The world became seemingly transfixed with Wednesday as soon as it was released to Netflix on November 23, 2022. Within just 19 days of its release, the show garnered 1.02 billion views, trailing just behind the smash hits of Squid Game and Stranger Things.

Directed by Tim Burton, the Netflix series Wednesday follows the iconic eldest daughter of the beloved Addams Family as she is enrolled in Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts. Upon arrival at the school, Wednesday is paired with a roommate, Enid, a stylishly colorful and bubbly half-werewolf teenage girl — a seeming total opposite to Wednesday’s gloomy disposition. Enid introduces Wednesday to the cliques of the school; it reads like every other high school drama, even including the titular queen bee mean girl, the only difference is — these students all have strange and unusual supernatural powers, abilities, appearances and/or behaviors. Wednesday discovers her power is visions of the future and past, something she learns her mother dealt with as well in her time at Nevermore. Our heroine uses her newfound psychic abilities as she uncovers the truth behind the murder her parents are accused of and the real reasoning behind the murders and disappearances happening to Nevermore students and citizens of the town of Jericho.

So, why such success? The Addams Family has been reiterated many times since the orginal comics done by Charles Addams for the New Yorker. The comics inspired a sitcom-style show in the 1960s that followed the characters by Charles Addams: Gomez and Mortica, the parents, Uncle Fester, Lurch the zombie butler, the eccentric Grandmama, Thing, their young son Pugsley, and of course their eldest child and only daughter, Wednesday. After the first iteration in the sitcom, there were two cartoon series, one in 1973 and another in 1992. The most iconic iterations, however, are the 1991 and 1993 movies, The Addams Family and its sequel Addams Family Values. These two early ’90s movies are often the first thing that come to mind when the Addams Family is mentioned. There is a third movie from 1998, The Addams Family Reunion, which featured an entirely new cast than the first two movies and was received rather poorly. In 2010, Andrew Lippa’s The Addams Family Musical hit Broadway and received mixed reviews.  Additionally in 2019 and 2021, two 3-D animated Addams Family movies were released, which also received mixed reviews.  Clearly, there’s no shortage of demand for Addams related content.

The appeal of the characters is their undoubtable strangeness. Morticia and Gomez share outrageous displays of affection with unnecessary sexual undertones, Uncle Fester is an all-out weirdo with powers that are never exactly explained, little Pugsley has a fixation with being tortured and Wednesday has a nihilistic view on the world, an extreme lack of empathy and emotion, and a love of violence.

However, despite Wednesday‘s wild success, there was something undoubtedly missing in the show’s portrayal of the family. As the show continues, it becomes blaringly obvious that the Wednesday show could exist entirely without its connection to the Addams Family. An important value of the Addams Family characters is that they all love each other deeply; they all hold a deep connection between themselves that sets them apart from most bickering families. Along with this, the Addamses don’t see themselves as different, rather everyone else strange and tasteless. This sentiment is lost within the show.

Throughout the show, Wednesday and her mother Morticia have a strained relationship, with Wednesday wanting to defy her mother and all the expectations set by her. This is the first deviation from what makes the family so iconic. Yes, it’s normal for teenagers to want to rebel from their parents, but the Addamses are not normal and the sudden addition of this plot line feels abrupt. The second most prominent and bothersome liberty taken, are the plot lines that involve Wednesday’s falling in love. Wednesday is extremely cold hearted, emotionless and determined to complete her goals. So, when Wednesday ends up kissing a boy as well as capturing the interest of another, it feels like we lose the Wednesday we know to the pressure for all female characters to have some kind of love interest.

The show mirrors that of Riverdale with its complicated supernatural lore and its various romantic storylines, and to mirror Riverdale definitely not what Wednesday Addams would do. One must wonder, if there was a show that followed the exact plot of Wednesday, but simply swapped the Addams characters out for a new set of gothic family members, would it have reached the same success? Or does its connection to the iconic and beloved movies give it an immunity to critics?

Wednesday very easily falls under the category of “nostalgia-baiting,” when producers take a well-loved piece of media by Millennials or Gen X and revamps it for a younger audience. This way, the creators don’t have to work terribly hard to create something entirely original, they can draw in older audiences by using something they loved in their childhood that they want to reminisce on, and they can appeal to young audiences by giving them a new show with interesting fashion, aesthetics, and attractive stars to fawn over.

A major part of the series’ growth is its easiness to consume, quote, and recreate. Almost every line delivered by actress Jenna Ortega, playing Wednesday, is a witty quip about her nihilistic and unsympathetic view on the world, to the point it becomes repetitive and gets in the way of the plot progressing.

Of course, Wednesday cannot be discussed without the mention of Jenna Ortega’s iconic scene which shows Wednesday dancing to Teenage Goo Goo Muck with various interesting goth-inspired dance moves. This portion of the show became a fast trend, with countless amounts of people recreating the dance, accompanied by a speed of version of Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary.” On the topic of social media, Jenna Ortega’s beauty is a huge draw to the show and she has quickly become a new “It-Girl” for 2022-23.

Despite my grievances with the show, the straying from the source material, the shallow plot lines, and the awkward dialogue, Wednesday is a huge success. Do I think it deserves the amount of praise it’s received? Not entirely. The series receives 3 out of 5 stars from me; it’s entertaining and enjoyable at best and cliche and cringe-worthy at worst.