’Wonderfalls’ has promise but no soul

Posted: March 10, 2004

By Joanne Weintraub

Joan Girardi of "Joan of Arcadia" talks to God. Tru Davies of "Tru Calling" hears dead people.

And now there’s Jaye Tyler (Caroline Dhavernas), who’s pestered by animals that won’t shut up: a brass monkey in a therapist’s office, a trophy fish on the wall, even the eagle on a quarter, for heaven’s sake.

This Gen Y underachiever turned reluctant Joan of Arc is at the center of "Wonderfalls," an hourlong comedy-drama getting a seven-week tryout on Fox, beginning Friday.

’Wonderfalls’

Photo/Fox
Jaye Tyler (Caroline Dhavernas) is pestered by talking animals.

What: "Wonderfalls"
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Fox (Channel 6)

The series has a lot going for it. The Niagara Falls setting is both pretty and distinctive. So is Dhavernas (pronounced da-VER-na), who’s relatively new to American TV but has years of experience in her native Canada.

Jaye is witty and observant, in her downbeat way. Even those talking animals, especially the soulful monkey and a wisecracking wax lion from the souvenir store where Jaye works, have more personality than the humans in some other shows.

Yet "Wonderfalls" is less than wonderful. Creators Bryan Fuller and Todd Holland have come up with good ideas, so-so ideas and "What were they thinking?" ideas, and everything seems to have been thrown into the pot.

Good: casting the roles of Jaye’s overachieving parents and siblings with high-octane actors Diana Scarwid, William Sadler, Katie Finneran and Lee Pace.

Not so good: naming the characters Karen, Darrin, Sharon and Aaron.

Good: imbuing Jaye with a premature cynicism that seems just about right for a 24-year-old.

Not so good: forgetting to give her a soul.

In fact, Jaye suffers from the same defect as another androgynously named heroine, George Lass of Showtime’s recent "Dead Like Me," also created by Fuller. You know what turns Jaye off - her stultifying job, her mouth-breathing boss, her idiotic customers, her oblivious family - but, apart from Eric (Tyron Leitso), the cute bartender she half-heartedly flirts with now and then, it’s hard to say what turns her on.

Nagged by animals Jaye, who’s supposed to have earned a philosophy degree from Brown, must have majored in nihilism. As her best friend, Mahandra (Tracie Thoms), tells her while they’re downing kamikazes at the bar: "Disappointing your family is an extreme sport for you."

In "Dead Like Me," the terminally disaffected George gets a shot in the arm, ironically, when she dies and begins to experience a surprisingly lively afterlife. In Jaye’s case, the chatty animal tchotchkes nag her to get involved in other people’s lives, which is supposed to jump-start her own.

But real twentysomethings, even the ones with miserable jobs and impossible families, are more than just walking anthologies of put-downs. There’s a light in Dhavernas’ eyes that says Jaye is more than that, too, but what?

Fox is capitalizing on the series’ thematic resemblance to "Joan of Arcadia" by scheduling "Wonderfalls" immediately after the CBS drama on Friday nights. If the Fox series catches on, it could buy time for Fuller and Holland to get their potentially likable heroine a life.