"I don't have a choice. I am a puppet. The Universe just sticks it's hand up my butt and if I don't dance, people get hurt."
You gotta know I am gonna be all over something like this - critically acclaimed but criminally under appreciated program about a quirky young woman who lives and works on the US side of Niagara Falls.
She has a cold, distant, aristocratic mother and a sister (Katie Finneran - above) who 'just' discovered she was a lesbian. What you think are just female stereotypes become so much more in the hands of the talented actresses that make up the core of the cast. William Sadler is delightfully insane as Jaye's father.
Everyone around the main character challenge her sense of self in some overwhelming ways. How she deals with these people is at the heart of what makes this program terrific.
You should also know that Jaye, the young woman, thinks a malformed plastic lion is talking to her and telling how to live her life. I can't get enough of that kind of storytelling. The show has a definite pov about religion but it presents those beliefs in a way that makes the message appealing to even an old cynical agnostic like myself
Only 14 episodes exist of this show. Sound like any other great show we all love - rhymes with TIREFLY? This was also on FOX -
"A THOUSAND DEATHS ARE NOT ENOUGH FOR YUEH...or FOX!".
I read online that this show competed with 'Joan of Arcadia', another program that had God directly intervening in the life of it's female protagonist. It's unfair to compare the two programs. Wonderfalls is more universal and sees much of it's religion in terms of KARMA. 'Arcadia' was Jesus all the way.
This is how I would make a television program. Stream of consciousness. Reality with all kinds of insanity but with everything coming full circle at the end. If the Cave of Cool was set in Niagara Falls...in the mind of a cute girl, this is what it would look like.
Caroline Dhavernas' is epic as Jaye in a performance that is all heart and angst and the genius of discovering what it means to find your place in this world - well if you were crazy and thought that inanimate objects with mouths were talking to you and only you.
Jaye Tyler is the greatest girl I never met. I would take a bullet for this magnificent creature. She is practically a superhero.
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7 comments:
Wonderfalls was a fun, quirky little show that deserved to do better. It's a crying shame that shows like that and Pushing Daisies, for example, don't last, while the likes of Smallville and Supernatural trundle on and on...
Smallville was horrid but Supernatural is quality TV horror/adventure. It was launched w/ a pre-planned arc and actually got a chance to play out its mythology to a bittersweet conclusion up to 5 seconds before the end of Season 5. Supernatural is actually on par with the Whedon fantasies like Buffy and Angel and I'm speaking as a major Whedon fan. In fact, the Supernatural pilot set the tone so perfectly for the show it fits in seamlessly w/ all subsequent episodes. It's not like one of those shows where it took them half a year to find its legs. The direction, acting, camerawork, music all hit the ground running.
Before I gave it a chance, I used to think SPN was another Smallville-esque melodrama but few shows have grown into their own mythology as well as SPN, all thanks to a long-term narrative agenda.
Cal, if you're looking for some other underappreciated TV gems, I recommend NBC's "Surface" and "Kings". "Surface" was a neat scifi throwback to early Spielberg story archetypes, with 2 parallel plot threads-- one is "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where 2 souls touched by a paranormal event are pursued in their search for The Truth, while the other is "E.T." in which a young boy adopts an otherworldly creature. Chock full of scifi tropes, it was a rare glimpse of Spielbergian storytelling with plenty of adventure, mystery, and friendship. "Kings" was a shortlived NBC drama in which the biblical story of King David's rise from shepherd to King Saul's right-hand man (and eventual successor) was retold in a modern day setting of fictional city states at war.
Another gem you absolutely would love is ABC Family's "The Middleman", based on the eponymous comic book series. A young bohemian artist is recruited by a secret organization to deal w/ supernatural threats against the world. It's very MIB but is breezy fun and the quips come a mile a minute. The nameless Middleman who trains her as his partner has an ACTUAL Cave of Cool as their headquarters. This show is all genre references. If someone made an MIB-style show about Cave of Cool, this is probably what it would be like. Oh, and why is it a Cave of Cool? Hell, they have Einstein's BRAIN in their archives! "Then whose brain does Princeton have?" "The only woman smart enough to kill Einstein." Beautiful, unflappable young heroine, incorruptible hero/mentor, gadgets galore, oodles of attitude, comic book/pop culture references out the wazoo, and of course A CAVE OF COOL. It's right up your alley, Cal.
Thanks Buddy, I have 'Middleman' in my download file and looking forward to getting into that one.
Jaye is the type of girl I always wanted to marry. Still do.
Why settle, Sam?
I watched this show when it was on, and my wife bought the DVD set, but she still hasn't watched the rest of the episodes. She thinks she'd have nothing left to look forward to if she did, or something like that.
You know who I think looks a little like Caroline Dhavernas? Veronicles from Tumblr.
This show was EXCELLENT!! I remember watching this with a couple of pals in college each week... Much like my love of Undeclared and Greg the Bunny... How I hate you sometimes, FOX... How I hate you....
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