There’s a scene in episode four of Wednesday that made me rethink the whole series. It takes place at the school dance at Nevermore Academy, a haven for supernatural teens, where reluctant enrollee Wednesday Addams unleashes some seriously great dance moves to the Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck.” She flails her arms up like someone having a fit, her eyes rolling back in her head — she jolts her neck sideways like a victim of hanging — she stalks her dance partner like a predator, then waves her limber hands and wrists at him in confounding eel-like movements. It’s terrific!

Wednesday is a record-breaking hit with Netflix viewers already, behind only Stranger Things and Monster – Dahmer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (which is quite a snapshot of our culture). But up until that dancing queen point in the series, I didn’t much care for it. This Wednesday Addams isn’t my Wednesday Addams.

See, I’m a big Addams Family fan and generally try to keep up with all related content, even the terrible stuff like the 2019 animated feature film version that was such a travesty yet made so much money. So naturally when I heard about the new Wednesday show that’s generating so much talk, I was all eagerness to check it out.