Wednesday (TV series)


Wednesday is an American supernatural mystery comedy television series based on the character Wednesday Addams by Charles Addams. Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, it stars Jenna Ortega as the titular character, with Luis Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones portraying her parents in the series. Four out of the eight episodes of the first season were directed by Tim Burton, who also was executive producer. The first season revolves around Wednesday Addams, who attempts to solve a murder mystery at her new school.
Burton was previously approached to direct the 1991 film [The The Addams Family|Addams Family (1991 film)|The Addams Family] and was later involved in a canceled stop-motion animated film featuring the Addams Family. In October 2020, he was reported to be helming a television series, which was later given a series order by Netflix. Ortega was cast in part to represent the character's Latina heritage. Christina Ricci, who had played Wednesday in the 1991 film and its 1993 sequel Addams Family Values, was asked by Burton to join the series in a supporting role.
Wednesday premiered on November 16, 2022, and was released on Netflix on November 23 to positive reviews from critics; Ortega's performance received critical acclaim. Within three weeks of release, it became the second-most watched English-language Netflix series. It received three Golden Globe nominations: one for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy and two for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for Ortega. It also won four Primetime Emmy Awards, while receiving nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Ortega. In January 2023, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on August 6, 2025; the second half was released on September 3. In July 2025, the series was renewed for a third season.
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Premise

Wednesday Addams is expelled from her school after dumping live piranhas into the school's pool in retaliation for the boys' water polo team bullying her brother Pugsley. Consequently, her parents Gomez and Morticia Addams transfer her to their high school alma mater Nevermore Academy, a private school that was established for outcasts and monsters, in the town of Jericho, Vermont. Wednesday's cold, emotionless personality and her defiant nature make it difficult for her to connect with her schoolmates and cause her to run afoul of the school's principal, Larissa Weems. However, she discovers she has inherited her mother's psychic abilities, which allow her to solve a local murder mystery.
In the second season, Wednesday returns to Nevermore and, while developing her psychic abilities, must face a new tormentor and prevent her roommate's death. In addition, Pugsley enrolls at Nevermore as Weems' successor Barry Dort wants Morticia to take on a fundraising role while he looks after his own interests.

Cast and characters

Production

Development

During pre-production on The Addams Family, Tim Burton was approached to direct, but ended up passing on it due to scheduling conflicts with Batman and Batman Returns, resulting in Barry Sonnenfeld taking the job. In March 2010, it was announced that Illumination Entertainment had acquired the underlying rights to the Addams Family drawings. The film was planned to be a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams's original drawings. Burton was set to co-write, co-produce and possibly direct the film. In July 2013, it was reported that the film was canceled, which, according to Burton, was due to the studio favoring a computer-animated approach over the stop-motion technique.
Showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough started developing story ideas in 2019. They subsequently acquired the rights to the intellectual property before writing a television pilot script, which they sent to Burton. To their surprise, Burton immediately became interested upon receiving the script. Commenting about his decision to join the project, Burton stated that he could relate to the titular character's worldview and that the script "spoke to me about how I felt in school and how you feel about your parents, how you feel as a person. It gave the Addams Family a different kind of reality. It was an interesting combination". Feeling creatively drained after Dumbo, Burton considered retiring from the industry, being left to his own "feelings and things" during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the offer to make Wednesday reconnected his love to filmmaking and served him as a "health camp". Millar stated that it was "very important" to the creative team not to emulate the prior films and 1964 television series. Millar and Gough decided to make the juxtaposition of "outcasts" and "normies", as well as criticism of colonial Americans, major themes in the series.
In October 2020, Wednesday was initially announced as an unnamed Addams Family project being helmed by Burton. The show's production would be handled by MGM Television, with Burton as director. Gough and Millar would serve as showrunners, while Gough, Millar and Burton would also be executive producers alongside Gail Berman, Jon Glickman and Andrew Mittman. In February 2021, Netflix gave the production a series order consisting of eight episodes. In August 2021, Kayla Alpert was added as an executive producer and 1.21, Tee and Charles Addams Foundation and Glickmania were also producing the series. Deemed his "first real foray into television", Burton directed four out of the eight episodes, with Gandja Monteiro and James Marshall directing the remaining episodes. Burton brought on regular collaborator Colleen Atwood as costume designer.
On possible future seasons, Gough and Millar commented in an interview with Variety, "when we sit down to create a show, it's looking at multiple seasons, ideally. That's never expected, but that's the anticipation that hopefully the show is successful." They further stated that they had "a pretty clear runway" of how future seasons could unfold. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gough and Millar stated that the second season would expand upon the friendship between Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair while also evolving Wednesday's relationship with her mother, Morticia. Ortega stated that the season would "lean into the horror aspect" while "ditching any romantic love interest for Wednesday". Preparations for a second season commenced in December 2022, following Amazon's acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In January 2023, the series was renewed for a second season, with Ortega now also serving as producer. In July 2025, the series was renewed for a third season.
A spin-off series centered around Uncle Fester has been in early development on Netflix as of December 2023. As of August 2025, the creators were not treating it as a priority as they were focused instead on production of seasons 2 and 3 of Wednesday. Season 3 is reported to be planned for as early as mid-to-late 2027; the reported stated: "If production for Wednesday Season 3 begins in early 2026, fans can expect new episodes to premiere on Netflix around mid-to-late 2027. Wednesday Season 3 will likely also follow a multi-part release schedule."

Casting

The creative team sought a Latina to play the role of Wednesday Addams to align with character Gomez Addams's heritage, an aspect of the character that was already worked into the series' script. In May 2021, Jenna Ortega, who is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, was cast in the role. Millar stated that, upon their first Zoom call together, the creative team knew that "nobody else on this planet" was better suited to portray the character. Ortega said that she was initially hesitant about joining the project due to her past work in teen-oriented Disney Channel shows and her plans to prioritize film over television work, but decided to join in after meeting Burton through Zoom. In the beginning of August of that year, Luis Guzmán was cast to guest-star as Gomez Addams, and Catherine Zeta-Jones was cast as Morticia Addams in an undisclosed capacity. Later that month, Thora Birch, Riki Lindhome, Jamie McShane, Hunter Doohan, Georgie Farmer, Moosa Mostafa, Emma Myers, Naomi J. Ogawa, Joy Sunday, and Percy Hynes White were announced to be cast as series regulars. Myers initially auditioned for the titular role before she was cast as Wednesday's roommate Enid Sinclair.
In September, Gwendoline Christie and Victor Dorobantu were added to the cast in starring roles while Isaac Ordonez, George Burcea, Tommie Earl Jenkins, Iman Marson, William Houston, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, Oliver Watson, Calum Ross and Johnna Dias Watson were cast in recurring roles. In December 2021, Birch left the series, leaving the status of her character, dorm mother Tamara Novak, unclear. In March 2022, it was announced that Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday Addams in the film The Addams Family and its sequel Addams Family Values, was cast as a series regular, replacing Birch in a similar role. Commenting on her casting, Ricci stated, "I was really flattered to be asked and to be asked by Tim ", with whom she had previously collaborated on Sleepy Hollow. Ricci was almost unable to accept the role due to possible scheduling conflicts with Showtime series Yellowjackets. In October, a trailer revealed Fred Armisen to be portraying Uncle Fester and Ricci's role was confirmed as Marilyn Thornhill.
In April 2024, Steve Buscemi joined the cast of the second season as the new principal of Nevermore Academy, after previously working with Ortega in Klara and the Sun and with Burton in Big Fish, alongside Thandiwe Newton in an undisclosed role. In May, the cast for the season was announced, with Buscemi playing Barry Dort, Billie Piper as Isadora Capri, Joanna Lumley as Grandmama, Newton as Dr. Rachael Fairburn, alongside Evie Templeton, Owen Painter, Noah B. Taylor, Christopher Lloyd, Frances O'Connor, Haley Joel Osment, Heather Matarazzo and Joonas Suotamo in undisclosed roles, while Zeta-Jones, Guzmán, Ordonez and Lewis-Nyawo were promoted to the main cast. In addition, it was announced that Hynes White would not return as Xavier for the second season, due to anonymous sexual assault allegations against the actor which surfaced on Twitter in January 2023. In November, Lady Gaga was cast in an undisclosed role, later revealed to be the portrayal of Rosaline Rotwood in the second part of season 2.
In November 2025, Eva Green joined the cast as a series regular, playing Ophelia Frump, Morticia's sister for the third season.

Filming

Principal photography for the first season took place between September 2021 and March 2022 in the Southern Carpathian town of Bușteni, Romania. Filming locations included Cantacuzino Castle, serving as the setting for the fictional Nevermore Academy, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Sinaia railway station, the Bucharest Botanical Garden, Monteoru House and the historic Olga Greceanu Mansion in Dâmbovița County, standing in for the Gates mansion. Exterior shots of Cantacuzino Castle were supplemented with computer-generated imagery. Other settings, including the entire town of Jericho, were constructed at Buftea Studios. Production designer Mark Scruton based his set design primarily on Charles Addams's original cartoons and drew inspiration from Burton-directed films such as Beetlejuice and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Ortega called her work on the series "very stressful and confusing" and "the most overwhelming job I've ever had" due to the production's fast-tracked shooting schedule. To prepare for her role, Ortega learned to play cello and took canoeing, fencing, archery and German lessons. According to actress Joy Sunday, the canoeing lessons were especially strenuous, involving the entire cast and some dozen stuntmen racing each other for an hour daily, with days starting as early as 5:30 am. Ortega avoided talking to Ricci about playing the character during filming to achieve her own unique rendition of the role. She choreographed her dance to the Cramps' "Goo Goo Muck" herself, taking inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux, Bob Fosse and goth dance club footage from the 1980s. Ortega sought to make Wednesday's characterization consistent, down to changing lines that she felt were unfitting of the character and with more depth. She stated "you can't lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it's boring and nobody likes you." Scenes featuring Thing, played by Romanian magician Victor Dorobantu, were achieved using a mixture of practical and special effects; Dorobantu wore a blue chroma-key bodysuit that would be edited out in post-production, leaving only his hand exposed. To create the illusion of a severed hand, a prosthetic stump was applied to Dorobantu's hand.
The second season began filming in May 2024 in Ireland. Ortega's schedule for the show was discussed with the filmmakers of the Scream franchise prior to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, and it was reported that Ortega departed the upcoming Scream 7 due to scheduling conflicts with Wednesday. Ortega denied this report in April 2025, claiming she instead left because of the departures of Melissa Barrera, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett from that project. By August 2024, they had completed four episodes. Filming wrapped by early December 2024. According to Tourism Ireland, some of the locations used to shoot the new series include Charleville Castle in Co Offaly, Dean's Grange Cemetery in Co Dublin and Ashford Studios in Co Wicklow. The third season was reportedly scheduled to begin filming on November 30, 2025 in Ireland, however some outlets reported that it would not begin filming until the first quarter of 2026.

Music

In December 2021, it was reported that longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman joined the series to compose the original theme and co-compose its score with Chris Bacon. The score features a selection of the series's original score composed by Elfman and Bacon as well as several pop songs, including cello renditions of "Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones, "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica and "Physical" by Dua Lipa. The final music featured "" arranged by and performed by String Quartet]. The score also incorporates a number of classical works, including The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto, The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns, Gnossienne No. 1 by Erik Satie and "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Led by two singles, Wednesdays 48-track soundtrack was released by Lakeshore Records on November 23, 2022, and a four-track extended play featuring covers of classical and pop songs was released on November 30. In his review of the series, Tony Sokol of Den of Geek called the score "a major character, not only thematically, but as an emotional delivery system", making "the chills creepier, the jokes funnier and the tingles tangible". Linda Codega of Gizmodo called the cello segments "memorable" and the score "occasionally-magnificent". Writing for IGN, Amelia Emberwing described the combination of Elfman's score with Burton's material as " together like peanut butter and jelly" and the score overall as "a stunner".
The second season continued to use a large number of popular hits mixed with classical compositions in the soundtrack. The soundtrack includes "My Favorite Things" by the Lennon Sisters, "Un Mundo Raro" by Chavela Vargas, "Tropical Island" by Barry Lipman Singers, "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer, "Um Oh Ah Yey" by Mamamoo, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Op. 64, Act 1: Dance of the Knights, "No Time to Cry" by the Sisters of Mercy, "Nevermore Alma Mater" by Pitch Slaps, and "Dancing in the Dark" by Bruce Springsteen. Ortega was portrayed as performing Dance of the Knights on cello for an episode of season two. Lady Gaga released a new song for the second part of season two, titled "The Dead Dance", in September 2025 which was featured in the seventh episode.

Release

A first teaser trailer for Wednesday was released on August 17, 2022, followed by a full trailer on October 9 and the unveiling of the series' opening sequence on November 8. Wednesday premiered on November 16, 2022, at Hollywood Legion Theater in Los Angeles. Its eight episodes were released on Netflix on November 23, 2022. In December 2022, Netflix released a promotional video to its Twitter account depicting Thing, a sentient disembodied hand appearing in the series, roaming the streets of New York City and capturing the reactions of passersby. The first season was released on Blu-ray and DVD by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in March 2024.
In April 2025, a trailer for the second season was released. The second season was set to be released in two parts. The first part, consisting of four episodes, premiered on August 6, 2025, while the second part, also consisting of four episodes, premiered on September 3, 2025.

Reception

Audience viewership

According to data from users of TV Time collected by Whip Media, Wednesday had the second-most pre-release followers of any Netflix original series on the platform, behind only The Witcher; it ultimately debuted at number one on Netflix in 83 countries. The series holds the record of most hours viewed in a week for an English-language Netflix series with a total 341 million hours watched in its first week of release, amounting to more than 50 million households, and passing prior record holder Stranger Things 4s 335 million hours. Nielsen Media Research reported a combined watch time of 6 billion minutes within its first week of release, making it the second-biggest streaming week ever recorded by the firm.
Variety, citing U.S. viewing-time data from research firm PlumResearch, reported that Netflix originals reached their highest monthly share of viewing in November 2022 - about 60 percent - following the release of Wednesday.
Three weeks after its release, it became the second-most watched English-language Netflix series in the history of the platform, reaching an estimated 150 million households and totaling 1 billion viewing hours by December 2022. Jacob Stolworthy of The Independent called the series's popularity "unprecedented" and suggested that it could jumpstart development of several other spin-off television series. International response to the series has been strong with Column magazine reporting that: "A separate record has already been set by the kickoff of the second “Wednesday” season. In 91 countries, the series sits at the top of the local charts for English-language series — including Germany and the United States. This has never before been achieved by any English-language Netflix series."

Critical response

Season 1

For the first season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 73% approval rating, based on 105 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Wednesday isn't exactly full of woe for viewers, but without Jenna Ortega in the lead, this Addams Family-adjacent series might as well be another CW drama." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 66 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable".
Ed Power of The Daily Telegraph gave Wednesday four out of five stars and called it "an addictively rococo romp that unfolds like a cross between Euphoria and Hotel Transylvania". John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal commended Ortega's "charismatic performance" and called the series "often delightful, despite its deliberate darkness". In his "B"-review for The Detroit News, Tom Long deemed the series visually appealing and described Ortega's deadpan as "just as elastic as it needed to be" and her performance overall as "consistently outside the caricature enough to keep things lively". Writing for RogerEbert.com, Cristina Escobar similarly praised Ortega's deadpan humor and commended the series' "satisfactory" ending. While finding that the series would not be "what real fans of Charles Addams and his characters are looking for", Mike Hale of The New York Times called the series "tolerable" despite "satisfying only on the level of formulaic teenage romance and mystery" and compared it to the Harry Potter franchise. Commenting on its tone, Jesse Hassenger of TheWrap described the four episodes directed by Burton as feeling more like Veronica Mars than Sleepy Hollow. Nick Hilton of The Independent gave the series two out of five stars and criticized the series's tone as "relentlessly quippy Gen Z" and its performances as "more two-dimensional than the New Yorker comic strip in which the characters first appeared".

Season 2

For the second season, Rotten Tomatoes gave an 87% approval rating, based on 92 reviews. The website's critics consensus states, "Wednesdays second season smartly opens up to include more of the whole Addams clan, backing up Jenna Ortega's lovably heartless teenager with an ookier and spookier ensemble." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Lili Loofbourow of The Washington Post said Wednesdays second season is "tonally darker than its predecessors, and that sometimes feels like a drag on the show, especially when it veers away from the silly high school antics. The spin-off suffers from some of the same conceptual instability that plagued the original films, but the latter, being comedies, managed their contradictions with hand-wavy humor."
The episode "Woe Thyself" was particularly well-received, with many calling it the standout of the season while praising the performances from Ortega and Myers. Alex Zalben of IGN deemed it "the best episode of the series, period," and " manages to properly balance supernatural shenanigans and the overall plot while elevating the central relationship of the show to the forefront and actually giving Wednesday and Enid clear arcs where they learn things about themselves and each other. You know: a properly structured episode of television."

Queerbaiting allegations

Wednesday has been repeatedly accused of queerbaiting. Many fans have interpreted Wednesday's close friendship and moments of emotional intimacy with Enid Sinclair as suggestive of a romantic subtext; this popular ship has been dubbed "Wenclair". The show's writers have stated that the show is about the friendship between Wednesday and Enid, and there are no plans for a romantic relationship between the two characters.

In popular culture

Following the release of Wednesday, Wednesday Addams's dance from the series and its fan recreations to Lady Gaga's song "Bloody Mary" went viral on video sharing service TikTok, with Kim Kardashian, Amelia Dimoldenberg, Marina Diamandis, Madonna and Gaga herself also participating in the trend. This resulted in a large increase in plays of the song on Spotify and on-demand streams in the United States, surging by 415 percent in the week after the series's release. Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva recreated the dance during a December 2022 competition. Earlier that same month, "Bloody Mary" was sent to French radio as a single, 11 years after the release of Born This Way, the album it was featured on. The 1981 song "Goo Goo Muck" by the Cramps, which plays during the original dance scene, also saw a surge in popularity. According to Billboard, on-demand streams of the song in the United States increased from 2,500 to over 134,000, and Spotify streams increased by 9,500 percent since the series was released. Janelle Zara of The Guardian stated that the viral dance trend "may have single-handedly revived Gothic subculture for Gen Z".