![]() ![]() And yet every individual element of that sentence I just wrote has been attempted ad nauseam in film, television, prose, and/or comics. No one has previously attempted or pulled off a piece of filmed serial fiction about Marvel superheroes trapped in an altered reality made to look like a succession of old sitcoms, a reality that is sometimes idyllic and other times eerie in its suggestion of a sinister truth. But I would contend that we shouldn’t take it as a whole. Taken as a whole, WandaVision is a boldly innovative piece of entertainment. Well, a mom of twins would be good at multitasking.Don’t have Disney+ yet? You can sign up here. Luckily, WandaVision managed to provide an excellent sitcom script while simultaneously adding another chapter to the Avengers story. ![]() ![]() When a sitcom is given a high-stakes plot, the stakes for the entire reputation of the series are raised too. Very Special Episodes are the most difficult plots to attempt. The "hiding pregnancies" routine is an excellent nod to the cheap gimmicks used to hide baby bumps throughout TV history, and Wanda's powers being used as metaphors for labor symptoms honors the euphemisms surrounding TV pregnancies while still keeping with the "goofy powers" jokes seen in the previous two episodes. WandaVision nails the balance between the two. Leaning into the arms-length approach of shows past may communicate a queasy attitude towards pregnancy and motherhood, but skewing too modern would deny the long legacy of these classic episodes. Paying homage to a half century's worth of "pregnancy episodes" is a thin needle to thread. Wanda and Vision take battle stance against the magical manifestation of her labor pains. When pregnancy was shown, it was usually for comic effect and used all sorts of metaphors to avoid discussing the more grisly parts of the process. When sitcoms couldn't write a pregnancy into the storyline, the actor was resigned to hiding in big coats and behind props, just like Wanda does to hide her condition from Geraldine. These sorts of prudish attitudes followed pregnancy episodes throughout history. So I Love Lucy portrayed Lucy's entire pregnancy without using the term "pregnant" once. ![]() TV couples were sexless, and that had to be communicated in the show. Lucy and Ricky Ricardo slept in twin beds, like the ones shown in WandaVision's second episode. But I Love Lucy would be nothing without Lucy, so the show took an unprecedented step - Ball's pregnancy was written into the show. When TV stars became pregnant before then, their characters were usually written out. In the spring of 1952, Lucille Ball, star of I Love Lucy, discovered she was pregnant. WandaVision does a Very Special Episode to cover the birth of the twins, and the inspiration for that goes even further back.Īn expecting Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo in I Love Lucy. However, both of these shows start with the families already created. The third episode of WandaVision is entirely dedicated to Wanda's pregnancy, so it makes sense the shows it takes the most inspiration from, The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family, are all about having big families. But one particular life-event has been a staple of the Very Special Episode since its earliest days - pregnancy. Usually, these involve some sort of PSA, like when Tom Hanks played an alcoholic uncle on Family Ties, or when Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell got hooked on caffeine pills. These divergences from the normal sitcom structure usually kept all the jokes but added an element that's far more serious than the normal low-stakes fare. □ Follow all of Inverse's WandaVision coverage at our WandaVision hub.Īs long as sitcoms have existed, there have been Very Special Episodes. Instead, this episode takes inspiration from nearly every family sitcom spanning back to the 1950s, without falling into the trap of reinforcing old-fashioned ideals. While the first two monochromatic episodes were very close to one-to-one parodies of The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched, the third takes a major step back from its own source material. WandaVision is evolving before our very eyes, and not just in terms of its decade-by-decade sitcom references. ![]()
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