Man, I hope so, too. I like discussing the shows, and don’t want to have to watch the whole series first. If The Witcher had been doled out weekly, I would have been in heaven.
I’m not sure what model I prefer, the weekly drop or the full drop.
The weekly encourages the water cooler talk as mentioned above. But the full drop can be excellent. Many shows are only 6-8 episodes in a season and I can binge those in 3-5 days. More like a mini-series or a movie.
They both have pros and cons. I really enjoy binging series like Stranger Things, I think Wanda does work better on the weekly installments.
Is there anyone who didn’t like the first two-three episodes, who also generally likes “Golden Age” television comedies? For me, “It’s a lame, unfunny sitcom, like The Dick van Dyke Show” is giving me some real cognitive dissonance.
That said, I think @Stanislaus is right that it’s not a sit-com, it’s a thriller that’s using sit-com cliches to generate unease and ratchet up the tension. Like the “boss is over for dinner” plot, which starts with neither character being able to remember what a handwritten heart on a calendar means. I can see basically that situation being played straight in a regular sitcom, and stuff like the heart being the only thing written in the entire calendar being poor production values, and the characters not knowing what it means to be contrived writing. In WandaVision, the fact that there’s exactly one thing written in the calendar, neither of the principle characters remember writing it, and neither can figure out what it means - and neither of them are freaked out by it - was deeply creepy.
I’ve seen a lot of people talk about the various sitcom influences in the show, but the big inspiration for the first three episodes seems to be more The Prisoner than anything else.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve watched a golden age sitcom, but I’ve seen quite a few that I enjoyed. I enjoyed the Dick van Dyke Show, and I’ve rarely laughed harder than I did when I first saw the Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory, and the the translation chain with the French cop and the drunk prisoner is a classic bit that’s stuck with me. It’s entirely possible that my tastes have changed, and I wouldn’t find them that funny now.
Regardless, I didn’t find the WandaVision episodes funny in and of themselves. It’s not that they were Golden Age sitcoms played straight, or at least not just that. It’s that they were mediocre Golden Age sitcoms played straight.
I didn’t find them weird or disturbing (except for a couple of moments, like the “Stop it! Stop it!” sequence). I didn’t feel any tension being ratcheted up, until the third episode. The heart on the calendar and their lack of memories was a nice bit of weirdness, but then the show itself just drives on with it as a standard sitcom lazy contrivance. I just personally didn’t perceive any tension or creepiness or weirdness. It just played out to me like a straight mediocre period sitcom.
Clearly, different viewers had very different reactions.
I will say, though, that at least anecdotally, between this thread and the Other Thread, none of us who have complained about those first two episodes have indicated that they stopped watching the series. It’s a very small n, and it may be survivor bias (those that stopped watching after the first two episodes just aren’t participating in these threads). But, everyone seems to have stuck with it to the literal Fourth Wall Break in Episode 3, and have enjoyed it since. So, on those grounds, it seems like objectively it was a good creative approach.
In The Prisoner, the audience surrogate, Number 6, is very much consciously aware of the enforced artificiality, and constantly fights against it. It’s pretty clear from the jump that the other characters are also aware of it but too scared and beaten down to not play along. That’s pretty much the whole point. It’s the juxtaposition of Number 6’s constant rebellion, the placid acceptance by the other Villagers, and the power struggle with Number 2 that drives the tension.
What we don’t get is the first two entire episodes showing Number 6 living his life as a complacent Villager with only a few moments of weirdness hinting that he may be aware of what’s going on but is playing along for his own deeper reasons (Wanda), or those moments of weirdness momentarily disturbing his otherwise placid acceptance of the Village’s reality (Vision).
Sure, which is why I said “influence,” not “remake.” You still have the element of a character finding themselves, without explanation, in a clearly artificial small town environment that appears to exist for the specific purpose of containing and controlling the protagonist, and whose veneer of normality is regularly punctured by moments of surreal terror.
Ok, except that you wrote:
I absolutely agree that The Prisoner is an influence, but I don’t see it as “the big inspiration…more than anything else.” Again, the whole point of The Prisoner is that he’s consciously aware that he’s in a weird artificial small town with no explanation, and he’s actively fighting against it the entire time. In WandaVision, we the audience are aware that the characters are in a weird artificial small town, but the characters don’t seem to be. We get hints that Wanda is more aware than she lets on, and Vision seems momentarily disturbed by the artificiality, and occasionally someone momentarily breaks through their artificial character, but until the last episode, we don’t see anyone actively fighting it. We do get some of that frisson with Agent Woo and Darcy (and then Monica) outside the bubble and their reactions to what’s going on inside the bubble. But while the whole setup is clearly influenced by The Prisoner, I don’t think The Prisoner is the major influence.
I feel like that’s a big distinction in plot, but a minor distinction in theme.
In The Prisoner, the protagonist had to be aware of his predicament, because the audience had no existing familiarity with the character or setting. He needed to be aware so that the audience could recognize stuff that was meant to be weird in-universe. WandaVision is using established characters in an established setting, so it doesn’t need that sort of viewpoint character. We know something is wrong in Westview, because we’ve seen what small towns are supposed to look like in this world. We know something has happened to Wanda and Vision, because we know how they normally act. This leads, obviously, to very different plots, but are still virtually identical themes.
As to The Prisoner influencing the show “more than anything,” I might have overstated that, but not by a ton. If you made a list of all the shows that influenced WandaVision, and then removed one, you could lose any of the individual sitcoms without fundamentally changing anything - less Dick van Dyke references just leaves room for more Lucy references. If you took out The Prisoner, you would end up with an entirely different show.
Part of the creepy feeling in the first episodes for me was from the outside knowledge that these are really Marvel characters, so clearly something weird was going on. Even before any of the actual in-show weirdness, like the dinner scene with the Harts, there was an uncomfortableness that wouldn’t have been there in the exact same scenes, if there were different actors and no Marvel fanfare at the start.
This is kind of the dual of the discussions about Lost and similar shows. I was somewhat disappointed in the ending of Lost, but that didn’t retroactively get rid of the enjoyment I had watching the early episodes. For people who didn’t enjoy the first few WandaVision eps, the payoff doesn’t magically erase the hour of boredom they felt earlier, even if they end up feeling it was a worthwhile investment.
I agree with you about Dick van Dyke and Lucy. But I think The Prisoner was less influential, or at least less directly influential, than The Twilight Zone, the “Avengers Disassembled” storyline in the comics, the disappearing twins/Master Pandemonium storyline in the comics, the Vision’s miniseries written by Tom King, Pleasantville, and for that matter Lost.
By the way, another big difference, I think, between WandaVision and The Prisoner is that in The Prisoner the weirdness was part of the artificiality of the Village. In WandaVision, the weirdness mostly results from the real world breaking through the artificiality. Although, from the audience perspective, that “real world” is itself an artificial contrivance, which I think only adds to the frisson.
I think this is a key point. For some viewers, just seeing Wanda and the Vision as mediocre sitcom characters was in and of itself effectively and intriguingly creepy. For me and some others, it was just kind of boring.
Let me point out the irony that should be obvious here. The Rotten Tomtatoes Critics do not capture what viewers think any more or less than podcasters do.
The Mandalorian - Rotten Tomatoes
WandaVision - Rotten Tomatoes
WandaVision’s audience score is comparably low in comparison to other “event” shows streaming now.
This is a good microcosm of the problem here. The constant presumption that the reason the critics disliked it was because it subverted expectation. Why are you unwilling to take anyone’s criticism at face value here? Why are you unable to grok that the critics didn’t enjoy it because, you know, they thought is was boring on it’s merits.
To me, the issue here isn’t that people didn’t like the first two episodes, or that people liked them. The issue is invalidating others’ experiences. Art is subjective, but everyone’s experience of it is valid. I happened to enjoy the first two episodes, but I don’t think anyone is wrong for not liking them. I do think it is wrong to try to argue that one’s opinions are objectively correct, as if there is such a thing with art. And yes, MCU stuff is art. When people try to cite evidence of others agreeing with their assessment its essentially telling the other person they are wrong to feel the way they do. That goes for either side.
This is one of my big issues with fandom in general. There is this idea that there is one true and correct way to feel about something, and any other viewpoint is therefore necessarily inferior. I have no issue with things like “I didn’t like it”, or “I thought it was bad”, or “I really enjoyed it”. What frustrates me is things like “It was terrible”, “Nobody with half a brain could like this”, or things of that nature. Those are not quotes of anyone here and are not meant to be by the way. Talking about our differing opinions is great and can be fun and interesting. Trying to prove other people’s subjective opinions as wrong is going too far IMO. This happens in almost every internet discussion on these types of movies and shows, and I get really tired of it.
The question for me is whether the same effect could have been achieved in a more entertaining way. A lot of comparisons have been made to Pleasantville and it’s been a while since I’ve seen that movie, but I don’t recall the first part of that film to have been a joyless slog until people started seeing in color.
From a writer’s perspective, the problem with the opening episodes is that they lacked conflict. Sure, cheesy sitcom conflict, but not the kind of conflict that pulled at the thematic elements of the show. The stakes of the series overall are clearly life, death, and damnation, and those were absent for large chunks of the opening episodes. It’s easy to see in retrospect what they are going for, but as a first - time watcher it did not resonate at all.
It seems like a failure that I don’t know how to fix.
ETA good post, Airbeck.
I agree with everything you’ve said, but I don’t think suggesting different frames of reference for approaching a work of art is necessarily the same as invalidating someone’s experiences. For example, I’d be interested if the experience of watching the first couple episodes after seeing the most recent episode would be different for people who didn’t like them. The explicit knowledge that everyone in town is constantly screaming in terror in their heads, but can’t express it, could really change how the sitcom parody stuff lands. If it still doesn’t work for someone, it still doesn’t work, and nobody should be attacked for it, but I don’t think asking, “Did you try approaching it with this framework?” is an attack.
And I do think that there is a clear distinction between, “I liked it, and here is a reason that I think that you would.” and “I didn’t like it, and here is a reason you shouldn’t either.”
The first is a suggestion on how to better enjoy something, the second seems an attack on those who already do.
“I don’t like broccoli.” “Have you tried it steamed with cheese?”
“I like broccoli.” “Well, you shouldn’t.”
Sure, there’s nothing unreasonable about that. I was stating a more general thought about all of this, not necessarily about what we’re seeing in this thread. I mean this is very tame and civil compared to a lot of previous discussions about other Marvel movies, or DC, or Star Wars, etc. It gets downright hard to participate in sometimes, and it’s unfortunate because it should be fun to talk about this stuff and nobody should be made to feel attacked because of how they feel about a movie or a TV show.
I would agree, telling someone they shouldn’t enjoy something when they do is just pissing in their cheerios. Or something like that. I couldn’t decide what metaphor to use there.
But, also important to remember that…
“I like broccoli,” “I don’t,”
…might feel like an attack, but isn’t actually one.