WandaVision Is A Sitcom That Turns Into The Twilight Zone
WandaVision star Elizabeth Olsen says the show is simultaneously a sitcom and a foray into The Twilight Zone. The show's stars, including Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, and Teyonah Parris have been steadily teasing elements of the show ahead of its release on Disney+. WandaVision will be the first of the MCU's new shows to hit the streaming service when episodes begin rolling out on January 15. Trailers and posters for the show have hinted at the show's sitcom influences and the warped reality that is blurring the edges of Wanda and Vision's seemingly idyllic life.
Set to hit all the decades, WandaVision will take inspiration from everything to The Dick Van Dyke Show to The Office and now, The Twilight Zone. The horror anthology show has had several iterations over the years, most notably its iconic run from 1959 to 1964. The show has been rebooted a few times, including in the 1980s and, most recently, for CBS All Access with Jordan Peele at the helm.
In an interview with the Emmy Magazine, Olsen and Bettany discussed the upcoming show. Olsen mentioned The Twilight Zone as another influence. The star essentially says that WandaVision can switch from sitcom to Twilight Zone-esque nightmare at any moment - one of the many genres the show will be emulating. Read her full comment below:
"Well, I think that's what's so fun about it. We play with a lot of genres. It can be an American sitcom then it'll turn into The Twilight Zone. Then it's also the Marvel Cinematic Universe."
Right now, trailers seem to indicate that Wanda is fighting against an encroaching breakdown of her reality and that seems to be where The Twilight Zone comes in. As Wanda fights against her crumbling reality, people like Hahn's Agnes and Parris' Monica Rambeau are there to remind Wanda that everything is not what it seems. The proposed trajectory of the show, laid out in the marketing, seems to indicate that Wanda's world will continue to crumble throughout the run of episodes.
As the series moves through its sitcom influences, it seems like more and more elements of that false reality will come to light. The show will have to balance the idyllic sitcom setting with the more unsettling aspects of The Twilight Zone's horror and, if the trailers are any indication, WandaVision will do that with ease. The breakdown of Wanda's reality seems to be the inevitable climax of the series and The Twilight Zone is a fitting influence for the eventual realization that the world Wanda has built for herself is not at all what it seems.