Wandavision

I’m not wanting to start a thread about the show itself (nor the politics of it(!)), but I thought I’d give a shout out to Wandavision on Disney+.

It’s been quite fun to see the changing eras of television reflected in the show, as well as the playing about of aspect ratios, colour, television sets themselves, and conventions of the sitcom genre.

All sorts of things are parodied, from sets to music to opening titles to the bizarre playing of time. There are even fake commercials.

I enjoy the show itself, but it’s certainly an interesting watch for the above mentioned alone. I’m only four episodes deep, and I think the focus moves away from the sitcom with the show a little past this point.

Episode 5 has sitcom elements in it, much more than episode 4.

Episode 5 broke from the norm as the 80s was 16:9 rather than 4:3 but I suspect that was intentional.

I liked how the Marvel Studios logo started as 2.35:1 and animated to become 4:3 at the start of the first episode, but then they dropped it for the other 3 episodes when the show was still in 4:3.

I've been thinking about watching this, but I've not seen any other MCU stuff- do you need to be familiar with it and the characters to understand it and know what's going on, or does it stand well by itself?

I don't think you particularly need to understand much of the universe, to be honest – nothing you can't pick up as you go, at least so far.

I think it's safe to say you will not have a Scooby. Even what little info-dumps there are will probably only leave you more confused.

If you don't mind being spoiled on what happens in the movies, there's a short (7 minutes-ish) show on Disney+ called Legends which runs through the backstory of Wanda and Vision using relevant clips from the films. The films they appear in are Age of Ultron, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame, though the more of the others you've seen the more rewarding little bits you'd pick up.

Same boat as you but I love it.

Not only that, but without giving anything away there are also things which might go over your head if you haven't seen certain films from outside the MCU...

That's two not the least bit contradictory opinions...

I don't know if this is a Harry Potter thing again where hardcore fans insist the films make no sense if you've not read the books even though millions of people (myself included) have had no issues, or if it genuinely does get confusing without familiarity with the MCU.

Yes, interesting, that.

I could well turn out to be wrong in later episodes, but I've not had problems understanding.