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TV is, almost by nature, a medium of constant disappointment: of good performance flattened by bad lighting, decent scripts killed by bad acting, high production values made to look shallow by ridiculous scripts.
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Through a series of events so arbitrary as to be irrelevant, Jaye is suddenly plugged into an unnamed omniscience that manifests itself through otherwise inanimate talking animals - a wax lion, a cow creamer, an appliqued buffalo, a mounted fish - that give her orders whose meaning is not always clear: “See a penny, pick it up.” “Don’t squeeze the Charmin.” “Give the lady a chair.” Action taken, one thing leads to another, but it’s a universe run on the order of Rube Goldberg, where first cause and final effect are often so far apart as to suggest no actual relationship between them.Ĭreated and written by Todd Holland (“Malcolm in the Middle,” “The Larry Sanders Show”) and Bryan Fuller (who created the above-mentioned “Dead Like Me”), and co-executive produced by Tim Miner (“Buffy,” “Angel”), “Wonderfalls” is so well done, so fresh and unpredictable, and so little in thrall to conventional virtues as to make the weary reviewer prostrate with joy. There are no touching angels here, no talk of the lovely, gentle, caring universe that enfolds us all.
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It is also refreshingly free of, for want of a better word, religion. “I’d be homebound, too, if I could get away with it,” she tells a neighboring hermit she reintroduces to the world, to her quick regret. “Take that ‘thank you’ back,” she tells a man whose 20-year sobriety she inadvertently helps preserve. “I don’t help people,” Jaye insists, having accidentally caught a flying baby. “Wonderfalls” is not without moments of warmth and young love, but it distracts you from them as fast as it can. “It’s a lot like drowning that way,” Jaye says. “Life can be sort of peaceful when you stop struggling,” says Eric, the cute bartender (Tyron Leitso, of “Dinotopia”), who is shaping up, but not too quickly, as a love interest. Indeed, the worst thing that could happen to the show would be for her to surrender to happiness. She is on good terms with her alienation and her distancing irony, and not ready to let them go. In helping others, you will not be surprised to learn, these women help themselves.Īnd while this is true also of “Wonderfalls,” what raises it above those other shows is that its main character, the spectacularly underachieving Jaye Tyler (Caroline Dhavernas), who has a degree in philosophy from Brown, works in a Niagara Falls souvenir store and lives in a trailer park, does not welcome the improvements. “Tru Calling,” “Dead Like Me” and most similarly “Joan of Arcadia” are its chronological foremothers, though not its inspiration, and I would include the yenta comedy “Miss Match” (lately missing itself, sadly) as a close cousin. Jaye is the reluctant participant in conversations with various animal figurines - a wax lion, brass monkey, stuffed bear, and mounted fish, among others - which direct her via oblique instructions to help people in need.“Wonderfalls” comes late in a TV year that offered a plethora of angry young women called upon by supernatural forces to help strangers who do not always know they’re in trouble. The show centers on Jaye Tyler (Caroline Dhavernas), a recent Brown University graduate with a philosophy degree, who holds a dead-end job as a sales clerk at a Niagara Falls gift shop. The same summer, the British network Sky1 picked up Wonderfalls and aired the series to completion, though not in the original intended episode order. The entirety of Wonderfalls was aired by the digital cable network Logo in the summer of 2005. In addition, some episodes were shown in theaters in Los Angeles during the summer of 2004 in order to raise support for the series. If they had been successful, Wonderfalls would have been the first American series in history to change networks in the midst of its first season. Immediately after the show's cancellation, its producers attempted to interest other networks, including The WB, in picking up the series. (A fifth episode was advertised but never aired.)
However, there was little notice or promotion of the time change, and the show was subsequently canceled after airing the fourth episode. The pilot episode, “Wax Lion”, received a higher Nielsen rating when it was repeated the Thursday after its premiere, and the show was moved from a Friday night time slot to Thursday. When it finally debuted in March 2004, Wonderfalls received positive reviews from critics, but had trouble attracting viewers. Originally scheduled to debut in the fall of 2003, its premiere was delayed until early 2004.
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