Starting Jan. 15, Marvel Studios paired up with Disney+ to air its new show “WandaVision” about the Marvel characters Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), also known as Scarlet Witch, and Vision (Paul Bettany). The show is about a reality created by the character Wanda Maximoff after the death of Vision in Infinity War. Wanda creates a reality controlled by her powers to give herself the life she wants. The show ran for eight weeks before episode 9 “The Series Finale” wrapped up the season.

My Thoughts

5/5  

I had expected the series to be like any other Marvel creation – action-packed, amazing fight scenes, and for it to include all the classic characters – but “WandaVision” strayed from the path of a traditional Marvel production. The show took time to slowly introduce and set the scene for where the series takes place. The first episode introduces the town Wanda has based her reality in. It’s a town called Westview, and this is where the majority show takes place. Every episode was based in a different time period, each inspired by sitcoms that Wanda had watched and based each episode of her reality over.  My favorite episode was episode 3, “Now in Color,” because it was really the kick-off of the plot, and it was revealed that one of the neighbors knows about Wanda’s past and that she wasn’t really a neighbor but a sword agent. This introduces the world outside of Wanda’s reality and how people are finding out what she’s been doing. I just love how the show keeps me hooked to watch more; I couldn’t wait to watch the next episode. My favorite character from the show was Monica Rambeau, because she never gave up on helping Wanda instead of hurting her. 

The costumes and set designs are absolutely amazing and they all fit the time period the show is portraying in that episode. Each episode of Wanda’s show was based on her favorite sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, Bewitched, and so on. Wanda’s episode in the finale, when she defeats Agatha Harkness, showcases my favorite costume from the entire show; it was such a step up from her previous costumes. It was a dark red suit that had metallic accents to it. It was nice to see Wanda actually get a real ‘superhero suit’; it just really made her feel like the Scarlet Witch It was really nice to see Wanda be able to be happy for a short time, even though she was controlling others to help make herself happy. Even though her reality didn’t last long, she was able to distract herself for a little while. 

My only critique is that the first two episodes are very different from any other Marvel making, in the fact that the plots were slow and not as action-packed as the other episodes. The show would also be very confusing to new Marvel fans, who have possibly not seen all the movies and do not have any background knowledge on the MCU series. It’s hard to be a stand-alone show, but I don’t think that was the idea. Also, I wish that the viewers could have known about Agatha Harkness before episode 7, because I think they could have used her character more than just making her be Agnes and part of Wanda’s reality for the majority of the episodes. But overall I enjoyed the show and was happy that Wanda was able to have more of a wrapped-up ending after what had happened in “Avengers Infinity War” and “Avengers Endgame.” I was happy that in the end, Wanda decided to fix the reality.

Adding more on, Marvel fan sophomore Isaac Steiner also gives his review of the “WandaVision.” 

5/5 

I expected a very traditional Marvel take on a TV show, action every episode, quick storyline, overarching character development that takes a while to fully mature, and I expected Wanda and Vision alone with a miscellaneous adventure vibe. I also didn’t really expect any particular points because I thought that each of their storylines were at a breaking point where they could in quite a few directions. My favorite character would have to be Vision because of the character development I saw mostly with his discovery of what it means to be himself. My favorite episode was episode 9 because of the ship of Theseus’ moral question which I had studied a while ago and was interesting that they brought it up. My favorite parts were the character development, the looping into the comics, the new outfits, the sitcom themes and Agatha Harkness showing up. There really wasn’t much I didn’t like. I was very happy with the ending and think it’ll be a very good jumping-off point for future storylines, the only things I thought could have been improved is that it broke so far from the traditional Marvel that some of my friends almost stopped watching after episode 1 and 2 with how much slower they were than previous productions. The other thing was I felt that they underused Agatha Harkness as an instructor for Wanda and instead opted to keep her as a villain. I imagine they’ll address the second one in future shows or movies but it still felt a little underwhelming for her storyline in particular. Ultimately, the show left me craving more of it which is always a good thing after an engaging show of this caliber.