Can ‘Wednesday’ Replace The Coming Void Left By ‘Stranger Things’ On Netflix?

As we knew they would, Netflix announced that Wednesday was getting renewed for season 2 this week, which was fairly obvious given how well it’s performed as one of the service’s top shows of the year. The only hiccup was a potential rights issue with the now Amazon-owned MGM, but apparently that was all resolved, and no, season 2 of the show isn’t headed to Prime Video or anything wacky like that.

I do wonder if Netflix is attempting to gear up Wednesday to be a megahit replacement for its departing champion, Stranger Things, which only has one more season left. This year, Stranger Things season 4 put up 1.87 billion viewing hours, with the only thing remotely close to it being Wednesday season 1, with 1.314 billion. That’s the highest for a first season debut ever (outside of Squid Game), and it’s certainly better than all earlier seasons of Stranger Things itself.

The shows share some loose parallels. Wednesday is more fantasy than sci-fi, but both star a young girl around the same age with mind-based powers. And both have turned out absolutely massive audiences.

I would be just a little bit wary of predicting Wednesday as an easy Stranger Things replacement, however. Part of the reason Stranger Things works so well is because of its huge ensemble cast, and also its interesting script which has only gotten more layered and emotionally gripping over time.

Wednesday, at its core, feels like a season of Sabrina the Teenage Witch or Nancy Drew. A supernatural-influenced mystery where the season progresses through a series of Red Herrings (seriously how many times did Wednesday accuse an innocent person of something before she got it right in the end?). I worry that too much hinges on Jenna Ortega’s stellar performance alone, and that isn’t going to be enough to sustain the series over time if the rest of it does not rise up to meet her.

I’d be a little worried about them trying to force lighting to strike twice with a second season (okay Jenna, time to make up a new spooky viral dance for TikTok!), and the show may not get any better. One thing Stranger Things has managed to do is ultimately get much better over time, and evolve beyond the things it paid “homage” to at the start (namely season 1 essentially just being ET). I hope Wednesday has the capability to do the same, but I’m just not sure how much the relatively standard supernatural mystery storyline angle can go.

Still, I would predict nothing less than huge viewership for season 2 all the same, whenever it does arrive. It will be at least a year, and we’ll no doubt learn more about what’s coming before then.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.