Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) enjoy their own show on Disney Plus.
Marvel Studios
Welcome to WandaVision, a new Marvel TV series coming to Disney Plus on Friday, January 15th that combines superhero action with 1950s sitcom style. It could be the strangest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far, and we are all for it. Here̵
In the series, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany play their roles from the Avengers films as super-powered romantic partners Wanda Maximoff (aka Scarlet Witch) and Vision. WandaVision, geddit?
Trailers
“It’s getting weird,” said Olsen at Comic-Con. Numerous trailers and TV spots reveal what she means. All of the promo spots show Wanda and Vision as happy suburban honeymooners performing in what looks like a 1950s sitcom, but time travel takes them to the clock-bottom of the 1970s and other decades. Hold on, this show won’t follow a traditional timeline.
Early responses
Official reviews will appear later this week, but here’s an example of early reactions from critics and fans who saw the first few episodes.
“A great mix of great strangeness and pain in the heart,” wrote Alex Biese, a reporter for Asbury Park Press.
“I am amazed by the imagination, creativity and risk of the show,” wrote Sean O’Connell of CinemaBlend. “Each episode brilliantly recreates a classic sitcom model, but also feeds a much greater mystery with massive Marvel ramifications.”
Wrote SlashFilm’s Hoai-Tran Bui, “WandaVision is a tantalizing experiment with Lynch shades that is almost obnoxiously committed to slowly working out the mystery of it. (I wanted more!).”
Marvel has never done anything like #WandaVision and I am FLOWED by the show’s imagination, creativity and risk. Each episode BRILLIANTLY recreates a classic sitcom model, but also fuels a much greater mystery with HUGE Marvel ramifications. I love this so much! pic.twitter.com/rPURhyqaCt
– Sean O’Connell (@Sean_OConnell) January 9, 2021
WANDAVISION is a tantalizing experiment with Lynch shades that is almost obnoxiously devoted to slowly working out its mystery. (I wanted more!) But one surprise: it’s funny! The jokes are at home in the I LOVE LUCY / BEWITCHED homaging world, Paul Bettany is a comedy star pic.twitter.com/ulKuupVgmH
– Hoai-Tran Bui (@htranbui) January 9, 2021
Very, VERY in what they are doing with #WandaVision after seeing the first 3 episodes. It’s different, and can take a while to adjust, but so far this feels like a creative pivot worth taking – one that’s highly entertaining and can have a huge payoff. pic.twitter.com/PQjKouT77z
– Perri Nemiroff (@PNemiroff) January 9, 2021
I got to see the first three episodes of #WandaVision and it was everything I hoped it would be: funny, smart, creepy, and most of all, a little bit tragic.
The reality is: WandaVision is taking the Marvel Cinematic Universe to places it has never been before, and there is no turning back. pic.twitter.com/BzNujPcUtP
– Hector Navarro (@Hectorisfunny) January 9, 2021
#WandaVision is (at least in the first 3 episodes I’ve seen) pretty good. A great mix of great strangeness and pain in the heart. Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany have never been better than these characters and I can’t wait to see where it goes. pic.twitter.com/R3QoNjHS0n
– Alex Biese (@ABieseAPP) January 9, 2021
Watched 3 episodes of #WandaVision and the show is weird as hell (in a good way).
Two things are clear. 1) Marvel is committed to parodying classic sitcoms and 2) the MCU is finally back!
Can’t wait to see this show put on Doctor Strange 2 and Spider-Man 3 👀 pic.twitter.com/nR6rTShfOY
– Dorian Parks (@DorianParksnRec) January 9, 2021
Characters and plot
Wanda
Also known as Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff first appeared in Marvel Comics in 1964 and has a complex history – and a twin brother, Pietro / Quicksilver. In most comic stories they were considered mutants, born with superhuman powers, and their origins are complicated and constantly changing. The powerful X-Men enemy Magneto was said to be their father at first, but later juggled storylines with the pedigree. The series will reportedly reveal why Wanda is also called “Scarlet Witch”. Not a word on whether her twin will show up.
Vision
Vision has a very different background from his wife. He is clearly an android, but a very special one, with human emotions, and so he is able to continue a romantic relationship with Wanda and marry her later. While he’s clearly an android in most images, one of the trailers shows him spinning and his facial features take on a more human look, lose his red skin, and get human hair – presumably so the neighbors aren’t alarmed. (In what appears to be a Halloween scene, he’s allowed to go out in his original look and fool everyone into thinking it’s just a great costume.)
Children?
At one point in the comics, the couple has twin boys, but WandaVision seems more inspired by a 2016 suburban comic series where Vision is married to someone else and has a son and a daughter. In the previews, Wanda appears pregnant in one shot, and another shows the couple each holding a baby, so twins appear to be in the offing. In a sample scene, Debra Jo Rupp (Eric’s mom on That ’70s Show) questions them why they don’t have kids, so the kids aren’t allowed to show up right away.
Until death do us part
Vision has a sad ending in the big screen Marvel movies, but he’s clearly an important part of WandaVision – viewers just don’t know how. Some speculate that the sitcom-style perfection portrayed in WandaVision is a dream she has to bring her husband back to life and live a normal life. And in a sample scene, Kathryn Hahn’s character, dressed as a witch, tells a shocked Vision that he is dead. But comic books like alternate realities and different universes, so there’s no real way to know.
Time travel
Get ready for all kinds of retro sitcom cliches as the show seems to jump from decade to decade. 1950s scenes dominate the previews, with Wanda in a satin dress and pearls doing housework, while Vision adjusts and goes to work. But there are also ’60s hippie yarns, wild colors and’ 70s hair, and even ’80s aerobics. the Brady Bunch house appears, and in another Vision and Wanda have twin beds à la I Love Lucy, which they quickly push together.
Publication date
The show premieres January 15, on Disney Plus, the $ 7 a month streaming service with an extensive catalog of new and older shows and movies. It will premiere with two episodes at a time, and the third episode will air a week later on January 22. It lasts a total of nine episodes.
Very, VERY in what they are doing with #WandaVision after seeing the first 3 episodes. It’s different, and may take a while to adjust, but so far this feels like a creative pivot worth taking – one that’s highly entertaining and can have a huge payoff. pic.twitter.com/PQjKouT77z
– Perri Nemiroff (@PNemiroff) January 9, 2021
Phase four
WandaVision takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame, and the plot will lead directly to Wanda’s appearance in the movie Doctor Strange: In The Multiverse of Madness, which will hit theaters in March 2022. The series is the first title in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which also stars Disney Plus TV shows The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Hawkeye, Mrs. Marvel, Moon Knight and She-Hulk – Although the The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted production.
Music
In a TV spot released on January 4, the show unveils a Brady Bunch / Patty Duke Show style sitcom theme song, the kind that explains the plot of each episode in case you just wake up from a Thanos-esque snap and need to know who these people are. Does it sound catchy? It should – it’s written by Oscar-winning Frozen songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who also wrote unique songs for several episodes, ranging from the 1950s to the early 2000s.
Lopez said in a press release that director Matt Shakman is a college friend, and that the couple were excited and challenged to combine “the bright feeling of American sitcoms” with “the deep sense of unease” in WandaVision. Do Wanda and Vision want to build a snowman? It doesn’t have to be a snowman.
Cast
The studio shared more details at Disney convention D23, including more cast and crew members. Game of Thrones director Matt Shakman will direct the series.
- Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff, aka the mutated superhero Scarlet Witch
- Paul Bettany as Vision, her android husband and fellow Avenger, who may or may not be dead
- Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, daughter of Carol Danvers’ best friend in Captain Marvel.
- Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, known to Marvel fans as Jane Foster’s assistant in the Thor movies
- Randall Park as FBI Agent Jimmy Woo, from Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Kathryn Hahn as a ‘nosy neighbor’ who is said to be Marvel witch Agatha Harkness
- Debra Jo Rupp is listed as a guest star, so may not have a major role. However, her character, Mrs. Heart, the neighbor of Wanda and Vision, plays a plum role in the previews and demands that the super couple answer questions about their marriage and family.
- Fred Melamed plays Mr. Heart, the husband of Rupp’s character.
New movies are coming out in 2021: Marvel, James Bond and more
See all the photos

