Although the main character of Wednesday never really associated with the murder-mystery genre, the new Netflix series adds thriller elements for its time at the Nevermore School. The mystery of the season revolves around who – or what – was killing college students, and Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) sets out to investigate on her own. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the showrunner duo, Al Gough and Miles Millar, talked about their influences and mentioned a particular story they had wanted to tell for a long time.
In the interview, the Smallville the creators revealed that they had been trying to make a young Miss Marple series for years. Marple is a character created by legendary murder mystery author Agatha Christie. Just like Hercule Poirot (seen in the film franchise starring Kenneth Branagh), Marple is a formidable investigator and her stories are also set in her later years. A “Young Miss Marple” series would give new and old fans a chance to see her transform into the great detective of the new series. Millar explains:
“Well, we tried for a long time to have a young Miss Marple [series going]and maybe that influenced us with the polar element [in ‘Wednesday’], but it’s definitely something intriguing as a character that you always see. There’s something about thrillers and mysteries that’s a big puzzle for a writer to solve. So I think that was something, seeing how she evolved into sort of a curious old Agatha Christie lady was something we talked about for a while.
Gough and Millar have played with Whodunit tropes for decades
While we may not get to see young Miss Marple anytime soon, at least Gough and Millar got to exercise their thriller quirks with Wednesday. The difference is that in the Netflix series, the murder mystery plot also has supernatural elements, which adds extra layers of mystery for the audience to try to figure out. On their previous show, the long-running CW series Smallvilleit was also quite common for the duo to pitch investigation storylines for Clark Kent (Tom Welling) realize.
Wednesday premiered on Netflix on November 23 and quickly became one of the biggest hits of 2022. The show has remained among the top 10 most-watched titles on the platform since its premiere, which could mean we’ll see the Addams heir to investigate many more cases.
Besides Ortega, the cast also includes Catherine Zeta Jones like Morticia Addams, Luis Guzman like Gomez Addams, isaac order as Wednesday’s younger brother, Pugsley, Fred Armisen like Uncle Fester, Christine Ricci like Marilyn Thornhill, George Burcea like Lurch, Gwendoline Christie as Principal Larissa Weems, Ricky Lindhome like Dr. Valerie Kinbott, Jamie McShane as Sheriff Donovan Galpin, and joy sunday like Bianca Barclay.
You can stream all episodes of Wednesday on Netflix now. Check out a trailer for the series below:
Wednesday showrunners want to do a Young Miss Marple series – CNET – ApparelGeek