitched who was called Agnes something (I forgot her last name), since she essentially serves a similar role.
First, we got hot Aunt May. Now, possibly getting hot Agatha Harkness.
Ha! Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised… although, no disrespect to the Hahn, but she’s no Marisa Tomei… =P
Still… the actual story of the first two episodes was mostly exactly being a sitcom like Bewitched. In that sense, it was not really very funny or interesting. So, people are not actually talking much about the majority of what was on the screen in the hour or so of material that was released as it was presented. Like, did Vision get that promotion? Is Norm really a communist? Will Wanda have a boy or a girl… or a microwave oven?
Instead, every question is around what was that “really?” and honestly, there isn’t a lot there except hints much more than solid clues. So, there will be some satisfaction when the truth is revealed, but there won’t be a lot of impact because, by intent, there is no reason to invest in what the show presents since essentially we know “it’s all fake.” Neighbor lady Agnes is not Wanda’s new best friend, Wanda and Vision don’t have a “real” marriage, so if they have a fight, it won’t really mean anything. Vision can’t get fired, and it wouldn’t matter if he did. It’s all just a sitcom of a sitcom and not a very good one on purpose.
They took a big risk in doing this and they will lose a fairly decent proportion of viewers in doing so.
i think we all ‘get’ what they are going for here, but it’s pretty fucking tedious at times and this could have been cut down to around half the duration of the first episode.
I think there is an element of abusing fan faith going on here and i feel a bit shit for making my wife and kids watch those 2 episodes on the basis that ‘something might happen soon guys keep watching, ooh wee helicopter look’
It’s very likely to get better and pay off to a degree for those who stick with it (although watching hours of this waiting on that payoff to happen feels pretty ridiculous)
It would help if it was more Entertaining. Olsen is very good though.
There were a couple of funny lines in the second episode like “Vision, ‘new business’ means another round of danishes.” “Oh, I don’t eat food.”
Or during the meetings by the pool, “How can you people do this sober?”
One of my favorite lines was “is that how mirrors work?”
If it is going to be a stupid sitcom, I would have liked it to be at least as entertaining as those stupid sitcoms were. You can still enjoy the DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, I LOVE LUCY, THE HONEYMOONERS and such for the sharp performances despite the dated nature of the material and the tired format, so if they are spoofing or parodying it, I think it would be more effective if they were more strongly committed to that so that the points where the format and style breaks down or is invaded by some external force would have a much greater, and probably uncanny, impact.
Watched episode 2 again. Bee-dude has the SWORD logo on his back.
I doubt it’s meant for kids. I mean Disney+ doesn’t need any more content for kids. I think this is more for the Marvel audience and is meant to be something even with The Mandalorian to pull in 20-30 year old adults looking for material aimed at them.
for me, and for a few others I’ve seen reviewing the show, the first two episodes did not have strong enough comic material that I really got into the story inside the “real story.” I wanted to know what was really going on so the actual sitcom story was always colored by that.
As far as the idea that Wanda is “real” and Vision is a projection, why would we see scenes with Vision at work or at the neighborhood watch meeting? I think this has to be the real Vision as much as the real Wanda trapped in here.
What I mean is, if the kids remain alive then so should Vision.
Dave, can you force your kids to watch this and chime in with their opinion, please?
No, I don’t want to get arrested for being an abusive parent.
It’s very likely to get better and pay off to a degree for those who stick with it (although watching hours of this waiting on that payoff to happen feels pretty ridiculous) It would help if it was more Entertaining.
This article sums it up quite well for me.
WandaVision raises an odd existential question: what, exactly, am I supposed to be enjoying here?
Rather, watching WandaVision, you end up asking yourself a rather odd existential question: what, exactly, am I supposed to be enjoying here?
Of those three episodes, the genre is subtly different each time, as we leap roughly a decade of TV forward: first 1950s, then 1960s, then the technicolour 1970s. And yet this isn’t quite parody, as while each plays up the tropes, they’re not so much making fun of the them, as merely replicating them.
What joy, I asked myself, do I take from the following exchange, which happens at the start of the first episode, after Wanda, who is unpacking the plates via telekinesis, accidentally hits Vision in the head with one.
“My wife and her flying saucers,” he says, to canned laughter.
“My husband and his indestructible head,” she replies to more canned laughter.
“Well, aren’t we a fine pair,” she says, to more canned laughter.
You get the idea. It apes every sitcom cliche, but has genuine fun with almost none of them.
What I think would improve the show is for there to be a bit more examination of, or commentary on, some of the tropes that they are pastiching.
One of my favourite early 2000s comedies was Look Around You, a UK show that was a pastiche of popular science/education shows of the 70s and 80s like Tomorrow’s World. The pastiche was incredibly accurate and note-perfect, to the extent that you could almost believe you were watching the real thing. But it also went beyond that with lots of genuinely funny ideas and jokes and amusing commentary on the tropes it was parodying, so was entertaining on that level too.
I don’t really get any of that ‘going further’ aspect with Wandavision. It feels like a hollow recreation of the real thing without anything further to offer beyond the small hints at what is going on in the larger story.
It feels like a hollow recreation of the real thing
Well if that isn’t comic book movies in a nutshell…
That said, Look Around You is absolutely brilliant. Most people I’ve showed it too have completely bought it as a real science show, up until a point. “The sentient calcium has been completely neutralized.”
I’m wondering if they’re drawing inspiration from the Marvelman/Miracleman story by Moore. The kind of origin where they’re fed a story narrative through a machine by Gargunza while they’re being experimented on, but MM keeps fighting back against it, trying to remind himself what is actually happening.
You’re really thinking way too hard about this. The Harts asking how they got there is just Wanda’s subconscious mind telling her something’s not right.
However, she is not thinking about whomever was watching the show on the monitor at the end of episode 1 but it existed. Someone outside is monitoring this and trying to contact her. Also, the graduation of the sitcom format is not something inherent to watching them. People didn’t graduate from watching I Love Lucy and My Favorite Martian to All in the Family and M*A*S*H* When these were on as kids we’d watch reruns of the Andy Griffith Show and Gilligan’s Island followed immediately by Barney Miller and WKRP In Cincinnati. They were essentially in the same world as far as we were concerned.
I’m wondering if they’re drawing inspiration from the Marvelman/Miracleman story by Moore. The kind of origin where they’re fed a story narrative through a machine by Gargunza while they’re being experimented on, but MM keeps fighting back against it, trying to remind himself what is actually happening.
It does seem unlikely that they would go entirely the House of M route – though it would be a good way to reconfigure the universe to insert things like the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Another interesting story in this same vein is Ursula Le Guin’s THE LATHE OF HEAVEN where a mentally ill young man in a dystopic, post-war future can change reality with his dreams and then comes under the control of a psychiatrist who wishes to use his dreams to “fix” the problems of the world.
It certainly seems to take elements from House of M and from King’s The Visions series, but those seem only to be a very small percentage as far as the story here.
Wasn’t this show supposed to tie into Doc Strange 2 or vice versa? It’s always possible this is some supernatural entity’s work… like say Mephisto or Nightmare, although I’d kinda prefer if it was Wanda’s doing in the end.
Huh, I don’t think that’s it, but the insistance of “for the children”, and the pregnancy and all that, it could be Mephisto/Nightmare/some entity trying to cross over to our dimension by using Wanda and her powers to “give birth” to him within our world… but that might be too propoer horror for the MCU… =P
I think there is an element of abusing fan faith going on here and i feel a bit shit for making my wife and kids watch those 2 episodes on the basis that ‘something might happen soon guys
My wife’s reaction after watching both episodes: “That sucked!”
My best guess as to what’s happening; Wanda was suffering a breakdown after the loss of her brother then Vision and her powers were running out of control so she’s been put into some kind of medically-induced coma by SWORD to try and keep things under control. However, her subconscious mind is triggering her powers anyway, and causing those within a certain proximity of her to be a part of her internal narrative – you can see the division between the real world and Wanda’s mini-reality in the trailer, when Geraldine/Monica is pulled out into the real world, and at one point Vision manages to “wake up” Agathanes from the fantasy.
Some people think the voice on the radio asking “who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” is Jimmy Woo, former SHIELD agent (as seen in Ant-Man) and now FBI, so maybe he’s found out what SWORD is doing and thinks it’s inhumane and is trying to help her.
Or maybe there are dark forces at work, attacking our world using Wanda as a portal, and SWORD are doing what they can to combat them.
I suspect that what is really happening is that Steve Rogers has asked his fellow Avengers to catch him up on all the TV he missed while he was frozen in ice, so Wanda and Vision are acting out classic sitcoms, and the Falcon and Winter Soldier show will have them doing parodies of cop shows across the decades. I can’t wait for the TJ Hooker episode!
Does that mean She-Hulk will be doing law shows? And Moon Knight will be um… movie Batman through the ages??
Honestly, I’d pay good money to see Oscar Isaac doing an Adam West homage.
I suspect that what is really happening is that Steve Rogers has asked his fellow Avengers to catch him up on all the TV he missed while he was frozen in ice, so Wanda and Vision are acting out classic sitcoms, and the Falcon and Winter Soldier show will have them doing parodies of cop shows across the decades. I can’t wait for the TJ Hooker episode!
This is now canon like how that guy really did tase himself in the balls, facts be damned
I suspect that what is really happening is that Steve Rogers has asked his fellow Avengers to catch him up on all the TV he missed while he was frozen in ice, so Wanda and Vision are acting out classic sitcoms, and the Falcon and Winter Soldier show will have them doing parodies of cop shows across the decades. I can’t wait for the TJ Hooker episode!
Hilarious.
As an interesting side note, I have known many immigrants here who learned English as much from watching television as from classes, and a lot of them cite old sit-coms as the best training because in a show like I LOVE LUCY or GILLIGAN’S ISLAND what the characters say is exactly what they are doing on screen because of the structure of the comedy.
So, if Wanda was close to Steve when they were in the Avengers and they were both watching television together to catch up in their own way to current American society, then it would make sense these shows would have had a big impact and positive effect on her subconscious.
Also, it would explain why the shows aren’t really that funny because Wanda’s not really a comedy writer.
You guys are overthinking it,
We’re comics nerds fans; that’s what we do!!
