Wizards Beyond Waverly Place

Reboots and relaunches are all the rage in Hollywood these days. Cashing in on nostalgia is the easiest money-making scheme in the minds of studio executives. However, as the years go by, this does not seem to be the sure-shot, money-generating guarantee that many thought it would be, and often these reboots and sequel shows have the plug pulled on them fairly quickly if they don’t blow up in popularity. Once the cheap nostalgia pop wears off, these shows fade away and are forgotten about. Perhaps no era has been a bigger source of nostalgia-bait TV than the teen sitcoms of the 2000s. We’ve seen shows like Raven’s Home, iCarly, Fairly OddParents, and Rugrats come and go with some hype only to fizzle out or have the plug pulled prematurely. Wizards Beyond Waverly Place is one of the latest of these revival series to be launched, and time will tell if it sticks around longer than a few seasons. The series stars Janice LeAnn Brown, Alkaio Thiele, Max Matenko, Taylor Cora, Mimi Gianopulos, David Henrie, and Selena Gomez, and premiered on October 29th, 2024, on the Disney Channel.

The series takes place fifteen years after the events of Wizards of Waverly Place. Justin Russo (Henrie) has left wizarding behind and is now living a normal life with his non-wizard wife, Giada (Gianopulos), and two sons (Thiele and Matenko) in Staten Island. However, one day, his sister Alex (Gomez) arrives at his door. In the years since the first show’s finale, Alex has become the Russo Family Wizard and a member of the Wizard Tribunal. She comes back to Justin to ask for his help with a young wizard-in-training named Billie (Brown). Justin is very hesitant at first, as he has not been a wizard for years, and he has also not told his family that he used to be a wizard. However, after seeing Billie’s potential and some gentle nudging from Alex, Justin revives his magical skills in order to mentor her while still balancing living a normal life.

All these sequel/revival series follow a very similar formula. They usually follow a supporting character from the original show, mentoring a young and precocious child who is usually of a different race/gender than the original characters. This formula has been applied to iCarly, Fairly OddParents, The Conners, That '90s Show, The Powerpuff Girls, Girl Meets World, and now this show. This decision-making makes all these series feel formulaic and like a team of executives decided on a cast that would be non-offensive and appealing to everyone.

If you need a visual representation of this practice, Seth Rogen’s The Studio perfectly illustrated how inauthentic and shallow this always feels. It also puts an immediate ceiling and box around these shows before they even air. Otherwise, the show is a standard Disney Channel sitcom; if you’ve seen one, you know how the laughs can be forced and plots ridiculous. David Henrie gives it his all, though, and is able to channel the same energy he had in the original show. Fans of the original show have probably already checked this out and moved on, but it really is a show for a new generation.

Avada Kedavra!.

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