WandaVision challenges non-Marvel fans

Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany speaking at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con International, for WandaVision, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. – Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia

Despite a severe lack of advertising, Disney+ has released their newest TV series, WandaVision. The show is named after its two main characters Wanda Maximov (Scarlet Witch) and Vision. WandaVision, like many other Disney+ shows, is releasing one new episode per week, but, unlike The Mandalorian, this schedule may not be enough to retain their viewers. 

     The first episodes of the show did anything but make me want to watch the next one because I was so confused. Almost every episode of the show takes place in a different decade, with the first set in the 50s and the most recent episode taking place in the early 2000s. 

     The show’s setting is a small town where everyone is in a trance, and the people in the trance are actors along with Wanda and Vision. Meanwhile, as everyone in the trance is acting in a show, the show itself is broadcast to the outside world. Eventually a government agency under the name of S.W.O.R.D. goes to investigate this phenomenon and discovers more of the broadcast.

If someone who had never seen a Marvel film began watching this show, they would be lost.

     One of the major problems with this series is that there are many references to the past Marvel movies. If someone who had never seen a Marvel film began watching this show, they would be lost, and I cannot imagine that they would enjoy it. 

     For Marvel fans, the show does improve as the puzzle pieces click together.      

WandaVision is just the first release of many Marvel television series that Disney+ has in the works, with Falcon and the Winter Soldier—a show that will most certainly trigger more excitement—debuting on March 19.

WandaVision is most certainly complex and engaging, but I believe it is just a warm up for Disney+’s next move.

Author: Connor Pinsk '23

Managing Editor Connor Pinsk joined The Index in the fall of 2019. He previously served as Neighborhood Editor.