Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Wednesday: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Two snaps up. (For the show, at least.)

Reviewed by Randy Miller III March 24, 2024

Before Barry Sonnenfeld's surprisingly great 1990 film and the memorable Super Nintendo game (not to be confused with Fester's Quest, which sucked), I was introduced to The Addams Family by reruns of the original 1964 TV show and a dog-eared reprint of Charles Addams' My Crowd, a collection of Addams' original New Yorker cartoons dating back to the late 1930s. I'm not exactly a lifelong fan of the franchise (having not caught up with most recent incarnations) but was at least captivated by it at a young age and, after watching this first season, I can appreciate how Netflix's recent hit show Wednesday has successfully blended familiar and fresh elements in a new and exciting way.

This taut first season of just eight episodes (the first half of which were directed by none other than Tim Burton, who also executive produced) establishes the new world in relatively short order, focusing on teenage daughter Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) and her glaring inability to fit in at public school. Almost immediately expelled for attempted murder by way of a piranha infestation during swim class, her parents Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán, looking much more like the old comics than Raul Julia's theatrical take on the character) whisk her away to Nevermore Academy, their alma mater just outside of Jericho, Vermont. It's basically a boarding school for outcasts -- perhaps the nicest way to put it -- and one where Wednesday might fit in with all the other monsters (figurative and literal), with her only souvenir from home being "Thing", the family's disembodied hand secretly sent to spy on her.

Naturally it doesn't take long for a mystery to present itself, and truth be told there's already trouble in the otherwise sleepy town of Jericho before Wednesday gets dropped off by her parents. (They don't stick around, but at least return with son Pugsley [Isaac Ordonez] for episode #5.) There's been several deaths investigated by sheriff Donovan Galpin (Jamie McShane), and it's not long before Wednesday's investigation makes them the only two who believe the culprit is something other than a wild animal. All the while, Wednesday tries to navigate her turbulent new life at Nevermore, where she reluctantly rooms with bubbly Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers) and clashes with others like artistic Xavier Thorpe (Percy Hynes White) and overachiever Bianca Barclay (Joy Sunday), whose luminous contacts might be on loan from your annoying cousin's favorite rapper, Hopsin. Other detours await, such as Wednesday's sorta-romance with barista Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan), the sheriff's estranged son, stern principal Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie), court-ordered therapist Dr. Valerie Kinbott (Riki Lindhome), and kindly teacher/dorm mon Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the '90s films). Naturally, the very spirit of Nevermore Academy's "outcast" mantra means that almost each of every one of its students and faculty has some kind of dark secret or mystical ability.

Part coming-of-age drama but primarily fueled by deep black comedy, Wednesday takes its cues from several other contemporary old-school YA reboots such as Riverdale and Nancy Drew. Here, both the first season's murder-mystery narrative and its "next-generation" mentality feel a bit more pure, as Wednesday's sharper writing and more naturally pitch-black franchise origins -- not to mention the top-tier performance by Jenna Ortega, who absolutely inhabits the character from the first episode -- suit the subject matter organically. Somewhat annoying colorful school cliques aside (which might have been more appealing if I fell into the show's target demographic), this is a very solid run of eight episodes that, despite my almost unyielding love for Tim Burton, actually gets a little better in this season's second half... even if certain deeper layers of the mystery feel like Wednesday is a little too "big for its britches".

No matter; as far as first seasons go, it's as confident and consistent as almost any show I've seen in recent memory, carving out new territory for an established franchise while planting a few seeds for future seasons. Speaking of which, there's been quite a gap between these eight episodes (first available on Netflix back in November 2022) and the next planned season, which begins filming in a matter of weeks. But for now, Wednesday enjoyed unpreceded popularity on that ubiquitous streaming platform, breaking or approaching several records for an English-language series including most hours watched in its first week and total number of pre-release followers. It's therefore one of the few streaming originals to actually earn a physical media release, although Warner Bros.' home video treatment could've used some spit and polish; not only is there no 4K option, but absolutely no bonus features have been included either.

Wednesday: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Normally these kind of streaming-to-Blu-ray releases get a pretty easy free pass, as the excess compression of such platforms usually runs a distant second to HD physical media. And while that's still certainly the case here, I daresay there's some room for improvement -- it surely could have been remedied by a 4K UHD option, but even most 1080p releases run a little smoother than this. Despite these eight episodes (~45 minutes each) having more than enough room to breathe on two dual-layered discs, the bit rate stubbornly hovers at or around 20 Mbps and, while there aren't tons of glaring artifacts on display other than your garden-variety banding, macro blocking, and a bit of black crush here and there, for the most part this picture has a slightly processed appearance that doesn't lend itself to as much detail and depth as expected. Colors run true, often running cool and muted by design, and of course the show's stylish production design can at least be appreciated in wide shots and close-ups alike. But again, I feel that things could've been tighter around the edges even if, almost by default, this outpaces the streaming version.

Wednesday: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

No such issues with the DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio surround mix, which brings the moody world of Wednesday to life with an appropriately dynamic sound stage that combines crisp dialogue with well-mixed sound effects, occasionally strong atmospherics in the rear channels, several ear-opening uses of LFE, a suitably robust presence for the original score by composers Danny Elfman and Chris Bacon, and stylish sonic bursts in a few unexpected places, such as the increasingly disturbing visions that Wednesday sees after touching specific people and objects. All told, it's a terrific presentation with almost no room for improvement and, again, based on the typical compression used by streaming platforms, the audio improvements provided by these discs should be a bit more apparent. I'll still dock it a point since Wednesday is apparently presented in Dolby Atmos on Netflix; it's unknown why that mix wasn't preserved.

Optional subtitles, including English (SDH), are included during all eight episodes.

Wednesday: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The two-disc release ships in a dual-hubbed keepcase with an interior print and a matching slipcover; as expected for this streaming series, no digital copy is included. Unfortunately, no bonus features have been included either; that's pretty pathetic if you ask me, but at least the price is right.

Wednesday: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Based on Charles Addams' classic franchise, developed by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, penned by five writers, yet somehow billed as being "from the imagination of Tim Burton" (who directed four episodes, to be fair), Netflix's show Wednesday was a runaway hit in 2022 and this eight-episode first season is pretty entertaining stuff. Led by a terrific performance from Jenna Ortega and filled out by a cast of colorful supporting characters (some a little too colorful, if you ask me), it's a well-made and confident batch of episodes that blends teen melodrama with supernatural horror and pitch-black comedy. Warner Bros.' Blu-ray presentation comes up short with a slightly less-than-impressive 1080p transfer (no 4K option?) and absolutely no extras -- even the audio is slightly neutered. It's still worth a purchase at the current price point, whether you're already a fan from streaming or coming in completely blind.