TV Review: Wandavision (2021)

Wandavision (2021) created by Jac Schaeffer based on characters from Marvel Comics

Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and The Vision (Paul Bettany) are alive and well living life in a black and white family sit-com set in Westview, New Jersey. They live an idyllic life together and have typical sit-com interactions with neighbors and workmates. The couple tries to keep their superpowers hidden, though they use those powers when they can, i.e. when only the viewers can see them. The facade of fun shows cracks here and there. Time accelerates from episode to episode, jumping a decade or so each time. Someone tries to make contact from outside through radios and mysterious objects. No one leaves town or reacts to jumps in time, even when Wanda goes from pregnant to mother with twins in the space of a couple of days. The twins grow up quickly too. Viewers slowly find out more and more about what's going on. The hints of a world outside Westview are turned to concrete realities as a secret government agency investigates the anomaly. A hexagonal-shaped energy barrier surrounds the town and bits of the sit-com broadcast leak out. Can Wanda and Vision figure out what's going on before the people outside do (that includes us viewers)?

The show has a slow start. The first episode seems like it's going to be a satire of old time sit-coms with little promise of an explanation of what's really going on. The first two or three episodes set up the situation and could have easily been condensed to one episode. The puzzle and eventual drama in Westfield is interesting and develops in satisfying ways for the most part. The drama outside of Westfield is much less interesting except when it is actually relevant to Wanda and Vision's situation. 

Recommended, though you need the patience to make it through the first episodes.

As I publish (March 2021), this show is only streaming on Disney+.