Susanna is the final WIGS series in which Virginia Madsen makes an appearance after Jan and Ruth & Erica.
Much like the other two (and the whole WIGS universe) the show features the main character at a certain point in her life. Each episode is around 10 minutes long, this one like Jan features episodes that run on from each other or move to a different setting entirely.
Susanna (Maggie Grace) is a career woman with a sister, Katie (Anna Paquin), who just had a baby and isn’t coping so well. The series revolves around dealing with Postpartum Depression and the effects it has on the family as a whole, not just the mother dealing with it.
As well as trying to help her sister and her niece she’s got a big project she needs to deliver at work with plenty of people hoping she’ll fail. She takes on the baby while her sister is in the hospital getting treatment and has to juggle her life around to make it all work.
It reminded me more of Ruth and Erica than it did Jan, it’s all sensitively handled and although I’ve never had to deal with anything like this myself in real life I believe I got a real feeling, or indication at least of what it must be like to deal with something like that in the family.
Anna Paquin steals it for me in this one, I know it’s not her show but to me she is the one doing all the heavy lifting here. Maggie Grace does her part, and well, but it’s more of a straight forward and less nuanced role in a lot of ways. That isn’t to say she doesn’t deserve any kudos, far from it.
Virginia shows up in the 12th and final episode, in an actually quite surprising role, I don’t know why. I’d half forgotten she was in it to be honest and was invested in the actual story at that point. It’s literally the last half of the final episode when she makes her entrance.
And, yes of course she owns the screen the entire time she’s on. She’s doing her patriarch thing we’ve seen her do a few times and will see her do again.
Again, like both Jan and Ruth and Erica, it’s hard not to get invested in the show as you watch it. It’s a bit odd watching the short form episodes, especially when they run on from each other. I can see the appeal of this format for those on a commute or something, they’d easily kill a 10 minute bus ride or something and leave it easy to pick up on another time.
Unfortunately Susanna would be the last we saw of this universe, on YouTube at least. One of the most popular WIGS shows, Blue, would try to make the transition to the slightly bigger TV Screen on the FOX Network, broadcast on HULU. I guess the idea was for the other shows to follow in some way. Blue seems to have been taken off the YouTube Channel now for whatever reason.
I can’t seem to find any official notice about Blue being cancelled and the show ends on a cliffhanger so I guess that wasn’t actually the plan.
WIGS was the Number 1 Scripted Channel on YouTube for a while so it was definitely popular, and while I admit I only found and watched any of their content through my interest in Virginia Madsen I am probably going to go back and watch the whole thing at some point.
Availability:
All episodes are still available on YouTube at the time of writing.
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