Wednesday
Something that I never realized bothered me until now is that in all of the Addams Family films there is this bizarre world of creepy individuals that seem entirely alien to the normal world. Every single interaction that anyone has with an Addams or their kin is basically of complete apprehension of their behavior and macabre sensibilities. The films have always shown that there is a non-size specified community of weirdoes like the Addams out there, so why does every normal person act like they have never seen anything like the Addams before?
Wednesday gives the "outcasts" a place and finally integrates them into the world at large. Now it is perfectly acknowledged by a socially connected world that things such as witches, vampires, werewolves, gorgons, and other supernatural creatures exist in the world. They still have realistic reactions to the weird, but at least they aren't 100% blindsided by it. It's just something I never knew I really wanted in an Addams family production. The movies were too short to really expand on the idea, and the original TV show was just a half hour of "look at the creepy things they do and how they make everyone uneasy.". Luckily Wednesday lets us explore this community and I also appreciate that even the titular character is a bit of an outcast amongst her own kind.
The series is darkly humorous, fun, and gives some good twists along the way as Wednesday goes to a boarding school for outcasts (after nearly killing a student at a public school) and gets caught up in a mystery surrounding a serial killer plaguing the nearby town.
Cast wise I think they perfectly nailed almost everyone. Jenna Ortega is perfect as Wednesday. She's cold, dark, and in the rare cases where Wednesday shows emotion, Jenna pulls it off with class. Emma Myers plays Wednesday's perky werewolf/blogger roommate and is always fantastic in every scene. Catherine Zeta Jones is wonderful as Morticia. And anyone who was concerned about Luis Guzman being suitable for Gomez really needs to check out his performance in this series. The only misstep I feel is Fred Armisen as Fester. But to be fair it may be more the writing for Fester that doesn't work. He sticks out like a soar thumb in this series as the only character who carries over the slapstick weirdness of the original show into a series that up to that point hadn't really relied on using it for the humor. He's only in one episode really, so it's not a huge problem.
Definiately recommend this series though if you're an Addams fan.