Posted on Sat, Mar. 13, 2004

CHUCK BARNEY: AS SEEN ON TV

Fox’s ’Wonderfalls’ not all that amazing

In "Wonderfalls," a fanciful new dramedy from Fox, a bitter souvenir shop employee freaks out when inanimate objects — wax lions, brass monkeys, stuffed bears — begin mouthing off and telling her what to do.

All of which has me a bit jittery because, as I type up this review, I’m staring at several TV-related figurines that have convened on my desk over the years. So, will the Anna Nicole bobblehead suddenly spout dietary advice? Will my dancing Homer Simpson instruct me to forgo the joys of newspaper work to embark on a tireless search for the perfect doughnut? Will the Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie cardboard cutouts come to life and force me to join their hedonistic pursuits?

Ah, the possibilities are endless and it’s tempting to believe that, if I slurped up enough Jack Daniels, these silly objects might indeed go vocal on me and I’d have the basis for my own prime-time series. Just call it "Stupid Tchotchke Tricks."

Alas, the publicity material supplied by Fox does not reveal whether "Wonderland" creators Bryan Fuller and Todd Holland were ingesting Jack Daniels or other mind-scrambling substances when they came up with the idea for their show. But come up with it they did, and someone at Fox was kooky enough to go along for the ride, so bully for them.

In the opener, we meet the mystifying, 24-year-old Jaye Tyler (Canadian actress Caroline Dhavernas). She’s an over-educated and undermotivated slacker who lives in a trailer park called the High and Dry and holds down a dead-end job as a clerk in a kitschy Niagara Falls tourist store where she fritters away the hours in an ongoing state of existential apathy.

Cynical and snarky, Jaye is determined to dislike just about everybody, including her dimwitted young boss, her clueless customers, her eccentric family and, most of all, herself. "You’re spiteful in a way that the definition of spiteful doesn’t quite prepare you for," says her only real friend, Mahandra (Tracie Thoms), and you can’t help but agree.

Ah, but there is hope. In true "Joan of Arcadia" style, our mopey heroine begins to hear voices. Only this time they’re emanating from the lips of various toys and objects, which urge her to help others and therefore help herself. The cryptic messages initially make little sense, but they tend to set into motion a chain of madcap events that invariably lead Jaye into the lives of others in need — even though she has no desire to go there (shades of "Joan" again).

So, are the voices real or just Jaye’s imagination? Should she see a shrink or surrender to destiny? Can this bizarre show possibly hit Nielsen pay dirt or is it a sure goner? Keep your ears open. Perhaps a little voice from out of nowhere will let us know.

Despite my own snarkiness, there is a lot to like about "Wonderfalls." In addition to its luminous, fresh-faced lead actress and adventurous concept, it has a funky visual style, some smart writing and a few doses of snicker-inducing dark humor. In short, it is the kind of risk-taking show upon which TV critics typically plant big wet smooches. And I have to admit that I regarded it as one of the best series of the season when I took a quick peek at the pilot last summer.

But something has happened since to lessen the luster. Fox, as it is so often wont to do, scrapped plans for an early-season release and delayed "Wonderfalls" for months and months. Since then, I’ve seen additional episodes that don’t captivate me nearly as much and, of course, in the meantime we’ve been able to witness the girl-hears-voices concept that somehow comes across as more engaging and makes more sense on the aforementioned "Joan of Arcadia."

And so, as much as I’d like to, I just can’t bring myself to give "Wonderfalls" a rousing, wholehearted endorsement. For me, the main problem leads right back to the main character. For one thing, it’s difficult to believe that someone as smart (she has a Ph.D. from Brown) and as attractive as Jaye would be mired in such a hopeless situation. For another, I consider her cynicism to be more tiresome and off-putting than charming.

Consequently, I just couldn’t bring myself to really care about what happens to the scorn-spewing Jaye and, ultimately, when you don’t care about a character, that’s a deal-breaker. It doesn’t help matters, either, that I found a couple of the episodes after the pilot to be plagued by a rather tedious pace and to be teeming with annoyingly quirky characters.

At a time when prime time is saturated with derivative reality fare and procedural cop dramas, the emergence of such an offbeat, whimsical show is cause for at least a modicum of excitement. Still, I’d be much happier if "Wonderfalls" didn’t fall so short of being completely wondrous.