Everyone knows at least ONE TV show that was cancelled way too soon, and would have ben great had it been given a fair chance, or more advertising, or a better time slot, or whatever. Point is, there are a lot of quality shows that just went largely underappreciated and unnoticed. Shows like Firefly, Pushing Daisies, and Dollhouse are among some of the more prominent examples, but while they are indeed great shows, it is still understandable why they didn't succeed; really odd, complex stories that don't necesarily have the happy endings that most viewers want. Great though they may be, they're still hitting an audience that mostly just doesn't want to try to follow. (Oh, and those darn rotten nasty networks, with all their "ratings" and "monetary concerns," lousy cheap bastards! Why, if my hip weren't in such a poor state, I'd give them the fist-shaking of a lifetime!)
...I'm not quite sure why I became a crotchety old man for a second there, but anyway...
But one of the shows that really grabs my atention in this regard is Wonderfalls. This is a show that manages to balance between the lines mentioned above: Kooky and oddball, but not so far as to drive away most casual TV viewers. Its sitcom set-up with a subtle overarcing story working in the background, along with a strong cast of great actors playing great characters, seems like it should have worked perfectly. But for some reason, it never caught on.
Well, to be more precise, it got brutally murdered. Lets start with a history lesson.
Wonderfalls found its way onto the Fox Network in 2004. (I think you can already see where this is going.) It arrived with little fanfare, but it still managed to make itself known... for the four weeks it was around. Only four of the thirteen episodes got aired before the show was cancelled, and almost every single one of those episodes was shown at a different time of the week. The show's creators, Bryan Fuller and Todd Holland, tried to find a new network that would air the remaining nine episodes, but nobody would take it.
Luckily, a large fan community got together and tried their hardest to get the show released on DVD. Even better, they actually succeeded! And thanks to the wonders of Netflix, I finally managed to get a hold of the rest of the show I loved, but never got to fully experience. So why should you care? Allow me to deliver you one ham-handed segue into my deconstruction of the show!
One of the most important parts of a show is, of course, the story. Wonderfalls focuses on Jaye Tyler, a college graduate working in a Niagara Falls gift shop and living in a trailer park. We get to see Jaye begrudgingly interact with her wealthy, succesfull family, slowly build a relationship with the local bartender, and struggle with the fact that she may be insane.
For you see, things talk to Jaye. Things like stufed animals, wax figurines, and lawn flamingos. These things persuade her into doing things. Things that seem like incredibly bad things to do. But these things seem to always end up helping everybody in the end, in kind of an "ends justify the means" setup. The series largely makes the viewer ask the question if these "Muses" are really talking to Jaye, or if she is really just going crazy.
But a story is nothing without strong characters to support it, and in this, Wonderfalls is very well off. Every single character has a unique, deep personality, and better yet, they all manage to be completely likeable. Even Jaye, the anti-social jerkass of the group, still manages to never be unlikeable. (Well, ok, there's ONE unlikeable character, but you're supposed to dislike her, and even then, its entirely possible to feel sympathetic for her.)
Now I won't go and reveal everything about everyone, but I will briefly talk about a couple of my favorites. First up is Karen Tyler, Jaye's mother. Karen is a highly succesfull author, and is very much the stereotypical family matriarch. She's strong-willed and more or less runs the family, and at first she also seems like she is the somewhat distant mother-figure, more concerned with the idea that her children make her proud than with their happiness. But as the show progresses, you see little hints that this is very much not the case. It becomes very clear near the end of the series, when Jaye hits a particularly rough spot. Jaye, of course, refuses to open up to her mother, and this fact very visibly distresses Karen, who wants nothing more than to comfort her daughter, and the fact that she can't is quite clearly breaking her heart. It was at this point that I started seeing Karen as an actual person, and not a flat character.
Another favorite is Sharon Tyler, Jaye's sister. Sharon is a fairly prestigious laywer, and of course, she and Jaye don't get along too well. Now, I love Sharon for two reasons. The first is that she's just hilarious, and a lot of this has to be credited to the actres that played her. But I'll talk more about that in a bit. The other reason is how you get to see her relationship with Jaye develop over the course of the show. They start out at each other's throats, but by the end, they won't hesitate to comfort each other in their times of need. She's also great at being the character that you can never guess the allegiance of in times of crisis, which creates a lot of delicious conflict.
There are other great characters, like Mahandra, Jaye's fiercly loyal friend, and Eric, the love interest, but I'll let you meet them in your own time.
Now, that all is all well and good, but Wonderfalls has something that not many shows have: a perfect cast. Every single actor and actress brought onto this show just did such an amazingly perfect job with their roles, from body language to line delivery, and even to small basic performaqnce touches. I mentioned earlier that I loved Sharon because she's so damn funny, but almost none of that comes from her dialog or stage directions. Katie Finneran herself managed to add a lot of personality to her character, largely in times when she doesn't even have anby spoken lines. Just her facial expressions and reaction shots are enough to crack out a few laughs, and this is all on top of her flawless and amazing performance.
But don't let my gushing mislead you. Everyone on the show did wonderfully with their roles, and often with just the little touches. You can realy tell that everyone was very comfortable with their roles and really got into the mythos of the show, and the end result was an overall phenomenal group performance.
I guess the final thing I'd like to talk about is the show's writing. The actors had a stellar performance, but this was of course based off of a stellar script. The show's writers managed to put a lot of character into the dialog itself, along with a good amount of charm and comedy. One of the most unique things about the show's writing is the use of arc words or phrases. For the most part, the "Muses" that speak to Jaye will only repeat one phrase to her over the course of the episode. But the neat thing is how that one phrase takes on different meanings as the story progresses. Over the course of one episode, phrases like "get her words out" or "bring her home" can take on as many as three or four different meanings, depending on the current context and what events have transpired. The writers also use a lot of clever word play as a source of comedy, and even throw in a lot of very subtle call backs to previous episodes that you may not catch for a couple viewings.
So in the end, all of this boils down into a fantastic show that really was cut down before it had a change to really get going. You can tell that, if it was allowed to continue growing, Wonderfalls would have been a very deep show based more around the development of these characters, but as it is now, it is still a very good free-standing story. Hell, it even manages to have a completely fulfilling final episode that ties up all but one loose end.
So, for the real point of this article: Should you watch Wonderfalls? YES! And should any of you potential writers, actors, or directors out there create more stories like this? YES AGAIN! While short, Wonderfalls succeeds in being a very fulfilling, entertaining story that provides a good amount of comedy, romance, heartbreak, action, suspense... really, it honestly does have something for everybody, and I can guarantee that you will find something inside that will capture your heart and make this one of your favorites.
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