Wednesday: Netflix announces a November premiere plus new clip

October seems like the perfect month for the premiere of an Addams Family series, but the Netflix series Wednesday isn’t going to be ready for a Halloween season debut. We won’t have to wait much longer for the show, though. Netflix has announced that Wednesday will be available to watch on the streaming service as of November 23rd! And yes, its release date is a Wednesday.

Directed by Tim Burton and created by showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar, Wednesday is described as

a comedic, supernaturally-infused coming-of-age series that follows the teenage girl’s years as a student at Nevermore Academy, where she attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the town, and solve a mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago — all while navigating her new relationships at Nevermore. Snap snap.

Jenna Ortega plays Wednesday, with Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley and Luis Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones as Gomez and Morticia. They are joined on the show by Riki Lindhome as Wednesday’s therapist Dr. Valerine Kinbot; Joy Sunday as Siren Nevermore student Bianca Barclay; Emma Myers as Wednesday’s sunny roommate Enid Sinclair; Hunter Doohan as townie Tyler Galpin; Moosa Mostafa as quirky Nevermore student Eugene Otinger; Georgie Farmer as awkward and shy Nevermore student Ajax Petropolus; Naomi J. Ogawa as vampire Nevermore student Yoko Tanaka; Percy Hynes White as supernaturally artistic Nevermore student Xavier Thorpe; Jamie McShane as Sheriff Donovan Galpin, Tyler’s father, who has a vendetta against Gomez; Gwendoline Christie as Larissa Weems, “the principal of Nevermore Academy who still has an axe to grind with her former classmate Morticia Addams”; Victor Dorobantu as Thing, the non-verbal disembodied hand; George Burcea as Lurch; Tommie Earl Jenkins as Mayor Walker; Iman Marson as Lucas Walker; William Houston as Joseph Crackstone; Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo as Deputy Santiago; Oliver Watson as Kent; Calum Ross as Rowan; and Johnna Dias Watson as Divina.

Thora Birch had signed on to play a character named Tamara Novak, “Wednesday’s dorm mother and the only ‘normie’ on staff at Nevermore Academy, with a focus on all things botanical.” Sadly, due to a family illness, Birch had to leave the production in Romania and return to the United States before filming was complete. It was said that her role won’t be recast, with a new character being added into the story instead.

Christina Ricci, who previously played Wednesday herself in the live-action feature films The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values, is said to be playing an “exciting new character” named Marilyn Thornhill on the show. She has praised Ortega’s performance as Wednesday, saying “Jenna is incredible” and has a “great modern take” on the character. “It’s so true tonally to the heart and soul of [the original], but it’s then it’s incredibly modern and it’s great.”

Ortega provided the following statement: “Wednesday is currently a teenager, and we’ve never seen her as a teenager before. Her snarky, snide remarks might not necessarily sound as charming when they’re coming from somebody who should probably know better than a 10-year-old girl. That was a balancing act. We didn’t want to make her sound like every other teenage girl, but we also didn’t want to make her too ignorant. And we’ve never seen her on screen this much. Any other time you’ve seen Wednesday, she’s been the one-liner, the end of a joke, she always hits it, and I think that’s what people really love about her. But in this show, every scene is Wednesday. There’s an opportunity to give her a bit more dimension, and she becomes a bit more of a real person, which I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.“

The 8 episode Wednesday series marks Burton’s TV directing debut. Burton is also executive producing the show alongside Gough, Millar, Jonathan Glickman of Glickmania, Andrew Mittman of 1.21, Kayla Alpert, Gail Berman, Steve Stark, and Kevin Miserocchi of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation.

Will you be watching Wednesday when it premieres on Netflix this November? Share your thoughts on this show by leaving a comment below.