When 2019’s Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing film of all time (not adjusted for inflation, sorry to knock it down a peg), a cultural and cinematic orgasm 12 years and 22 previous-MCU films in the making, the immediate question was, “what will Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige do now? Can the franchise get any bigger?” It turns out the answer, from the man who has masterfully shepherded the gargantuan enterprise, is to get smaller. So now we have WandaVision, the gleefully odd if marginally successful (at least based on the three episodes provided to critics) new Disney+ series, the first original Marvel series on the streamer.
The show is a complete departure from anything Marvel has attempted which is bold, given the corporate stakes, but should not come as a total shock. Feige repeatedly demonstrated an uncanny ability to shake up his 23-film, three-phase opus so we never tired of the whole galactic affair. That’s no small feat when you recall that between 2017-2019 there were three Marvel releases per year. Indeed, just when 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, cleverly steeped in ‘70s-era paranoia, nudged us to the edge of spandex fatigue, here comes the cheeky, rascally Guardians of the Galaxy four months later. And while most studio suits would have preferred to follow up 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War with another ungodly disgorgement of digital meanies, here comes the palette-cleansing Ant-Man and the Wasp less than three months later. And whatever Taika Waititi was smoking while directing 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, does Postmates deliver?
The cumulative result was an historic $22B grand slam. Now Feige must overcome a challenge more threatening to Disney’s bottom line than convincing fans to rush to theaters post-Endgame (and post-Covid); he must convince fans to rush to their sofas and plop down 7 bones a month for Disney+ and the infinite horizons of monetizable IP and soaring share prices it promises. Launching Marvel’s Disney+ era with the more action-oriented The Falcon and The Winter Soldier was the plan (and the more obvious play) until the Coronavirus delayed production, forcing the riskier, concept-stretching WandaVision into the pole position. But Feige has earned the trust of a generation of fanboys. They’ll go where he takes them in whatever order he chooses. And, in the first episode of WandaVision, he takes them back to the 1950s.
Or, more accurately, to the 1950s as they looked on classic sitcoms of the era, such as I Love Lucy. In the first of WandaVision’s nine episodes we’re introduced to our lovable neo-Lucy and Desi: two not particularly interesting characters from the Avengers movies, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and her robot husband Vision (Paul Bettany). They find themselves, no questions asked, living in domestic bliss in the idyllic Golden Age sitcom town of Westview. In episode two, we’re off to the bewitching sitcoms of the ‘60s where Wanda and Vision sleep in the same bed (gasp!) and she has swapped out her prim, pretty and obedient Eisenhower-era dress for the capri-style pants that caused a corporate stir when Mary Tyler Moore wore them on The Dick Van Dyke Show.
It’s a big creative swing, especially since millions of card-carrying fans will have only the vaguest notion of the classic shows being replicated. Thankfully that didn’t stop WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer (who co-wrote the Black Widow movie that maybe we’ll see someday) from doing her homework. The first two installments are in black and white, shot in era-appropriate 1.33:1 and feature a classic, artificial-sounding laugh track (odd because the first episode was shot in front of a live studio audience). Even the opens lovingly drop Easter Eggs from The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched. The plots are equally consistent with sitcoms of the time. In the premiere, Wanda and Vision throw a last-minute dinner party for Vision’s irritable boss and his wife (Fred Melamed and Debra Jo Rupp) forcing Wanda to use her powers to mix, chop and cook all the ingredients simultaneously. In the second episode, wackiness ensues when Vision arrives at a local talent show fundraiser seemingly drunk and Wanda must use her magic to save the day. The episodes feature bouncy, if not hummable, theme songs from Frozen duo Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and even a “commercial” for a groovy new time-saving something or other that your parents are gonna dig.
Even if WandaVision is unimpeachably good-looking, despite the digital lensing that gives the first two episodes too much modern sheen, the joy and surprise of seeing two modern cinema superheroes in this unexpectedly retro context slowly dissipates with the realization that the first two episodes are simply not funny. They traffic in the look, feel and rhythm of these bygone shows more than their quality jokes. Yet just as one slips into a blissful, alternate universe where Carl Reiner does a polish on both episodes, Schaeffer begins teasing out clues that there’s a larger game afoot. A red toy helicopter breaches our domesticated black and white bliss. A man in a beekeeper suit emerges from a manhole. Most crucially (at least at this early juncture) episode three send us into a beautifully reconstructed Brady Bunch home (In Color!) where Wanda’s new friend Monica (Teyonah Parris) features prominently and, possibly, diabolically.
Episode three reveals that WandaVision is playing the long game and one can only hope that the big picture will be more interesting than its visually appealing but only fitfully satisfying component parts. As we’ve learned repeatedly since Iron Man premiered in 2008, never bet against the House (of Ideas). So it’s entirely possible that after we’ve plucked down three months-worth of Disney+ subscription fees, the larger point and presumed tie-in to the Marvel Universe will have made the slow ramp-up worthwhile in retrospect. Until then, one cannot ignore a basic disconnect that might flummox even the Vision’s mighty intellect: if the idea is to tease out an adventure where the first-third feels purposely strained, we’re still watching 90 minutes of strained material. It’s yet another argument for shorter seasons of streaming content lest a series be accused of padding things out.
The show’s all-in concept is so meta that, in other hands, it would have swallowed the cast. Lucky for us that our tour guides through this decade-by-decade history of the sitcom are the solid team of Olsen and Bettany. Olsen masterfully modulates her role as Sitcom Wife, giving exaggerated line readings and facial expressions without going over the top. Bettany, with his broad shoulders and long arms, looks the part of an android while also ably displaying the comic chops that are rarely required of him. There are, of course, the neighbors, played most notably by the delightful Kathryn Hahn, chewing on every line of dialogue as the sassy, nosy Agnes.
WandaVision, much like The Mandalorian, which saved the Star Wars franchise from the greedy mismanagement of Disney’s motion picture division, will roll out weekly. And its forward thinking/backward looking concept, along with the years of goodwill accrued over the MCU’s history, means that even those who acknowledge the show’s teasing, almost plodding, start will stick around to see where it’s going. So whether the show ultimately reaches escape velocity or stays frustratingly earthbound (I’m betting on the former), it’s more proof that Marvel creative overlord Kevin Feige’s main superpower just might be mass hypnosis.