Wonderfalls

June 21, 2008 | Filed Under Main |

I’ve given up on TV out here. The cable didn’t really work. The news is dreadful. Arab shows have limited appeal. And the rest of programming is just pedestrian… and mainly pedestrian American TV (though I can get the same in Italian, French and Arabic). Survivor and Hannah Montana never did much for me. So when I was home, I stocked up on DVDs – some movies but mostly TV shows I never really had the chance to watch. Now I can watch The Prisoner in order, see my favorite season of the X-Files and catch up with Robot Chicken.

But I also picked up a series or two that I never got to see… because they were yanked after half a season of shuttling timeslots. My favorite is Wonderfalls. This was a Fox show (of course) from 2004 that was created, but never allowed to live. Here we have a 20-something female who graduates with a philosophy degree from Brown and decides to skip out on expectations and takes a menial job at a gift shop at Niagara Falls. There she cultivates her distance and indifference from both the customers and her family… that is, until she starts hearing voices. Actually, until the animals start talking to her. First, it’s the wax lion. Then the brass monkey. Then the plastic flamingoes and the wind-up penguin and on and on. They start telling her to do things to help other people – though the message is generally very cryptic and no one is really sure what it means until the end of the show. I love it. It reminds me of another of my favorite shows – Dead Like Me – in that it is hilarious, occasionally touching, about things greater than ourselves AND has a young, snarky lead female. Which isn’t really a surprise since one of the creators – Bryan Fuller – did both shows. The cast is perfect, especially Caroline Dhavernas. AND the theme song was written by Andy Partridge of XTC!

Only four episodes ever aired and only thirteen exist, but they are choice and I highly recommend checking them out.

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1 comment so far
  1. Mary Lou June 27, 2008 10:13 am

    Wonderfalls? Really? Isn’t this “Joan of Arcadia” redux (albeit with quirkier production values and casting)? But that older brother, the guy who ended up on “Pushing Daisies” last fall…talk about your quirk! Do like the music, though.

    Well, I’ve dented Wonderfalls and have yet to find Dead Like Me…how about another suggestion?