WandaVision creators explain how sitcoms intersect with the MCU

WandaVision is the first-ever Marvel TV series. It’s also an homage to classic American sitcoms. How do these things fit together? Ask the cast and crew.

WandaVision fever is about to sweep the world, which comes as no surprise given its MCU credentials. And yet, this an MCU story like no other, a strange show that finds Wanda (Elizabeth Olson) and Vision (Paul Bettany) somehow living a placid suburban life inspired by classic American sitcoms from I Love Lucy to Modern Family. It’s not exactly the kind of show you’d expect from a franchise known for superhero action movies.

And indeed, the first Marvel show coming to Disney+ was originally going to be The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which is a bit more straightforward. But then the coronavirus came along and shuffled things around, and now WandaVision is leading the charge. “It’s not exactly the way that we’re supposed to launch, but it’s great,”  director Matt Shakman told SyFy Wire ahead of the show’s premiere on January 15. “Everything seems to work out for a reason. Here’s this show that is a giant love letter to television and it seems like absolutely the right way for the maker of the biggest blockbusters out there to come to television — to honor what has come before.”

And by the look of it, WandaVision’s love letter to television is gushing, although we probably won’t be able to make complete sense of it until we all see the episodes for ourselves. “The ’70s, with The Brady Bunch — it’s all so ridiculous and so big and so sincere,” said Olson. “There was something that was really fun about that. And there’s something that was equally as fun being cynical in a Modern Family episode. It was fun to get, to play the different tones of sitcoms.”

But don’t worry: the show isn’t just an excuse to recreate Kevin Feige’s favorite sitcoms. There’s still a superhero story in here, and Teyonah Parris (Monica Rambeau) was impressed with the way the show combined these two elements. “When you look at the components individually, you’re like ‘How do these things fit together?'” she said. “But the way they blend it and incorporate everything is so cool and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun for the audience to go on this journey as the layers are revealed.”

Olson also assures us that there’s a back-and-forth happening here. “Our show is truly a conversation between American sitcoms throughout the decades and the MCU. Playing with the tension of how those two relate and combine and affect one another is what was really fun about this job. To try to figure out at what moment which one wins in our storytelling. It’s a constant tension that we play with throughout the series.”

We can’t wait to see it play out.

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