Woo and Wednesday

 

This week I thought I would talk about two rather dissimilar TV series that share one feature key feature in common, a central character who is a young women who has considerable trouble expressing her emotions and fitting into society.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Extraordinary Attorney Woo is a 16 episode South Korean TV series on Netflix. The extraordinary attorney Woo, played by Park Eun-bin, is on the autistic spectrum. Her father was studying to be an attorney, and from a very young age, she had began reading books on the law. Being very intelligent, and possessing a photographic memory, she grows up to graduate with the highest honors from the finest university in Korea. However, given her limited social skills – and her vast knowledge of whales and dolphins that she is eager to share – she has a hard time finding employment despite her uncanny knowledge of Korean law. The show opens with her landing a job as a rookie attorney at a prestigious law firm, and follows the ups and downs of her career while at the same time, filling in her back story. Her success lies in her uncanny ability to see beyond the obvious elements of the case and find elements of Korean law that apply. In addition, it explores the sometimes iffy relationship between clients and what is right, as well as the price of these highly paid, but highly competitive and demanding jobs, even as it recounts her struggle to fit in, be accepted, and make friendships.

The actress portraying Attorney Woo, Park Eun-bin, does an amazing job of staying within the character of an autistic person, and the show never has her break her autistic character to become more “normal.” Indeed, the series closes with her going off to work, now a full attorney, just like her she did on her first day on the job. I highly recommend this show for not only its appealing star, but for its supporting characters and interesting story lines. In my opinion, stories about growing friendships make for the best stories. This is one of them.

Wednesday

Wednesday is an eight part Netflix series that follows the boarding school career of Wednesday Addams, of The Addams Family fame. The fictional family was originally created as a series of one panel cartoons by Charles Addams, which appeared in the New Yorker magazine over a 50 year period beginning in 1938.

I was introduced to the family in the 1964 TV show, which the family was less evil than in the cartoons which ran for two seasons, and in reruns forever. I haven’t seen any of the film versions.

Wednesday is set in an alternative reality where various archetypes of mythical monsters – vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, telapaths, etc – actually exist and are part of society – sort of. They are the "Outcasts." Wednesday is sent to Nevermore Academy a school for these outscasts, after being expelled from many other schools. For various reasons, Wednesday has a great difficulty expressing emotions – even as she finds friends at Nevermore. The story revolves around a central mystery that involves several murders, and a monster in the woods. The show runner is Tim Burton, and I suspect that set up certain expectations that may not have been met, considering the mixed reception the show has received. I had no expectations – the trailers looked promising, but I have low expectations for American TV, so it was pretty much a wash for me. Plus, I am not a horror fan. However, I am happy to report that I enjoyed the show, with some reservations. Part of that enjoyment may have come from the set and its visual look and feel. I enjoyed A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix for similar reasons. But over all, I found the story generally enjoyable, for once again it revolved around finding friendship.

That said, the show was far from perfect, in my opinion. It suffered from the basic flaw of mysteries for me, which is to say they lean was to heavily on the theory that more murders you have, the higher the tension, the greater the stakes. It certainly could have been just as atmospheric and menacing with fewer killings, but subtly is not an American virtue. It had several mysteries, one of which was solved rather easily in the middle of the series. And quite frankly, the last episode which tied up the overarching mystery, was both over the top and lame at the same time. Key characters seemed to completely abandoned their previous characteristics, and not just the ones hiding secrets. I’m not going to get into spoilers, but let’s just say that things had to go on off camera to bring certain people together the way they came together that I find it hard to imagine ever happening. This episode. in particular, brought down my opinion of the show but I would watch its next season. And seeing that it is the highest viewed series ever on Netflix, I expect to see a second season, despite its rather mixed reviews.