TV REVIEW: WANDAVISION

4/5

BeWitched. 

9 Episodes. Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Kat Dennings, Randall Park & Evan Peters. Director: Matt Shakman. 

Don't adjust your sets. This is a Vis' called Wanda. Sitcom styling in great American white-picket fence television history in front of a live studio audience on every households tube. 'Bewitched', 'I Dream Of Jeanie', 'I Love Lucy', 'Mork and Mindy' with its classic creative credits rolling. Na-noo, Na-noo. Even a 'Fleabag' of some 'Modern Family' Deadpool like fourth wall breaks to bring us up to click speed. A scripted love letter to the 30 minutes or less genre. From black and white to the golden era. All whilst you pop out to put the kettle on during your repulsor sounding 2000 toaster, Stark Industries commercial break Easter Egg you'll love like a thousand more. One that pokes satirical jabs at chauvinism before the skull and octopus bones comes in like a preheated nuclear TV dinner. 'WandaVision' may be as confusing as long division, but such is the duality of comedy and tragedy in its nuanced nature. But we'll get back to that after this brief break from our regular scheduled programming and some real life for you to marvel at Captain behind the snap as you zap. 'WandaVision' is wonderful and we're absolutely in love with it. And you will be too like, "is this really happening". Copying the Tom King comics were the six feet under Vision wants to make a regular home his castle like the whole nine yards. With Halloween costume Easter Eggs and changing Twitter hash-tag emoticons for the trend, and the paranoid over paprika androids domestic life of bliss with a twist. 'WandaVision' is just like 'Wonder Woman'...'1984' a character study and portrayal of grief, the price of love. When we can't afford to let go. No matter how much it will cost us in Wanda's playing sitcom house like Hugh Laurie, redecorating like married...with children(?). This from a guy who preluded this series by watching the scene in 'The Avengers: Infinity War' were Wanda had to kill Vision, all just so Thanos could use the time stone, turn it all back and do it himself. Yeah I apparently like torturing myself as well as repeating things too like a rerun. But did we forget just how great the acting was here in no time at all like their brief honeymoon in hiding like retreat to Scotland? Now the mourning after begins. Even if only existentially. 

Speaking of fearing the reaper. Marvel used to be the place Academy actors careers went to die (see 'The Hurt Locker's' Anthony Mackie and Jeremy Renner who despite star turns in the respective 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' and 'Avengers: Endgame' will get to remind us just what they're thespian made of in the Disney + series 'The Falcon and The Winter Soldier' and 'Hawkeye' respectively), and no actor had more potential in the early 2000's than the British/American star of 'A Beautiful Mind' and 'Legion', Paul Bettany (remember him albino stealing the show from the most famous actor in the world Tom Hanks in 'The Da Vinci Code'?). But now the man who every opportunity offered from the M.C.U. went from Tony Stark's SIRI as J.A.R.V.I.S. to the Vision android who was born yesterday in the 'Age Of Ultron' is given new life again. His voice has been there since the beginning. His vision shines on. Bet on Bettany. In bubbling British charm chaps. But this is Wanda's show. Olsen owns this. Elizabeth Olsen has twin starred with Marvel's before. From 'Civil War' Vision altering, cameoing Hawkeye, Jeremy Renner (in the brutal and punishing winter of one of 2017's best, 'Wind River') and low-key songs with Loki (Tom Hiddleston's Hank Williams in the inspired 'I Saw The Light'), to even Thanos himself (in Spike Lee's outstanding 'Oldboy' remake with Josh Brolin) and who could forget the Quicksilver brother of Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the mighty 'Godzilla' playing her husband (awks on an 'Oldboy' creep level)? But the 'Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene', 'Ingrid Goes West' and 'Kodachrome' (there's a lot of perfect portraits waiting for you to develop amongst all the negatives on Netflix...this is one of them) indie actress more than holds her own like she does as a celebrity sister (strangely she used to appear on sitcom sets as a kid whilst her double trouble child stars the Olsen Twins were keeping a 'Full House') She is the glue that sticks and keeps everything about this show together and under one roof like a dome with her beautiful bond with the great beyond. Now let's hear it for those residents people. Ever since she beautifully told KiKi Layne to "unbow your head sister" in Barry Jenkins' as mesmerizing as 'Moonlight', 'If Beale Street Could Talk', Teyonah Parris' star shine has been utterly compelling and here she threatens to steal the show in more ways than one. Ashes to all the way down to dusting up what happened when everything cleared up and came back together after the snap. And for all the fourth wall breaks she has a moment that really opens doors and breaks on through to the other side. The other side that features returning Marvel character actor favourites and more comic relief for this sobering sitcom in the form of 'Thor's' Kat Dennings and 'Ant-Man's' Randall Park. Glad they survived the snap and boy do they click like the remote you shouldn't switch over. But let's get to the real show stealer here in 'Bad Moms' and 'Mrs. Fletcher' herself Kathryn Hahn. Everyone this classic character actress meets in the street will be asking her to do that wink from now on. If you nudge, nudge know what I meme...I mean, 'mean'. Just wait until she changes each week like our adjusting couple (adjusting to life and love after death). She was the best thing about this show all along with the best, most meta one liner of the most meta show ("WOW. That accent just comes and goes doesn't it?"). We wish we could say more, but like the casting of 'X-Men' star and ultimate Easter Egg  Evan Peters we don't want to crack open and be quick to spoil. 

Just know we've loved this shows run like Lucy, or Vis and Wanda do to more than death do them part. I haven't seen grief played so compellingly since the horrors of 'Hereditary' in all its family matters. Even if my scared wuss ass only did finally grow a pair to watch that Ari Aster movie last week. Sometimes we channel hop. How many times can 'WandaVision' change the game in just one season...and as a miniseries at that? That's the closest thing you'll get to a spoiler from us all the way to the formidable finale and emotionally evoking end. You can read the rest of the timelines and 'scribes if you want all that. Just know that this superhero series soars as the show goes on for Marvel who have gone from big-screen to TV, but become even wider in scope and world building beyond their cinematic universe. And it's not just fantastic fan service for Marvel Studios' first series showrunning production (the ABC 'Agents' and Netflix street-level 'Defenders' were part of the M.C.U., but a different crew) that perfectly unfolds in parts like their page-turning graphic novels. It's a collective comic coral that envelopes everything you've seen and thought couldn't be believed, signed, sealed and delivered. It's yours and like Wu-Tang Clan, it's for the children too. And after waiting around longer than the release of Scarlett Johansson's 'Black Widow' movie with Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz and David Harbour for the movie like credits roll every week like Marvel fans always do, how about a penultimate post-credits scene and cracking Easter Egg to set up Fridays finale in all its shades of scarlet? And how about the Bettany visionary line about perseverance? The most eloquently beautiful dedication to the heart I've heard since Her Majesty the Queen said, "the price of love is grief". But give 'WandaVision' the crown when it's comes to television. Netflix or a Disney +. This showstopper from former child-actor Matt Shakman ('Just The Ten Of Us') changing the game and screen for Marvel is both powerful and personal. A love letter to situation comedy that writes deeper to the heart of matters broken in our collective locked down planets pandemic. Quaranting with you on your tube and in your bubble, this marriage is one of cinematic convenience for the M.C.U. It's like they just dreamed it up. Imagine. A visionary wonder. Tune in. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Further Filming: 'Avengers-Age Of Ultron', 'Wonder Woman 1984','The Dick Van Dyke Show'.