It didn’t work for me either, and I never finished the first episode. However, I heard the buzz, realized people were digging it and that it wasn’t going to remain stuck in a bad 50s sitcom (oxymoron), so I picked it back up and am glad I did.
The great thing about streaming is that it doesn’t matter how they release them; you pick it up and put it down as your schedule allows.
@Omniscient and @DSeid:
Can we dial down the heat before this thread gets closed as well?
I think the two of you are talking a bit past each other at this point, and reading each others’ posts as overly personal, creating a cycle where those posts are becoming overly personal. I think, but I may be wrong, that at least part of the problem is that folks are mixing discussion of their own personal reactions with discussion of reactions by the broader viewing audience, so it’s difficult to respond to the latter without coming across as criticizing the former.
I think we all agree that some people liked the approach the show took in the first two episodes and some people didn’t. I also think there’s some genuine disagreement on what the overall reaction by the broader viewing audience was, and whether the approach the creators and Disney+ took helped or hurt the show finding and growing an audience. If we can concentrate on that, and be careful not to fold in criticism of each others’ differing individual subjective reactions, there may be room for a constructive conversation here.
Modhat: For what it is worth, I made this thread from the mainpart 2 thread to provide a safe place for ranting or fighting over WandaVision and to keep such out of the the main thread.
So if they want to go at each other and don’t ratchet it up to pit like behavior, let them be. It is basically their thread and anyone that wants to join them. Only fair I think.
Hopefully @Chronos & @puzzlegal are OK with this approach.
FWIW I have provided some actual data on that.
Here is that article’s source.
There’s not much debate that the show has found and grown its audience. Would being more traditional superhero formula have also done it? Would a different drop schedule have also done it? Short of running experiments in different multiverse worlds we can’t say. But the way they did it has worked well for those goals.
I like WandaVision because it took a different approach. I don’t need another superhero movie, which may explain the disparity in opinion. MCU fans like MCU films because they are MCU films. Early WandaVision is very much not like an MCU film. The sit-com approach was silly/stupid in a good way for me, but I can see that someone expecting MCU type stuff would be disappointed.
Yeah, but Disney has access to those now, doesn’t it?
I’ve got to say, I’m confused by your moderating. Am I allowed to discuss and criticize the first two episodes and sitcom approach in the Other Thread? Is the Mod instruction that I’m allowed to discuss and criticize the first two episodes and sitcom approach in the Other Thread as long as it’s not a “rant”?
Modhat On: Please keep discussions of the sitcom aspect and related arguments here. You don’t have to rant here. But if posters want to get into a heated discussion here, better here than dominating the main thread. So please let them.
Basically I’m trying to keep the WandaVision thread from becoming just an argument over one aspect of the show. It killed the first thread and was close to derailing the current one. I hate having to give out warnings and this feels like a fairer solution.
As I said above, still won’t allow pit like behavior, but otherwise, I wasn’t planning to have to moderate this thread at all. If 2-4 posters want to generate 58 posts about how others are wrong, so be it.
I hope that clarifies what I’m attempting here.
Not modding here: The previews of WandaVision showing it as a Pleasantville like show is what actually had me looking forward to the show. I was eagerly awaiting seeing what they did with the concept despite not liking the Vision in the Marvel Universe. I think they did a good job.
On top of that I’m a really big fan of the Dick Van Dyke Show and just got done watching the 72 episodes of the first 2 seasons of Bewitch. So those episodes worked well for me. They pulled it off, in other words.
But, if you didn’t want the Pleasantville-like treatment, I fully understand not liking the first two shows.
FWIW I do see the two to three ep initial drop then weekly becoming more and more the norm, especially for show that have plot twists coming.
I think they are betting that two to three is enough to get people feeling like they’ve made an investment, and people hang on to even losing investments rather than take a loss. One is just a taste and easier to walk away from if there is no immediate gratification.
But after that the ep per week keeps people from being spoilered and gives a chance for word of mouth to build, especially for a show that has people guessing.
From the consuming side I like it, especially in these isolated times. The picking it up and putting it down as your schedule allows is nice, but it makes for a solitary activity, while the weekly drop creates a communal experience, even when it is not a particularly twisty show. We are lacking in those right now,
I’m quoting all of these because for me they really get at something fundamental to what I think Marvel are doing here, and why it is so divisive. All of these quotes judge the sitcom episodes on the basis of how funny they were. Why?
This is not a sitcom.
It looks and feels like a sitcom. Or more accurately, it looks and feels like a variety of sitcoms in chronological order. So of course, when you find yourself watching a black and white two-set farce with hackneyed plot about the boss coming to dinner, you instinctively judge it on that basis. The form invites certain assumptions about the kind of show you’re watching. But it’s not a sitcom. It’s a Marvel series about superheroes. It’s set in the MCU. They’re filming it like a sitcom. They’re not doing that to make us laugh. They’re doing to it tell us a story. They want to use the completely jarring sitcom form to communicate something fundamental to the story. Is it uncomfortable? Unsettling? Bewildering? Yes, because that’s what they want us feel. Something is wrong.
(And not just in terms of the sitcom form. In the MCU, we’re meant to have an identifiable villain, a quest for the hero and, goddamit, we’re meant to see the hero using their powers in awesome action sequences. We’re getting none of this. What the fuck?)
And that comes with a huge risk - that with the mismatch both between what we expect from an MCU show and what we’re seeing, and between what we expect from a sitcom and what we’re seeing, people will get pissed off. But the payoffs are there too. Episode 4 “blew the doors off” and “was a blast” (totally agree) - because it did a lot of work to resolve the bewilderment built up so well but also because it finally put us a) in a recognisable MCU world and b) in a form that fitted the content. The slick production values, the attractive people wittily bantering, the special effects - it all looks and feels like the good old MCU we know and love. We even see Wanda in her proper costume, using her powers. This is where we’re meant to be and whatever is going on in Westview is clearly some terrible aberration.
We could have had these outside-Westview scenes at any time. But we stayed in Westview for all but three episodes not because Marvel wanted to give us all a good laugh but because they wanted to ratchet up the uncertainty and tension that came from the clash of form and content. The ultimate point I guess is that if ultimately you find the series enjoyable on the whole a big part of that may well be not despite but because of the impact of the creepy, anachronistic, artificial, bewildering and unfunny sitcom episodes that illustrated the full depth of the fundamental challenge Wanda is going to have to overcome.
That post was getting too long but I wanted to address this specifically. I don’t think this is fair comment particularly on the first episode. It was played mostly straight up until the dinner but then descended into straight up existential terror:
“Who are you? What’s your story? What’s your story? Who are you?”
“Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.”
I’m not a connoisseur of 50s sitcoms but if they even occasionally had scenes quite so alienating I’ll be very surprised.
I judged the first two episodes as if they were sitcoms because they were. As I also wrote, they didn’t play to me as parodies or clever twists or Twilight Zone distortions - they played to me as straight forward, mediocre period sitcoms.
I understand why the series was structured that way. I also wrote that I thought the end of Episode 3 and all of Episode 4 worked really well, but only worked because of the way Episodes 1 and 2 were played. It’s a conundrum. I retrospectively appreciate them.
The problem was, while I was actually watching those first two episodes, I wasn’t entertained.
But to @Stanislaus’s point - were you disturbed? Did it make you uncomfortable? It made some even angry about it.
The show overall being entertaining to some degree is predicated on the discomfort of those eps. It worked.
And, of course, I personally think it was a perfectly fair comment. The first episode was a 95%+ stodgy, mediocre period sitcom. Yes, there were a couple of weird moments, and that bit at the end was well-done existential horror. And the weird bits only worked as well as they did because they were surrounded by 95% stodgy, mediocre period sitcom. I understand why the show did this. I really, really do. Again, it just wasn’t entertaining or fun or engaging or thought-provoking for me personally to sit through a mediocre period sitcom. But, again, I think they had to do it this way to get the payoffs they got. That still doesn’t mean I actually enjoyed the mediocre sitcoms while I was watching them.
Your Mileage, of course, May Vary.
No. I was bored. I missed a couple of bits of weirdness and actual plot because I wasn’t paying particularly close attention because it just wasn’t engaging on any level, to me personally.
For about the 234023284th time, I agree that overall the series worked. Brilliantly, even. That doesn’t change the fact that those first two episodes, for me, were a trudge through pointless mediocrity. Again, it’s a conundrum. I don’t know how to square that circle.
I will say, I am glad that the MCU is taking some risks with the Disney+ offerings. Falcon and the Winter Soldier, from the trailer, looks like a glossy, technically competent, potentially fun, but thoroughly conventional mismatched buddy-cop action/comedy. That’s perfectly fine, and I’m looking forward to it. But I’m also enjoying WandaVision, and I’m glad both kinds of approach can co-exist in the MCU and on Disney+.
[quote=“gdave, post:32, topic:932607”]
I judged the first two episodes as if they were sitcoms because they were [/quote]
No - they had the form and appearance of sitcoms, but they weren’t sitcoms. Sitcoms are supposed to be funny. Writers create a funny situation, ideally escalating towards a hilarious climax, and lard it with jokes. Actors perform the script in a way calculated to wring laughs out of each line. Directors, set designers, costume…people - they all do their jobs with an eye on one thing and one thing only: maximum funny.
WandaVision’s writers weren’t trying to get us to laugh. They didn’t use the boss comes to dinner plot because they thought it would be hilarious. Olsen and Bettany and everyone else chose a very specific acting style and they did not do so because they thought it would get us all chuckling.
That’s why I don’t like where they drop the whole season at once.
You are pretty much forced to binge it to avoid spoilers, and there is no time for speculation or discussion between episodes.
I was also looking forward to the Pleasantville aspect of the show; it’s what drew me in versus other Marvel shows. But Pleasantville (the movie) didn’t spend most of an hour and a half on outdated and unentertaining material before getting to the story. If you’re going to “play it straight” for most of the first three episodes, you need to entertain people while doing it. There were some clever nods to the sitcoms of yore, but mostly they were bland retreads that quickly wore thin. Thank goodness they’ve moved on.
Agreed 99% with your post. My only disagreement is that I actually did find the sit-coms funny. Not all the time, but it’s rare that I have a laugh out loud moment, and the “magic show” actually got a couple out of me. “That was my grandmother’s piano.” heh.
I agree that this approach (drop 2-3 eps, then weekly updates) is preferable. I’m also a casual viewer who can manage weekly updates but doesn’t have the stamina to binge a full season in one or two days. The discussion on Wandavision is hugely enjoyable for me precisely because it is spread out. Let’s hope you are correct in that this is going to become more common.