The Wonder Years is an ABC coming-of-age series created by Saladin K. Patterson and starring Elisha 'EJ' Williams as Dean Williams, a 12-year-old growing up in Montgomery, Alabama during the late 1960s. Through the imaginative eyes of Dean, and narrated by Dean as an adult (voiced by Don Cheadle), the series takes a nostalgic look at a black middle-class family.
The series is a reboot of The Wonder Years, which also aired on ABC. Original series star Fred Savage served as an executive producer until May 2022, along with Patterson, Lee Daniels, and Marc Velez.
The series made its debut in September 2021 and received its back-half order of nine additional episodes in October. In May 2022, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered the following year. In September 2023, ABC announced that the series would not return for a third season.
This series features examples of:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In "The Takeover Spirit", Dean is bored at church and prays for something to happen that will end the service early. His Imagine Spot has the baptismal pool flooding, but what really happens is that one of the choir singers, Mrs. Henderson, faints and later dies. Dean spends the rest of the episode overcome with guilt over "killing" Mrs. Henderson.
- Big Storm Episode: In the first season finale, "Love, Dean", Dean and Keisa are getting a table from the school shed when a tornado hits and they have to shelter in place, where they share a kiss.
- Black and Nerdy: Dean has been a chemistry buff since he was little.
- Black Republican: In "A Star is Born", Bruce joins the campaign staff of a Republican senator, which upsets Bill, who thinks the senator is just using him. Eventually, Bill accepts that Bruce should make his own choices.
- The Bully: Michael Simms, a much larger, and possibly much older, classmate of Dean.Older Dean: Now, no one in school knew how old Michael Simms was. Some people said he had a son at another school.
- Connected All Along: "Love & War" has Bruce reveal what happened to him in Vietnam: He and his friend Brian were pulling injured soldiers to safety during which Bruce was shot in the arm and Brian was killed, and Bruce was affected by Survivor's Guilt over not being able to do more. But the real shocker is the end where Bruce shows Dean the picture Brian kept on him... one of him and his sister Gwendolyn, more commonly known as Winnie, meaning that the show is set in the same universe as the old series and not just a remake.
- Cool Aunt: In the first two episodes of season 2, we meet Jackie, Lillian's way more colorful sister, who delights in slightly corrupting Dean by letting him borrow her romance novels. Dean and Kim absolutely adore her.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Bill does not often approve of Kim's boyfriends, and thus he's shocked when she falls for one of his best students, who's level-headed and actually has goals and a plan to achieve them. Lillian begs Bill not to let on that he approves of the boy for fear that Kim will dump him and go back to her usual guys.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The series alludes to some of the realities of life for black people in 1960's Alabama, like Grandaddy Clisby only shopping at stores with black clerks (because the ones with white clerks follow him around to make sure he can pay) and having to carry all his cash around in his pockets because he can't get a bank account.
- Downer Beginning: The first episode of the series ends with the news of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as Dean seeing his best friend kiss his crush.
- Drives Like Crazy: Grandaddy Clisby is reluctant to give up his keys, though his son, Bill, feels that it's time he gave up driving. He finally does so after he and Dean sneak out with the car and get into a minor accident.
- Due to the Dead: In "Takeover Spirit", Dean is haunted by the ghost of a parishioner at church after he prays for something to interrupt the church service and she dies immediately after. After people tell him that he must make amends, he visits her grave and leaves flowers, and thus meets her granddaughter, who tells him not to feel so bad because she'd known all along that her grandmother was dying and she's just glad that the old woman lasted as long as she did.
- Everyone Has Standards: Grandaddy Clisby is a proud and stubborn old man who delights in aggravating his son and daughter-in-law, but he will readily abandon whatever principled stance he's taking if the consequences harm his beloved grandson Dean. He finally gives up his driver's license after getting into a minor accident with Dean in the car, and he agrees to forgo his usual distrust of modern medicine after Dean ends up in the hospital because his folk remedies for chicken pox give Dean a fever.
- The Faceless: Marvin Gaye in the first episode of Season Two. His two appearances are done as POV Shots through tinted shades.
- First-Person Perspective: Similar to the original series, an older Dean narrates each episode.
- Green-Eyed Monster: A recurring theme with Dean:
- After seeing his best friend, Cory, kiss Dean's long-time crush Keisa, Dean attempts to ice both of them out of his life. It only lasts one episode, though, with Keisa rejecting Cory.
- When Lillian takes Michael Simms under her wing for the Science Fair, Dean becomes jealous and lashes out at Michael after his own project's Disastrous Demonstration leaves him humiliated.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: In “Happy Birthday, Clisby”, Kim learns that her cousin Cassie is pregnant. She suggets to Cassie that there are options, implying that she could get an abortion; Lillian warns that that is not an option for them because Cassie is not “a white girl from Massachusetts.”
- Mama Bear: Lillian is very protective of Dean, perhaps because he's the youngest of her three kids.
- Mood Whiplash: "Goose Grease" is a mostly lighthearted episode about Dean, his father and grandfather being quarantined at home after contracting chicken pox. Eventually Dean gets feverish and delirious but ends up being fine after getting antibiotics. They then get a call that Bruce has been injured in Vietnam, and the episode ends.
- Nerd Glasses: Dean is self-conscious about wearing glasses, though it eases a bit when his crush Keisa compliments them.
- Operation: Jealousy: In "The Lock In", Dean hatches a plan to kiss Charlene, the Reverend's daughter, at the church lock-in in the hopes of making Keisa jealous. This plan goes awry when Charlene actually does kiss him and he loses his balance and falls in the baptismal pool... but it does end up making Keisa jealous.
- Platonic Kissing: In "Blockbusting", Dean has a sleepover at Brad's house, where he discovers that Brad's mom still gives him goodnight kisses on the lips... and then she kisses Dean, too, which causes him to develop a crush on her.
- Punny Name: In "One Small Step", Dean and Bill befriend Lonnie, a drag performer and poet who performs under the name Cybil Disobedience.
- School Play: In "A Star is Born", Dean joins the school's drama club and is cast as the lead in their production of Peter Pan, mainly because he's the only one who can fit in the costume.
- Science Fair: Dean is handed a humiliating defeat at the 7th grade science fair after a Disastrous Demonstration involving his potato yeast. He lashes out in jealousy at Michael Simms, who managed to successfully build a potato clock with Lillian's help.
- Sick Episode: "Goose Grease" is about Dean getting chicken pox and quarantining with his father and grandfather.
- Slice of Life: Like the original series, the show is about a kid growing up in a suburban neighborhood during 1960's Vietnam War-Era America.
- Too Hungry to Be Polite: Invited to stay for dinner with Lillian and her family, Michael Simms inhales his food.
- Vacation Episode: The second season finale, “The Happiest Place on Earth”. The family go on a trip to visit East Austin College, where Kim is planning to go, with the promise to Dean that they can visit Disneyland on the way.
- Welcome to the Big City: In the season two opener, Dean goes with Bill to New York City, and is told to stay in the apartment. Dean decides to sneak out and make friends. The first people he meets steal his shoes.
- Wham Line: At the end of "Love & War", when Dean observes Bruce writing to his friend Brian's family and sees Bruce has a picture of Brian and his sister:Dean: She's very pretty. What's her name?
Bruce: Gwendolyn. But he called her Winnie.
(cue a shot of the photograph, showing Winnie Cooper and her brother Brian from the original show) - Wholesome Crossdresser: While visiting New York City in the second-season premiere, Bill and Dean befriend Lonnie, a kindly drag performer who treats them to some southern cooking and helps Bill get over his writer's block.
