Firefly

Those hoping Fox’s "Tru Calling" (starring gamine "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" vet Eliza Dushku) will help fill the void left by the absence of fresh "Buffy" episodes this season are barking up the wrong tree. "Tru" is an unfocused mess, listless, derivative, poorly presented and teeming with legions of cardboard characters many will find impossible to embrace. The Fox show to which "Buffy" fans should be looking forward is "Wonderfalls," a hugely entertaining comedy-drama-fantasy which benefits immeasurably from affecting, genuinely engaging characters and some of the smartest, most pointed comic dialogue you’re likely to hear next year. Yes, next year - for, sadly, the netlet won’t be unleashing this gem till midseason. Who is "Valerina"? She’s the one who’s seen most of the new network pilots, including this season’s new show to beat. Hey Herc,

Literally just finished watching the pilot of Wonderfalls and wanted to let you know how it was. Having subjected myself to most of the pilots for the upcoming season I say without hesitation that Wonderfalls is the best new show. After lamenting Team Angel’s loss of Tim Minear all summer I now understand it was all for the best. [Minear left "Angel" to join "Wonderfalls." - Herc]

This gets just a little spoilery. Fans of Buffy, Angel, Gilmore Girls, and the quirkier eps of The X-Files will love Wonderfalls. The dialogue is quick, snappy, snarky, and smart. One of the best features of the pilot is that it does not feel dumbed down for the audience. The actors are, for the most part, unknown which really helps in creating these new characters. The characters are really well-written and after only a few scenes you already feel as if you understand Jaye’s (the main character) family—her upper-class parents embarrassed by her, her older, more popular and more successful sister, and her brother who couldn’t care less (such a non-entity that he’s only in one scene).

Although the plot (a girl is talked to by inanimate objects) is similar to the dreadful Tru Calling and the even more horrendous Joan of Arcadia, Wonderfalls does it the best. There is none of the forced gravity of Tru Callingat one point Jaye asks a clay lion if it’s God or Satan. She doesn’t get an answer which I felt really adds to the enjoyment of the show.

Anyway, I didn’t want to give too much away, but I wanted to assure anyone who’s wondered that this show will be worth watching, whenever the hell Fox decides to get it on the air. Perhaps they thought that Tru Calling, with a more marketable star in Eliza Dushku, was a better risk to put on air, but it has nothing on the quality and pure entertainment that Wonderfalls provides. Where else can you get a 24-year old ivy league graduate living in a trailer park and working in retail, her doctor father concerned with how long it’s been since she’s last had an orgasm, lesbians, a newlywed wife going down on the hotel bellboy, talking stuffed animals, and an emergency tracheotomy done with a medium point BIC pen? Yeah, exactly.

Feel free to use this or not...if you do, just call me Valerina.