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The
list of shows that they've walked off the plank is long and distinguished,
and includes such interesting, intriguing efforts as the off-the-wall
comedies "Andy Richter Saves the Universe" and "The
Tick," as well as original, inventive hour-longs like "Firefly"
and "The X-Files."
Wait
a minute. They actually hung on to The X-Files. Because they had
nothing else to turn to. They had no cheaply made reality shows
and no American Idol 's to fill their time slots, so they gave
the slow-building sci-fi drama some rope, and lo and behold it
lasted for years and became the network's signature show, even
spawning a feature film.
You'd
think that such an experience would teach Fox that patience is
a virtue.
Certainly
not. They continue to handicap their most promising new shows,
placing them in sitting-duck timeslots like Friday night, or shuffling
them around every which way so as to make it impossible for an
audience to locate them.
This
season's crop is no exception.
Two
of the most buzzed about shows on network TV this year happen
to be on Fox. One is the wacky sitcom "Arrested Development,"
which won over critics with its unique pacing and oddly hilarious,
non-laugh tracked subject matter.
The
other is the new hour-long comedy "Wonderfalls," which
Fox has keenly exiled to Friday nights in the hopes of spiting
the nearly unanimous critics who are praising the show as the
best of the season.
Remarkably,
Fox has given "Arrested Development" a chance by keeping
it around on Sunday nights. It was picked up for a full season
and hopefully it will be given another to grow and gain an audience.
After
all, it's not every day we get the chance to see the brilliantly
funny David Cross (HBO's Mr. Show ) on network television. Seeing
that Fox seems to have granted AD some clemency, it is absurd
to expect them to do the same for "Wonderfalls," but
I am holding out hope anyway.
When
I saw the ads for this show, I was nonplussed.
Great
— a chick gets messages from inanimate objects. Hurrah. The
last thing I need is to see is more treacle about some confused
kid getting messages from God about doing the right thing (to
quote Raising Arizona: "There's right and there's right and
never the t'wain shall meet.").
But
I heard some good things, so I taped the premiere. And then I
watched it. And I found myself cursing when it ended; an hour
is too short!
"Wonderfalls"
delivers the goods. Not only is it not sappy, it's snarky -- and
it's pretty damn funny to boot. The writing is clever and witty
and it stays away from the preachy moral high ground inhabited
by such shows as "Joan of Arcadia" and "Touched
by an Angel."
This
show is about laughs. There is no preaching and there are no redeeming
life-lessons at the end of the episodes. Instead, we get Caroline
Dharvenas as Jaye, an cynical Ivy league graduate who sits on
her ass at a Niagara Falls gift shop just across the border in
Canada.
Jaye's
got a degree in philosophy that she'll clearly never use and a
master's in sarcasm, which she uses constantly. She's lazy, unmotivated
and wasting her life, until she starts getting orders from some
of the items in her store.
They
tell her to do odd, seemingly inconsequential things that have
a strange way of connecting some of the loose dots in her life,
much to her chagrin. She doesn't do these things out of the goodness
of her heart, oh no; Jaye is not a particularly nice person. She
does them to prevent the wax lion from keeping her awake all night
long with imitations of 2001's Hal.
Nor
is she interested in helping others, especially when it takes
any kind of effort. It would be easy to dislike her were her character's
attitude not so familiar, or were she not played by such an engaging
young actress. Dharvenas has the perfect amount of cuteness and
crudity to allow us to laugh at the mean things she does without
taking them too seriously, and she sells her character's worried
perplexity at the strange voices she's hearing with the perfect
mix of comic incredulity and self-doubting fright.
When
such simple acts as asking the right question or withholding a
customer's change circuitously lead to a black eye from a housewife,
or a reconciliation with a sister, Jaye remains as confused as
she was when she started. There is little rhyme or reason to the
things she is asked to do, and she's never sure who's asking her.
Is
she insane? Is God speaking to her? Is Satan?
So
far, there are no answers; I hope it stays that way. Fox has a
good thing going right now, in both the show and its star.
Unless
people wake up and give this show a go, however, TV will lose
yet another of its most original and entertaining shows. The next
time you bitch about too much reality TV, or that HBO is the only
good network, remember that you have the power to change that.
And it starts with "Wonderfalls."
Fridays
at 9. On Fox.
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