How the ‘Agatha All Along’ Practical Sets Captured the ‘Golden Age of Fantasy and Horror’

variety.com:

Andrés Buenahora editor SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot points for “Agatha All Along,” currently streaming on Disney Plus.

In Marvel’s newest television series “Agatha All Along,” Kathryn Hahn reprises her role as Agatha Harkness from the studio’s 2021 hit sitcom satire “WandaVision.” Although we’ve seen this character before, everything about this iteration of Agatha — and subsequently, her show — holds palpable discrepancies to the canon of superhero universes.

In aesthetic and tone, this is another world altogether, because it’s created by practical set pieces. “We were circling a quest-type narrative that was grounded in ‘Wizard of Oz,'” says showrunner Jac Schaeffer. “It’s a fantasy show.

It’s a horror show. It has all of these roots in content that came out in the ’40s…we wanted it to have that same look and feel to give the audience that same nostalgia hit that that we were able to achieve in ‘WandaVision.'” Schaeffer credits executive producer Mary Livanos for the proposal to shoot the show through the lens of practical filmmaking, adding that it boded well as a creative choice. “‘WandaVision’ was a celebration of the golden age of television and the celebration of sitcoms,” Livanos says. “(In ‘Agatha All Along’) we’re really honoring the craft of filmmaking and the golden age of fantasy and horror.” Livanos explains when the team approached The Witches Road in “Agatha All Along,” the show’s spiritual connection to “The Wizard of Oz” (which features the iconic Yellow Brick Road) led them to embrace the concept of practically building out their own road. “When you stepped on set, it was all immersive, like the low-line fog, the mushrooms that sparkle.