I don't want to enjoy that, thank you.
I'd rather have this instead...
In 2004, there was Wonderfalls. The promos for it made it look like a trippy hour of weirdness, but I tuned in anyway... half-watching, half-involved in a Yahoo chat. Even though the second episode had me going "OH MY GOD THIS CHIC IS ME!" -- I refused to commit. By episode four, the show had been moved to a new timeslot, which is rarely a good sign. A week later, FOX canned it.
Now, what usually happens at this point is that a bunch of fans (who were naive enough to get emotionally attached) will start a "Save Our Show" campaign. These rarely work... but hey, you might as well try. Sometimes they'll entice a network to burn off the unaired episodes during the summer months, or, in rare cases, the campaigns will get the execs to actually renew the show. But usually the series just dies quietly. Not so with Wonderfalls. For one thing, the series had already filmed its entire first season, which meant there were nine completed episodes just sitting there all sad and unaired. Wonderfalls also had a plethora of fans who signed an online petition demanding its return. Naturally, FOX didn't listen... but in some miraculous fashion, everything came together and -- in February of 2005 -- Wonderfalls was released on DVD.
Which is precisely when I rediscovered it.
Which is about two seconds before I went, "HOLY CRAP, THIS SHOW IS AMAZING!" and did a dance.
But it is now time to compose myself and talk about why I love the show and why you might love Wonderfalls as well.
Meet Jaye Tyler. She's 24 and lives in Niagara Falls. She didn't ask to be special. She definitely doesn't want to be. Content to work at Wonderfalls, a tourist-magnet souvenir shop (like there's any other kind?), Jaye's life is pretty normal. And then, one day, the animals begin to talk...
First it's a little wax lion. Then it's a monkey bookend. Before long, numerous animal-faced objects are ordering Jaye around. They tell her to help people... which goes completely against Jaye's antisocial tendencies. At first, Jaye (played beautifully by Caroline Dhavernas) thinks she's going insane. But then it just starts to get annoying. "Is this a metaphor?" she demands of the wax lion. "Are you God? Are you Satan? If you don't say something in five seconds, I'm going to assume you're Satan. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four..." The lion decides now would be a good time to be silent.
The animals make demands. The lion tells Jaye not to give a bitchy customer a refund; Jaye does anyway, and thirty seconds later, the customer's purse is snatched. A fish tells her to give her friend Mahandra a barstool... so she does, but the guy whose barstool she snags doesn't realize it, falls down, spills his drink, and realizes... he had accidentally grabbed the alcoholic beverage of the patron next to him.
The man turns to Jaye: "Thank you. You just saved my sobriety."
Jaye: "I didn't mean to! Hey, take that thank you back!"
Jaye doesn't want credit and she doesn't want attention. In fact, she doesn't want any of this. But as much as she hates the animals' demands, Jaye soon realizes that the animals really do know what they're doing, and things are actually starting to turn out kind of nicely...
Each episode revolves around someone (oftentimes more than one person) that Jaye is supposed to help. The animals set up the introduction somehow, and Jaye muddles her way through trying to be helpful and kind. In Barrel Bear, she finds herself in the middle of a feud between two women (played by Rue McClanahan and Louise Fletcher) -- one who really went over Niagara Falls in a barrel years ago, and one who got all the credit for the stunt. In Lovesick Ass, she encounters a jilted Russian mail-order bride, helps the bride find her fiance, discovers the fiance (played by Spencer Breslin) is a pre-teen kid with 1,001 problems, and then becomes the object of the kid's misguided affections. And in "Safety Canary," Jaye gets involved in a scheme led by a recently-fired zoo employee to kidnap two endangered Hyacinth Macaws and get them to mate in a suitably romantic atmosphere.
In addition to doing the bidding of the talking animals, Jaye also has a social life that is starting to get really interesting. In the first episode (Wax Lion), she encounters the new bartender at her favorite hangout -- a guy named Eric (Tyron Leitso). He came to Niagara Falls on his honeymoon, found his wife sleeping with a bellhop a few days later, walked out of the hotel, and couldn't (and didn't) go back. Now he's staying in Niagara Falls, trying to put the pieces of his life back together after his traumatic ordeal. Enter Jaye. Eric is instantly attracted to her, but Jaye has just started hearing the animal voices and is convinced she's insane, and warns him that he might want to go for somebody "a little more stable." Plus, he's admittedly "damaged," and is still reeling from his recent experience. Three episodes later, the man is in love. Things are complicated when Eric's wife, Heidi, finally tracks him down and begs for his forgiveness. Will Eric go back to Heidi, or will he keep trying to win Jaye's affections (which is made even more difficult by the fact that Jaye isn't really willing to get emotionally attached to anyone)?
An amazing supporting cast adds humor and charm to the series. Diana Scarwid plays Jaye's mother, Karen, a woman who would like nothing more than to fix her daughter's hair and mold her into a girl who attracts men like flies, settles down, and raises a quaint little family. Tracie Thoms (above) plays Jaye's best friend, Mahandra -- a woman who is usually the voice of reason in Jaye's life, but who will occasionally lapse into her own moments of insanity. Katie Finneran plays Jaye's older sister, Sharon, who at first is estranged from Jaye, but who becomes closer to her through a series of crazy encounters and adventures (often instigated by the animals).
In the end, the best thing about the show -- and the thing that hooked me -- is the character of Jaye. She's antisocial and anti-romance, yet secretly, she wants to be loved. She wants to be successful... but if that means being friendly to people and (augh) smiling -- then forget it! Permanently detached from the thought of all things warm and fuzzy, Jaye is content to live her life working at the souvenir shop (where people are either "coming or going" so there's no danger of attachment) and living in a trailer (where at least her overbearing mother can't rifle through her stuff.) Still, she's not entirely happy. Though she tries to pretend she's gained independence from her family, she will always need them... for things like bailing her out of trouble, helping her smuggle a Canadian housekeeper over the border, and being people who she can confide in.
Without question, Wonderfalls is one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. You can get it on Netflix, from amazon.com
, or at your local DVD retailer. But just so you're warned... once you watch a couple of episodes, you'll likely have an overwhelming urge to watch them all... 4013401 times. I know, because it happened to me.
Want to see a promo for the show? I have several, but I think this one's the best.
Right click on the image below and select "save target as..." to view the mpg; 8 mb.
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