Wednesday Season 2 Can’t Live Up To The Hype

Key Takeaways

• Jenna Ortega’s success and Tim Burton’s involvement may make replicating the first season’s success difficult.
• Ortega’s stardom may limit her availability for future seasons, potentially impacting the show’s creative direction.
• Netflix’s early promotional campaign and merchandise releases for Wednesday Season 2 could create excessive expectations and potentially hinder fan excitement.

The first season of Netflix’s original series starring the Addams Family, Wednesday, was released on Netflix on November 23, 2022, and quickly became many subscribers’ new favorite show. Lead actor Jenna Ortega was already pretty well known, but the new series turned her into a household name. The show also helped Tim Burton’s career get back on track. Burton had been in a rather odd place professionally for quite some time and hadn’t made anything of any real note until he agreed to direct Wednesday’s first four episodes.

Now, Wednesday Season 2 is coming to Netflix, but it might not live up to the hype after such a successful first season. Wednesday’s first season, which starred Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams, ended up being one of Netflix’s best-performing shows of all time. However, the second season could end up a bit of a disappointment, mainly because of the incredibly high expectations from fans and the higher-ups at the streaming giant.

Is There Too Much Hype Surrounding Wednesday Season 2?

The first season featured Ortega in the starring role, and she was joined by a great supporting cast. Fred Armisen is brilliant in the series, and deserves his own Uncle Fester spinoff. It was especially lovely to see Christina Ricci return to an Addams family property, after playing Wednesday Addams in 1991’s The Addams Family movie. The cast was impressive, but what got people excited about this show was Tim Burton. It felt like he was born to direct an Addams Family movie or TV show, and his involvement as part of this Netflix series was a massive deal.

Burton will be back to direct four episodes of the show’s second season, just like he did for the first. It’s a big deal that Netflix and the show’s creators, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, convinced the iconic director to stay on board the project for its second season. However, this is also one of the main reasons why the hype for the second season is building to a crescendo upon which it might be unable to deliver.

Tim Burton’s creativity in the show’s first season was incredible, and resulted in a terrific and engaging series. However, there’s an argument that the show’s first season caught lightning in a bottle. Could that be replicated? That’s a tricky question to answer, but Burton’s return has only added to fans’ expectations. People have been waiting for Wednesday Season 2 for so long now, and having a director of Burton’s caliber involved yet again will only cause the expected standard to increase.

Is Jenna Ortega Too Big for Netflix’s Wednesday?

The other question is the Jenna Ortega factor. She’s now a massive star, having also starred in the recent Scream movies, and most recently, Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Ortega was already known as a “scream queen,” but she’s now the Scream Queen and is one of the most prominent actors in Hollywood today. Her newfound stardom will be a bit of an issue for Wednesday‘s future as a show.

Some might argue that the actor is now too big to star in a Netflix show. She also might not want to devote as much time to starring in future seasons as she’s offered bigger and better roles in Hollywood movies. This could be a real issue as the show’s creators plan for a potential third season. Ortega is in high demand, and it might not be possible to fit a third season into her already busy schedule. There have also been reports that Jenna Ortega has been involved in Wednesday Season 2’s writing process. That isn’t always a bad thing. However, there could be a situation in which the show’s lead actor is given too much creative power and freedom, which could result in a lower-quality final product.

Wednesday Season 2’s promotional campaign is already well underway. Netflix has been releasing behind-the-scenes teases of what’s going on regarding the show’s second season. This has become the standard for upcoming seasons of Netflix’s biggest shows. (The network has been doing something similar for Stranger Things Season 5.) However, even though this is designed to get people excited for the upcoming season, it has been having the opposite effect as far as Wednesday Season 2’s concerned.

It is possible to show too much, and some fans online have already gotten bored with constant black-and-white behind-the-scenes photos. Sometimes, less is more. In this case, Netflix should have waited a bit and not released anything until they had a teaser trailer ready to show fans.

Netflix is also putting a lot of time and effort into releasing merchandise for Wednesday Season 2, which is also intended to increase excitement for the return of the Jenna Ortega-led series. However, the show is still being filmed and won’t be released for a while. Netflix is doing all of this too early. It’s understandable why: they want to keep interest levels up, since it’s one of their biggest new shows. There has already been a massive gap between seasons, mainly due to Ortega and Burton’s busy calendars.

In this case, it might be best to wait to release the show’s merchandise until closer to its release date. Hype is good, but too much of it over a long period of time could result in a lack of enthusiasm when Wednesday Season 2 is eventually released. Three years is just too long to wait in between seasons, and the second season will have a hard time living up to the incredible hype that’s already been created.