‘Wednesday’ Season 2 Draws Massive Viewership Numbers In First Week
Jenna Ortega in “Wednesday” Season 2, Part 1.
Netflix
Wednesday Season 2, Part 1, featuring the return of Jenna Ortega and director Tim Burton, not surprisingly, draws blockbuster viewership numbers on Netflix.
Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar and directed and executive produced by Burton, Wednesday Season 2 premiered on Wednesday, Aug. 6, with Part 1, which consists of four episodes. Part 2, featuring Episodes 5-8, will be released on Wednesday, Sept. 3.
All eight episodes of Wednesday Season 1 were released on Nov. 23, 2022. To date, the first season of The Addams Family spinoff is No. 1 on Netflix’s chart of the Top 10 most-viewed TV shows globally in the streamer’s history with 252.1 million views, which equates to 1.718 billion viewing hours.
Netflix reported on Tuesday that for the week of Aug. 4-10, Wednesday amassed 50 million views, which equates to 201.6 million hours viewed.
By contrast, the No. 1 TV show globally on Netflix last week — the streaming platform’s original series Untamed — had 12.2 million views, which translated into 59.6 million viewing hours for the week of July 25 to Aug. 3.
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán in “Wednesday” Season 2, Part 1.
Netflix
What Is Wednesday, Season 2 About?
The official summary for Wednesday Season 2 reads, “Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) returns to prowl the Gothic halls of Nevermore Academy, where fresh foes and woes await.
“This season, Wednesday must navigate family, friends and old adversaries, propelling her into another year of delightfully dark and kooky mayhem. Armed with her signature razor-sharp wit and deadpan charm, Wednesday is also plunged into a new bone-chilling supernatural mystery.”
Wednesday Season 2 features much more of the Addams family members Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Gomez (Luis Guzmán) and Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) — the latter of which joins Wednesday as a student at Nevermore Academy.
In a Zoom conversation with creators and showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar before the release of Season 2, Part 1, Gough said the creative team was thrilled to examine the stories of the Addams Family members, who played smaller supporting roles in Season 1.
“We definitely wanted to bring in more of the Addams family for Season 2 and expand the stories for the other characters,” Gough said. “Season 1 was 95% Wednesday because of budget constraints, and we couldn’t tell the stories of these other characters outside of Wednesday. So I think for us, the success of the show gave us the ability to really expand the world of those characters and bring in the Addams Family.”
The biggest difference between Wednesday Seasons 1 and 2 is the split schedule, which Gough said was a decision made by Netflix. Gough said that he and Millar were on board with the idea, though, since it gave them an opportunity to switch up their storytelling sensibilities for the second season.
“I think what it allowed us to do — which is something we wanted to do anyway — was change up the storytelling mystery,” Gough explained. “We didn’t want to want a cards down, ‘You can’t find out till the end of the eighth episode’ whodunnit. We wanted it to feel complete in the first four. So, you have that and then it leads into something bigger. As you’ll see in the end, all the cats are out of the bag.”
Wednesday Season 2 also stars Steve Buscemi, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Hunter Doohan, Noah B. Taylor, Evie Templeton, Georgie Farmer, Moosa Mostafa, Billie Piper, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo and Victor Dorobantu as Thing.
This season’s guest stars include Joanna Lumley, Thandiwe Newton, Jamie McShane, Haley Joel Osment, Heather Matarazzo, Joonas Suotamo, Fred Armisen and Christopher Lloyd.
Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix. The streaming service has already announced that it has renewed Wednesday for a third season.