So, there are a lot of reviewers praising this to high heaven. Terms like "Parody, innovative," and worst of all "Lynchian"; a term even more pretentious than the movies of David Lynch, are being bandied around. While all this is being said; I've got to ask "Did we watch the same show?"

Wandavision is the new flagship marvel show on the streaming service Disney+. This is coming at a time when Warner Brothers have announced that all its future movie projects are going straight to the streaming service HBOmax and the Covid virus would appear to have been successful in wiping out the movie theater sector. Disney's reaction to this has been to announce a slew of new shows for Disney+ using its Marvel and Star Wars franchise rights.

Considering all this; WandaVision strikes me as a risky way to kick off. I know I should praise this type of risk-taking, from a huge media corporation known for playing things safe and appealing the lowest common denominator, but here's the conundrum: It isn't very good.

WandaVision tells the story of Scarlet Witch and Vision, who are apparently trapped in a recreation of a 1950's sitcom, in the mold of I Love Lucy or Bewitched, just after the events of the big blockbuster movie event Avengers Endgame. This is kind of the first misstep. Any casual viewer (like my wife who tried to watch this with me) will be totally lost. Also, how many of the younger superhero fans actually get what shows this is referencing? Sure, you can argue that this is for hardcore fans, who have read the comics and maybe have an inkling of where they are going, and that's fine I guess, but I think you can watch the Mandalorian for example, and not be a total Star Wars nut to "get it", or enjoy the narrative. I think they released the first two episodes back to back on purpose just to try to offset this confusion. It didn't work.

However, this is the least of the gripes I have with this series and the wall of platitudes being laureled onto it by the media. So let's get those reviews out of the way. The one's using the word "parody", I think don't know the meaning of the word. In fact, I've seen it used so much that I had to double-check to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. So an online dictionary definition of the word is "an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect."

That's the thing, whilst the set and costume designers, cinematographers, and every creative person involved have gone out of their way to faithfully recreate the look and feel of this style show, there is no exaggeration and there is no comic effect. I read in one review that the show was recorded in front of a live audience. If so, I don't know why they bothered, it sounds as canned as spam, and gives everything a horribly forced tone. In fact, tonally this thing is all over the place.

Also, there is the idea that this is "groundbreaking." Actually shows as The Simpsons and Family Guy have already had a good go at deconstructing the American family sitcom. There's nothing particularly new here. Comedies have been referring to 50's Public Announcement films and 50's style advertising (when tobacco was sold to people as being good for their health because they reduced stress). There are short "mock" advertisements in the show but they serve only as "Easter egg" droppers.

Instead of referring to it as a "parody" or "satire", they should just refer to it as what it is:

Completely pointless kitsch.

The script does nothing with the premise. The multi-racial supporting cast, is simply that, a multi-racial supporting cast. Nobody on the screen, ever calls attention to this (there were no black/Latino/Asian characters on the sitcoms of the time). This could have been a source of dark humor, or even (gasp!) parody maybe even satire! Not to mention the people baying for blood at the American capital recently, what they really want is to return to this kind of whitewashed, man is the breadwinner with the ball and chain in the kitchen view of "the golden age" of America.

The sitcom trope of wacky jinx's, which have absolutely no impact on the status quo of the characters, works against what's going on screen, as it results in no tension. A mystery is tacked on at the end of each episode, which asks who is really behind all this, just I feel to create artificial tension and to remind you that you are watching something about superheroes.

When the mystery to "why are they here" is referred to through Wanda and the Vision starting to become aware of everything not being as it should, it's mainly done through the cinematic language of the close-up, rather than what's happening in the scene. Also, color is used to hint that on some level Wanda is aware that something is askew.

Confusing, unfunny, smugly content in its own empty "cleverness" and painfully lacking any real drama or tension or stakes. I just can't recommend this. I will watch the third episode to see if perhaps the slow start was necessary, and give it a chance, but I really doubt it. I hope I'm surprised.

Going forward this show looks like it's going to popular. It's got a 97% critics rating and 80% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Disney+ plans to launch a marketing onslaught and grab more of a share of the streaming market, which it currently holds at around 5% with waves of content, I hope the reaction to this might be to go away from series that are mostly about "things go Kaboom" but I hope the stories they want to tell have a little more substance.