If you want to be taken seriously as a television fan (and who doesn’t hold that as their highest life goal?), you have to know how to talk the talk. You have to have an opinion on when exactly The Office jumped the shark.You have to be able to namedrop characters from The Wire, even if you’ve never seen it (cough). You have to loudly lament, at the slightest provocation, the untimely cancellation of some of your most beloved shows: Firefly, Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks.
And, if you really want to prove your credentials, you should have a little list of rather less well-known shows whose early demise you can bewail with even greater fervor. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. Terriers. Wonderfalls.
I have lots of squishy feelings about Wonderfalls. Hailing from the mind of Bryan Fuller, which also graced us with the late, longed-for Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls aired all of four episodes prior to its ignominious termination. (It can’t have helped that one of its executive producers was Tim “Touch of Death” Minear.) The remaining nine episodes saw the light of day in a nifty little DVD set which you should own.
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| In this gif, the part of Wonderfalls is played by Daria. Wait, that’s kind of confusing. |
With every passing show of his that is born into this world, shimmers momently like a beautiful dragonfly, and is mercilessly slaughtered by evil network execs, I become more convinced that Bryan Fuller is a cruelly underrated genius whose mind is a gorgeous happyland full of puppies and rainbows and sparkly cupcakes of loveliness. If I can whip the nerds up into a Whedonesque frenzy over the name of Bryan Fuller, then maybe we can keep his next project on the air longer than five minutes. To that end, I offer five reasons why Wonderfalls is supergreat and awesome and should be watched and loved by all television-minded lifeforms.
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| Inside Bryan Fuller’s brain. Artist‘s rendition. |
1. Jaye Tyler
Jaye is one of the best female characters I’ve ever seen on a TV show, and one of my favorite TV characters full stop. She’s a disaffected twenty-something philosophy grad living in a trailer park and working in a Niagara Falls gift shop, where the souvenirs start talking to her and guiding her to help others – which, as a curmudgeonly cynic to the bone, is the last thing Jaye wants.
Not that Jaye knows what she wants: “There is no ‘like me.’ I’m not ‘like’ anything, and if I were it certainly wouldn’t be me.” In the episode “Karma Chameleon,” Jaye is taken as an exemplar of Gen Y: directionless, shrouded in a facade of ennui and many protective layers of irony, feeling suffocated by the weight of her successful family’s expectations.Considering in how many fields of life women are still considered a special interest group who can be represented by men but can’t represent them, I find it very awesome that this show’s schlubby everyperson character, who undergoes a slow but sure transformation from acerbic jerk to somewhat caring human being, is a young woman.
2. Female Friendship
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| Jaye and Mahandra |
I love Mahandra. I love her so, so much. (I love everything about this show to a superlative degree; it’s possible you’ve noticed.) Mahandra is Jaye’s best friend, her witty, sometimes scathing voice of reason, and the lone character of color in the main cast. Although much of the series’ overarching plot concerns the budding relationship between Jaye and heartbroken hottie bartender Eric, it’s the friendship between Jaye and Mahandra that I find most memorable and delightful.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Jaye’s relationship with big sister Sharon, which is very strained at the beginning of the series but develops into an appropriately sisterly bond of mutual irritation but rock-solid support – largely thanks to Jaye’s inadvertently facilitating the meet-cute between Sharon and her girlfriend.
3. Feminist Sensibilities
Watching disturbing rom-com cliches get subverted is something I very much enjoy, and Wonderfalls has a great example in the episode “Pink Flamingos,” where Jay and Mahandra attend their high-school reunion and encounter mean girl Gretchen. Of course, Gretchen turns out to be a sad sack trapped in a loveless marriage; of course, she winds up in the bathroom trying to scrub a drink stain out of her dress; of course, the boy who had always admired her from afar takes this chance to tell her about the feelings he still has for her, which massages her ego – and then she tells him he’s creepy and threatens him with mace. It’s brilliant.
(The evil-cheating-manipulative-wife trope employed elsewhere in the show leaves a little something to be desired, but I’m trying to accentuate the positive here.)
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| And I’m supposed to believe Jewel Staite is evil and manipulative?? |
4. Metaphysics and Philosophy
It’s a show about a woman who follows the cryptic directives of talking figurines, to the betterment of her life and those of the people around her. That premise was always going to raise interesting philosophical and theological questions, and it’s enriched by Jaye’s philosophy degree and her older brother’s studies in comparative religion. I mourn the fact that Wonderfallsnever got a chance to explore all the fascinating possibilities raised here. It’s a cruel world.
5. That Awesome Theme Song
Okay, this one is nothing more than a personal bias. XTC is one of my all-time favorite bands, and the last place I expect to hear a song from their main man Andy Partridge is on an American TV show in 2004. I love this theme song A LOT. It’s catchy, quirky, and – to me at least – irresistibly loveable. Like XTC, and like Wonderfalls itself.
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.
A thousand times yes! I liked Dead Like Me and thoroughly enjoyed Pushing Daisies, but I LOVE Wonderfalls. The only upside of its far-too-short run is I didn’t find it until after it was cancelled, so I never had high hopes to be dashed.