‘Shut Up. Season 3?!’ Fans React to Wednesday Renewal

Netflix has given fans their first look at Billie Piper in the upcoming second season of Wednesday, the hugely successful gothic teen comedy series starring Jenna Ortega. The 42-year-old star is joining the cast in an as-yet-unnamed role, first billed as the “enigmatic music maestro”.

Set to play Isadora Capri, Piper will take the role of head of music at Wednesday’s new school, Nevermore Academy. She is perhaps best known for the role of Brona Croft/The Bride of Frankenstein in the gothic period drama Penny Dreadful. The new role will see the actress rejoin what is fast becoming her comfort genre of choice, adding to her long list of work in the field, which includes Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Being Human, and A Discovery of Witches.

The character of Isadora Capri is set to have a particular interest in the young Wednesday Addams’ musical abilities, while also being the personal music mentor to werewolf transfer student Enid Sinclair, played by returning Wednesday series alumna Emma Myers.

Netflix posted a handful of stills from the set of season 2 of Wednesday on Wednesday, along with the latest big update on the future of the record-breaking hit show. Wednesday first landed on Netflix back in November 2022, and immediately established itself as a global success story. To date, the series has been viewed by 252 million viewers worldwide and has become the platform’s biggest English-language original series of all time. Season 2 had been announced earlier this year, following a January 2023 renewal from Netflix, and will now be on its way to viewers this August.

Wednesday is a pitch-dark reboot of the Addams Family universe, in which 22-year-old Jenna Ortega stars as Wednesday Addams, the young eponymous outcast trying to fit in at Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for supernatural misfits and outcasts. The series, which was a huge hit with viewers and critics, quickly rose to Netflix’s list of most-watched original series and gained Emmy recognition and a legion of fans.

It was a perfect storm of horror, humor, and angsty teenage rebellion that added to the interest in Wednesday among a wide demographic. The appearance of so many of Wednesday’s new cast members, many of whom are instantly recognizable and high-profile actors in their own right, is a sure-fire way to further pique fans’ interest in what is set to be the coming hot topic of discussion and hype in the second half of this year.

Wednesday Season 3 Has Officially Been Renewed and a Spin-Off Is in the Works

On top of all the news of Billie Piper, Netflix has confirmed two more pieces of juicy information that Wednesday fans have been clamoring for. It has now been announced that the series has been renewed for a third season, while a spin-off series is also now in active discussions.

The news of the cast member additions came on Wednesday, along with confirmation of the third season 3. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, co-creator Alfred Gough confirmed that season 3 is “done and we’re in post-production”. Gough also dropped the hint that a Wednesday spin-off series is already in development, saying, “It’s something we’re noodling; there are other characters we can look at.”

The casting news was posted to social media by Netflix, with the second season premiere being confirmed in the same post. Fans of the show and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones were quick to respond to the announcement in a flood of meme-ified comments, along with the star herself.

Zeta-Jones confirmed the official renewal herself in a tongue-in-cheek Instagram post alongside the Tuesday Before Hump Day meme. “When Wednesday comes, a better day. Wednesday season three. It’s official… we shall return.”

Fans also took to the comments of the post to add in their excitement. “And for many more seasons,” and “I can’t wait to see the second season, I’m waiting for it with great curiosity … and the third is already official, fantastic news!”

Some even gave the updates a more practical and less excited analysis, asking for the wait for the second season to be over and done with, and filming to begin as soon as possible. Some seem to have felt personally betrayed that the show would make them wait as long as it did for the second season, when it was first announced in January 2023, but it will not come out for more than two years after the first season’s debut in November 2022. With that in mind, they begged for it not to happen again: “I’ll be gripping the sheets in agony waiting, but please … don’t let us wait three years again.”

Returning to the production is executive producer and on-and-off director Tim Burton, 66, who once again will be hard at work on ensuring that the gothic horror-teen soap retains its unique and iconic Burton-esque look and feel. The director recently also collaborated with star Ortega on Beetlejuice, the forthcoming follow-up to the 1988 cult classic.

The series will also be adding some significant names to the mix on top of the inclusion of Billie Piper. New additions announced with the premiere of season 2 include the likes of Lady Gaga, Steve Buscemi, Joanna Lumley, and Thandie Newton. Returning cast members include regulars Gwendoline Christie as headteacher Larissa Weems and Luis Guzmán as Wednesday’s father, Gomez Addams.

Meanwhile, Ortega is now also serving as an official producer on the project. This comes hot on the heels of the teen star’s podcast interview that stirred up a bit of drama around the way she was portrayed by some sections of the media. In it, she was quoted as saying she “changed lines” and had to “put my foot down” over the character inconsistencies on the show. Ortega was bailed out by Burton in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in which the director came to her defense, saying her quotes had been misinterpreted. The actor was then given further backing from series co-creator Alfred Gough, who seemed to agree that her decision to join the show’s producers was only natural, as she was already “in the room” during creative discussions and regularly gave important notes on scripts.

Joanna Lumley, one of the newly announced additions to the Wednesday universe, has spoken of her enthusiasm over her time with the team: “There’s always something thrilling about working for Tim Burton. His whole mind takes him to a different world, and the world that they’ve created here for Wednesday and Nevermore and the family is just intoxicating.”