What a slog those 8 episodes were to get through. I love the character of Wednesday and the Addams Family as a whole, especially as portrayed in the first two 90s films. But only the first half of the first episode of this series captures the spirit of Wednesday Addams for me. In those first 30 minutes Wednesday delivers such crisp, snappy, irreverent dialogue that I thought "wow, this is amazing - I can't believe how good this is", but it doesn't last. The character is played well by Ortega, but the writing quickly veers away from what makes her and the Addams' so cool and instead drives down a one way street filled with childish teen drama.

Eventually they even kind of give up trying to make Wednesday unusual - she starts wearing increasingly normal clothes, develops close friendships with a shockingly large number of classmates, becomes more emotional and... well, increasingly normal.

It becomes this bland mix of Harry Potter and the recent Sabrina reboot (with an extra dash of Netflix's politics for good measure); a supernatural teen drama show littered with forgettable side characters, clichéd child-like plot lines, a tedious love triangle (yes, really), and cheesy dialogue peppered with trite political slogans.

It's so far away from the quirky, kooky, irreverent, gothic, deadpan, macabre, sarcastic, ironic, and surprisingly well-functioning family unit we know and love that it's almost offensive. Instead we have a resentful Wednesday, a weirdly frosty and controlling Morticia, a corpulent Gomez who has zero chemistry with Morticia, an afterthought of a Pugsly, and an almost non-existent Lurch (he does look the part at least). Only Thing is really nailed - the new design of the hand is cool, and he's amusing, dutiful, and endearing as a character. Funny how there's more character in that chopped-off hand than almost all other characters besides Wednesday.

3/10 for the three highlights: Ortega's acting, Thing, and some funny one-liners from Wednesday (most of which happen in the first episode). Everything else should've been sent back to the drawing board.