Animals give the orders in Fox show

By Judith S. Gillies

The Washington Post

March 12, 2004

There’s a different kind of talk show on TV this season: God is talking to "Joan of Arcadia"; dead people are talking to Tru Davies in "Tru Calling"; and tonight, inanimate figures will start giving orders to Jaye Tyler in "Wonderfalls."

Set in a nostalgic Niagara Falls, "Wonderfalls" premieres at 9 p.m. on Fox, WXIN , as a midseason replacement for "Boston Public," which Fox said is on hiatus.

Caroline Dhavernas stars as Jaye, a Brown University grad- uate with a philosophy degree, who works in a souvenir shop.

"She doesn’t know where she’s going or doing in life, doesn’t know what she wants to do. I have a lot of friends like that," said Dhavernas.

"Jaye has created this comfort zone where she has low expectations from people. She doesn’t have to make an effort," she said.

The Canadian actress, 25, said she is very different from her character. She grew up in Montreal, the daughter of two actors, and spoke only French until she was about 6 years old, when she began learning English. She started dubbing American movies in French when she was 8 and began acting when she was 11.

"I’m very driven and motivated, compared with Jaye, and I love to help people when I can — Jaye really hates helping others, but she has no choice."

The characters in "Joan of Arcadia" and "Tru Calling" know who is talking to them, said Tracie Thoms, who plays Jaye’s best friend, Mahandra.

"And Jaye doesn’t really have conversations with the animal figures," Thoms said. "They just bark orders at her. It gives the whole show a very quirky feel."

"Mahandra is the kind of girl who always gives you advice," Thoms said of her character, who works as a cocktail waitress. "For her own life, she has no idea what to do — but always has something to say about everybody else’s life."

Mahandra starts to get more involved in Jaye’s adventures without knowing exactly what’s going on, Thoms said.

When Jaye does the things she is told, it "sets up a chain of events that are very unpredictable," Thoms said. "It keeps switching directions, and as soon as you think you’ve figured out how the story will end, it changes."

Every week "the muses tell Jaye to help somebody, but it’s never ever clear for her," said Tim Minear, executive producer of "Wonderfalls" with Todd Holland ("Malcolm in the Middle") and Bryan Fuller ("Star Trek: Voyager").

"Jaye asks the questions that the audience asks" about the voices, said Minear, who has been an executive producer of "Angel." She wonders, "Am I crazy? Is this real? We never say definitively what the (voices of the) figures are. But she is given enough information that she couldn’t possibly know by herself. There’s enough evidence to suggest that there are greater forces at work here than just her mind," he said.

"She’s told to chase a coin, told to do something that sounds ludicrous but sets up some chain of events that results in good — generally with some kind of a twist," Minear said. There’s an edge to the show, which is not intended for young kids, he said.

Some of the animals that speak to her are a lion figurine with a smushed face, an embroidered buffalo on a woman’s apron, an eagle on a coin, and a stand-up, anti-crime-dog cutout in a police station, Minear said.

Each episode is self-contained, he said, "but when you look at the 13 episodes in order, you really get a compelling arc. There’s an interesting journey to follow here."

Others in the cast include Jaye’s mother, a successful travel writer, played by Diana Scarwid; her father, a doctor, played by William Sadler; her sister, a lawyer, played by Katie Finneran; and her brother, a doctoral student in religion, played by Lee Pace.