I’m hardly steeped in the lore of the MCU and haven’t cared much for some of the movies, so after the first episode or two, I did a little research to get some background on who these people were and what they were all about. Mostly then, we enjoyed the series for what it was. That was the key. I don’t think a person would like it if they had absolutely no idea who these characters are and what their motivations may be, and have no interest in finding out before they watch it.
I’m reminded of going to see “Star Trek:The Motion Picture” when it first arrived in theaters. In the row behind me were two people, and the one was describing to the other in detail who each of the characters were (starting with Captain Kirk) and what role they played in Star Trek lore. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why anyone would have gone to see that movie with zero knowledge of Star Trek. After a few minutes of this I turned around and asked them to please be quiet now and explain the movie later. Today that would probably get me shot.
Well…I am up on all the movies and even some of the lore from the comics and I had no idea what was going on in the first ep. I think that was the point.
As much as I, personally, like WandaVision I have to say it’s a niche interest. It’s only “extremely popular and well-known” to a subset of the population. Granted, this board might skew towards that demographic, but I don’t expect everyone else to be conversant with it.
But if you feel your friend needs to watch superhero stuff…
I have a good friend who hates “Super-Spandex” movies. I was surprised when he wanted to come with me to see Into The Spider-Verse. He doesn’t like comic books, comic movies, or animation. But halfway through he whispered “What are you doing Saturday? We should see this again.”
(On Diz+)
I have another friend who LOVES Superman and Lois. I’d agree; very realistic portrait of a family… who are incidentally dealing with strange powers.
(On cw dot com with ads)
I also wonder if your friend would like The Mandolorian. Star Wars universe, but my SW-agnostic son-in-law said he knew nothing going in, "but it was a great spaghetti western in space, a lot like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."
Can I be the contrarian here and say, why not just try it? You don’t have to set down and watch it all in one go. The first few episodes are all pretty short and if she’s not interested after that she doesn’t have to keep watching.
How about someone that regularly reads Cafe Society noticing a thread that was active in CS the whole run of the show? Think that they might have noticed the title of that thread every day? Maybe clicked on it once?
Please drop this harassment. Posters don’t read every thread. I am a cafe society mod and never opened that thread. There is no reason to assume that every other poster is aware of the things you are aware of, and it’s really bad form to hassle posters who ask innocent questions. That’s a form of being a jerk.
I’m still kind of curious as to why you think your landlady will like it. Is it because she likes a certain type of story? Are there other shows she likes that are similar? Did she mention something?
Well, the number of animated films I’ve been playing on Disney+ has kinda reached a critical mass of her tolerance, is all. I’m trying to find live-action stuff she’d enjoy.
A couple days ago, we watched The Journey of Natty Gann together, and she loved it. Today, we watched the live-action Aladdin, which she enjoyed.
I’m not a superhero fan and enjoyed the early episodes of WandaVision for their loving send-up/homage to classic TV sitcoms from the 50s-90s, but basically lost interest as soon as all the Marvel Superhero stuff really started to come to the fore.
Ugh, she’s been binge-watching Say Yes to the Dress, and when she got finished with that series, she started binge-watching Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta.
Face Off might be a bridge between something that you might like and something that she might like. Competition reality, but they are actually there to make friends and future business contacts - and some of the effects/makeup they do is really cool.