It was on Wednesday just gone that, most aptly, Netflix's most popular series of all time, Wednesday, returned for its season 2 airing. Well, the first four episodes wrapped into a part one release, with the second parcel of episodes due on 3 September.
Can you believe that season one was streamed for more than 1.7 billion hours? Considering the season was only eight episodes long, that's an almost unfathomable viewership of 252 million people. You can see why Netflix is one of the best streaming services on that basis alone.
I've been looking forward to Wednesday's season 2 release all week, but have thus far held out to catch the show's latest. I'm half disappointed that Netflix has taken the two-pronged release scheduled, as I've been finding other streamers' weekly drops a more enticing old-school cliffhanger way to watch.
Wednesday S2 trailer
What's Wednesday about?
Wednesday is ultimately a spin-off of The Addams Family – originally a cartoon published by Charles Addams for decades since the 1930s, but made popular in the 1990s by Tim Burton's cinematic movie adaptation.
Its legacy has endured – as Burton is still attached to the Wednesday series. Perhaps that's part of the reason for its cult-like status, as Burton's other menagerie of movies includes Mars Attacks!, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd, Alice In Wonderland (2010), and Beetlejuice (both the 1988 original and its 2024 sequel), among others.
Wednesday, however, is about the Addams' daughter, the titular Wednesday, played by Jenna Ortega, who is reluctantly sent to school at Nevermore Academy. She quickly gets wrapped up in all kinds of events, however, trying to solve a mystery that has roots deeper than they first appear.
While Wednesday embraces the style of both the Addams originals and Burton's gothic twist, it also manages to squeeze a little light-heartedness and comedy in among the darkness. It's not one for kids, but it's not Stranger Things levels of horror.
Why's it Netflix's no.1 show ever?
Speaking of Stranger Things, the fourth season of that hit show is actually the one to accumulate the most hours watched on Netflix, with 1.8 billion in total. However, that's from more than double the runtime in the season compared to Wednesday's first season, with 140 million viewers catching the spooky show by comparison.
Interestingly, the critical acclaim for Wednesday varied. The score aggregator site, Rotten Tomatoes, cites the critics' rating as just 73% for the first season – good, but not the best we've ever seen. Season 2, however, is already set to be a bigger deal – netting 82% thus far (which could change with part 2's release in September).
I think it's really the fans that have adored the show, however, with higher scores – 86% and 85% in respective first and second seasons – showing the love for Ortega's take on Wednesday as a character. The wonderfully integrated special effects of walking hand, Thing, always adds to the amusement levels too.
So if you've not seen Wednesday yet then, well, you might be one of the few. I can thoroughly recommend it as one of Burton's better outings of recent years. Season 2 looks as though it's off to a stellar start, with more to come – so it's no surprise it's Netflix's new no.1 this week, in what could turn out to be an even bigger hit in the latest season.
