The Disney +’s initial excursion into Marvel Cinematic Universe based television has completed its first foray with the series finale of WandaVision the complicated and comedic continuation of the storylines for Wanda Maximoff and Vision beyond Infinity War and Endgame.

The series has garnered praise, fandom, and even a hit song and you can count me amongst its fans but the piece is also not without its flaws and missteps. So, with no restraint on spoilers let me illuminate some of the show not quite on target aspects.

Spoiler Region Ahead

To begin, the entire first episode is superfluous. A person could tune into episode two and not have missed anything at all critical to understand the arc of the series. While some have praised the comedic writing of that first episode it did not work for me so it has three strikes against it, 1) it is unnecessary 2) it is not funny, and 3) it has no stakes. Taking place in effectively a dream the problems presented in that initial episode have no weight. Before someone pops up and says that at that point, we didn’t know thew nature of the Hex or even its existence we didknow that Vision was dead and that Wanda is not a character from a 50s sit-com so the audience is already aware of the unreality of the events they are only unaware of the cause. It is dream storyline and those are very difficult to create with any sense of stakes, danger, or loss.

The progression of the sit-coms through the decades is unmotivated.

With each episode of WandaVision the sit-com dreamworld advances to mirror the stylistic nature of the next decade of television. While many of the homages to classic periods of tv were spot on in tone and look that changes themselves were unmotivated. The character’s watching from outside the Hex commented and questioned this aspect establishing it as a plot mystery that is never explained or resolved. While Wanda as a child adored American sit-coms of many decades it is never detailed why her own never fixed into a particular mode.

Wanda’s abuse of the people of Westview is dismissed far too lightly.

In the resolution of plot, it is revealed that unlike her assumptions that the residents of Westview have happy contented lives in her fantasy world they are actually in perpetual pain and their dreams are infused with Wanda’s nightmares. Wanda’s idyllic world had been a literal hell for everyone around her. It is true that Wanda never intended for that, Wanda never intended for any of it the creation of the Hex and its television inspired reality was a product of her unchained chaotic magic and overwhelming grief but when Wanda does release the spell, restoring the town while once again killing her love Vision the story’s emphasis is on Wanda’s loss and ‘sacrifice’ without and hint that Wanda feels any actual guilt over the agony she has forced others to endure for weeks. This was dismissed too glibly, and it undercuts the grief that series so well explored.

Much of these issues that I had could have been resolved at the script stage. I think an interesting possible approach would to have had each decade of sit-com fail Wanda’s escapism in some manner, double points if it fails in a manner that inherent to the nature of the programing and values of the time it was reflecting so that the decades changes as Wanda keeps, without being aware of it, running from her pain. Doing this in episode one would have set up the underpinnings of the entire series and kept that pilot from being essentially pointless.

Now, with all that said, I am still a fan of the series and have enjoyed watching it multiple times.