A TV program signaling its ambition by comparing itself to a gigantic film is a time-honored trope. WandaVision, the new limited series from Disney +, which marks a major turning point in the Marvel cinematic universe and its complex relationship with the small screen, is only the last to employ it. “I was like, ‘Oh, I thought we were doing a little show'”, actor Teyonah Parris said Weekly entertainment in its November cover story highlighting production. “But no, there are six Marvel films packed in what they are presenting as a sitcom.”
In typical circumstances, this analogy is frustrating, it will surely win a turnaround from critics tired of explaining that “X-hour film” is not the compliment that most creatives seem to think it is. In addition to the implicit condescension, there is the fact that the distinction between films and TV shows is on the verge of collapse, making comparisons almost meaningless. The same platforms generally distribute both, including Disney +; every year brings more puzzles like Steve McQueen’s Small Ax, that have aspects of each category without fitting perfectly into any of them. You can only see so many iterations of The Hateful Eight: The Miniseries before throwing your hands in defeat.
In case of WandaVision, it’s all a little brain-breaking. The show takes place, of course, at the MCU run by Disney, which has been involved in TV before: a couple of procedures at ABC; a quartet of Netflix shows set in New York after the culminating battle of the first Avengers. But WandaVision is the first program to exist under the creative control of Marvel Studios, the elite squad led by producer Kevin Feige who transformed a handful of comic books into a highly profitable constellation of interconnected stories – a structure that relies heavily on the TV project . What does it mean for a TV show to be like a movie when the TV show stars characters from movies, which are serialized and collectively written as a TV show, and when the TV show itself is setting up a subsequent movie? (Feige said that the events of WandaVision will have a direct impact on the plot of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, scheduled for launch in 2022.)
Fortunately, WandaVision it is well suited for these meta tongue twisters. The program is a TV on TV, or at least a commitment to reproduce the aesthetics of vintage TV in exhaustive detail, while taking the time to reveal a greater mystery. In the three episodes provided to the critics, two of which arrived at Disney + last Friday, WandaVision takes the form of domestic comedies from the 50s and 60s à la I love Lucy or Bewitched and a family show from the 70s à la O Brady Bunch; these fake shows only star a sentient supercomputer and a European witch. It also helps that WandaVision It’s meant be a little dizzy. Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) don’t know why they live in a generic simulation known only as Westville, or how they got there, or how Vision is alive after dying twice in Infinite War, or even that he should be dead. They are just experiencing their adventures as they come, which is also how you should approach this latest MCU expansion, so you don’t have a headache.
Directed by War of Thrones‘ Matt Shakman, presented by Captain MarvelJac Schaeffer, and based on a Feige concept, WandaVision marks the official crossing point where the MCU can no longer be distinguished from its satellites. Both the ABC and Netflix series were visibly separate from the main franchise – the broadcast shows in its clear budget constraints, the streaming in its dark and bold aesthetic, a clear counterpoint to the MCU’s Technicolor palette and PG-13 ratings. WandaVision, also, it has a unique appearance in the larger Marvel ecosystem. But in the character, in the story and, above all, in the value of the production, the message is clear: this is a lateral extension, not a step.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, WandaVision it even replaces Marvel films instead of just complementing them. After the pandemic threw theatrical releases into chaos, Disney put all of Marvel’s 2020 slate on ice, including the long-awaited Black Widow; it has been more than a year since fans received a complete and sanctioned update by Feige on the main narrative he wove from a disorderly pile of strings. WandaVision there’s even a jump in other Disney + series like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the program originally intended to kick-start the phase four TV business. WandaVision this leads to a list that will soon include Loki, the anthology series What if…?, Hawkeye, Mrs. Marvel, and at least half a dozen more.
To your credit, WandaVision it doesn’t look like connective tissue, at least to begin with. Compared to other Marvel flirtations with the genre, in fact, he is admirably committed. The MCU has long liked hyperbolic comparisons like “Captain America and the Winter Soldier is a 70s conspiracy thriller “or”Ant Man it’s an assault film. ”In fact, these influences manifest themselves more often as a faint aftertaste than as a complete homage. Thanks to all the superpowers, WandaVision could never be confused with a real repetition of The Dick Van Dyke Show. But it incorporates these elements in addition to a mere press release: the first two episodes are filmed in black and white in front of a live audience in the studio, using retro effects like a broken plate rewinding into a whole. The third gear changes, featuring sideburns and side panels.
WandaVision it is also similar to TV in at least one fundamental aspect: its chapters are discrete and differentiated, if not entirely autonomous. Schaeffer and the writers borrow and rummage in classic troops like “the boss and his wife come to dinner” (Fred Melamed and Debra Jo Rupp, the last actors to receive those Marvel checks) or “pregnant woman gives birth in seconds”. The show is not a single extended story arbitrarily divided into parts, but a collection of readable parts – not unlike the MCU, but without having to pay $ 20 to see those parts in the theater every few months. The episodic narrative of TV is where the MCU came up with the idea of how to translate the comic series to the screen in the first place, making WandaVision a perfect ouroboros of content.
This isolation begins to break as the series continues; Wanda and Vision cannot stay in a box of anything hermetically sealed forever. And the entire program depends on the viewer’s understanding of who the title characters are, when they already come with intricate background stories; Vision, for example, is a composition of two pre-existing characters powered by a MacGuffin. Parris’s character is known as “Geraldine” on the show within a show, but we already know that she is the adult version of Monica Rambeau, who was first introduced as a child in the 90s Captain Marvel.
When names like Ultron and Pietro Maximoff start to appear, WandaVision it loses some of the peculiarity that makes it an intriguing, though accidental, introduction to the Disney + era of the MCU. But these proper names also serve the intended purpose: to give legitimacy to both WandaVision and the streaming service that broadcasts it. As The Mandalorian is now in the upper layer of the Star Wars universe, blessed by the emergence of the First Family of the franchise, WandaVision it is not a diversion to the MCU. It is a transition – one you will have to sign to keep up to date.