Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Rewind: Wonderfalls

Forget Freaks and Geeks.  Forget Firefly.  The show that was the most royally screwed by FOX may be Wonderfalls, which aired for a whopping four episodes before being cancelled.  The last nine episodes of the first and only season weren't even aired on FOX.  It was so unsuccessful that the only reason there was a DVD of the series was that it was sort of a cult hit among its few fans.

With all that said, it's not surprising Wonderfalls was unsuccessful among the general public.  This is a show about a girl who is talked to by stuffed animals and that's pretty much the premise of the show.  It is extremely whimsical, almost annoyingly so at times.  It was filled with a cast of unknowns.  Of course, FOX knew all this and still picked up the show.  And the network moved the show to the dreaded Friday slot after its premiere episode.

Watching Wonderfalls and Hannibal back-to-back is hilarious, because somehow those two shows were both created by Bryan Fuller.  Both shows have beautiful cinematography and inventive direction on what were probably low budgets.  But I'm not sure you could find two different shows stylistically.

Wonderfalls stars Jaye Tyler, a 20-something with a college degree with a dead-end job at a Niagara Falls souvenir shop.  Her life is going pretty much nowhere, and she's perfectly okay with that as she wants nothing to do with people or to work hard.  That is until animal heads start talking to her, telling her to do things.  Admittedly, this show relates to me more than most I would guess as I'm a soon-to-be college graduate with little idea of what to do with it.

Anyway, she is talked to by "muses", whether they are stuffed animals, decorative lawn flamingos, or a fish mounted on a wall.  They give her extremely oblique directions on what to do, usually confusing Jaye not only on what to do, but who to do it for (as they speak in pronouns).  These conversations lead Jaye to be more proactive and most of the actions end up helping either her or someone else.

Tyler is joined in the cast by her family, best friend, and potential love interest.  Her mother and father are supportive and loving, but overbearing.  Her sister is a closeted lesbian lawyer and her brother is an atheist with a degree in comparative religions.  And her love interest is a still-married technically bartender whose wife cheated on him during the honeymoon.  The best friend isn't really distinctive except she's a cocktail waitress who mostly just gives advice to Jaye.

Jaye Tyler is played by the blue-eyed Caroline Dhavernas, probably better known as Dr. Alana Bloom in Hannibal.  She plays a much different character here - sarcastic, witty, and an underachiever by choice.  She is the woman of many faces, and those faces are always entertaining.  She's in 95 percent of scenes on this show and she is the reason to watch the show.  Without her great performance, this probably isn't a good show.

Despite being unknown, the cast is pretty great in general.  The best friend is played by Tracie Thomas, and despite getting basically nothing to do, she makes it work.  Again, despite the parents getting very little to do throughout the series, William Sadler and Diana Scarwid make you want more parents-focused stories.  And Katie Finneran plays lovable bitch about as well as you can.  (Here's a great quote from Finneran by the way.  When asked if she's worried about playing a lesbian lawyer, she said "I'd rather have people think I'm a lesbian than a lawyer.")

Tyron Leitso, who's probably had the least success out of this cast, is serviceable and at times great.  His main acting consists of puppy dog, which he excels at, and the few times he's asked to more, he doesn't fail.  Besides Dhavernas though, the breakout star of this show is Lee Pace.  Pace doesn't actually do much of anything for the first few episodes while the writers figured him out.  But once they did, Pace was fantastic.

Interestingly enough, the show originally cast Kerry Washington as the best friend and Adam Scott as the brother.  Neither could commit to the show so they went with Thomas and Pace.  I find it hard to believe Washington or Scott would have done better in those roles, but Scott would have been perfectly cast as the love interest.  (Not a slam on Leitso - I mean Adam Scott is awesome)

The talent behind the camera is also evident.  Besides Fuller, who's also responsible for Pushing Daises, Wonderfalls was co-created by Todd Holland, a superb director.  Holland has received three Emmy awards for his direction (one for The Larry Sander Show, two for Malcolm in the Middle.)  He directs four of the episodes in this series, including the pilot which shapes the way the rest of the series will be directed.  Much like Hannibal, I imagine directors got to experiment here because the direction is imaginative.

On the writing side, Bryan Fuller wrote three episodes.  Somehow Fuller convinced Tim Minear, one of the most talented television writers around, to write for Wonderfalls.  Minear has written for many shows including The X-Files, Angel, Firefly, Terriers, and American Horror Story.  (He consistently has the best episodes on AHS)

Wonderfalls is a wholly unique show that, with a few "That's from 2004 moments" excepted, could still air today and still be totally different than anything on television.  It is not defined by one genre as it genre-swaps more than any other show depending on the story the writers want to tell.  They don't attempt to explain why Jaye is getting talked to by muses, because it's not that type of show.  The muses are just an excuse to get to things the writers really want to explore.

The series is mostly self-contained until the last few episodes.  This makes some of the series "hit-or-miss."  Usually the writers are extremely creative in forming what the muses want Jaye to do.  But since Wonderfalls underuses most of its supporting characters, that means it ends up depending on the strength of the case of the week.  Sadly, the writers seemed to figure out what to do with all of its characters by the end, but it was way too late by that point.

Wonderfalls is a show that starts off strong and just when the formula started to get stale, it became a serialized story.  The last few episodes are among the series' best, rewarding your patience.  I wholly recommend the 13 episodes that are available on Youtube, especially if you like Bryan Fuller shows.  (If you've only seen Hannibal from him, I'd recommend it just as a contrast)  Wonderfalls was a tragically cut short show that I'm glad I got to see at least one season of.

Grade - B+

Playlist
1. "Give it to Me" - Ces Cru
2. "Scrape the Sky" - Can't Stop Won't Stop feat. Fresh Big Mouf
3. "Rock and Roll Queen" - The Subways
4. "Day Four" - Bloc Party
5. "Harlem" - Cathedrals

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