Last update: March 11, 2004 at 7:21 PM

’Wonderfalls’ is in too much of a rush

Neal Justin, Star Tribune

March 12, 2004 NEA12

Jaye Tyler, the central character in the new Fox series "Wonderfalls," is a poor excuse for a slacker.

You remember slackers. They were all the rage in Reagan’s America, when being as lazy as Norm Peterson on "Cheers" or as unambitious as Jeff Spicoli in "Fast Times in Ridgemont High" was kind of endearing.

Tyler, played by relative newcomer Caroline Dhavernas, initially will remind you of those beloved bums. She’s a 24-year-old cashier at a Niagara Falls gift shop with a philosophy degree from Brown University. Her boss is a high-school student. She lives in a trailer park. She does kamikaze shots two at a time. She talks like she just graduated from the Janeane Garofalo School of Speech. She hates life.

"You’re spiteful in the way the definition of spiteful doesn’t quite prepare you for," one friend tells her.

Neil Grayston and Caroline Dhavernas in "Wonderfalls"Then Tyler loses her slacker status by trying to save the world.

Within the first 15 minutes of the pilot, she’s hearing voices from wax lions, cow creamers and monkey paperweights. That wouldn’t be unusual for an old-school slacker, who, after a couple hits of wacky weed, had all kinds of conversations with inanimate objects. The difference here is that Tyler doesn’t inhale — and she actually listens.

With little prompting, Tyler is off executing the statues’ bizarre but ultimately well-meaning orders, from tracking down an ill-tempered customer’s purse to befriending a stuttering stalker.

In this way, "Wonderfalls" will remind you of "Joan of Arcadia," in which a teenage girl becomes best buddies with the Almighty. But unlike CBS’ hit show, which does little to disguise its Christian agenda, "Wonderfalls" wants to be irreverent and offbeat. Sometimes it succeeds.

In one of the most inspired moments, the wax lion gets on Tyler’s nerves by singing "Ragtime Gal," an obvious nod to the 1955 cartoon "One Froggy Evening," in which Michigan J. Frog torments his owner by warbling tunes only when they’re alone. In an upcoming episode, there’s a fairly twisted courtship between a 13-year-old boy and a Russian mail-order bride that would even flummox Alicia Silverstone.

There’s only one thing the creative team of Todd Holland ("Malcolm in the Middle") and Bryan Fuller ("Dead Like Me") won’t play with: our heroine’s heart of gold. We’re constantly reminded that Tyler isn’t really a Doritos-hogging, sarcastic, self-indulgent loser. Why, she’s Buffy, the Vampire Slayer!

Buffy was another TV character who never was allowed to embrace her inner couch potato. She was introduced as a social misfit, an academically challenged, sardonic teenager — who was soon kicking tail all over Sunnydale.

That’s the way it has worked the past 10 years. So-called slackers come in the beautiful forms of Eliza Dushku in "Tru Calling" or Jessica Alba in "Dark Angel" or James Marsters in "Angel," all of whom are way too eager to give up an afternoon of napping to play superhero.

There’s nothing wrong with do-gooders, but stop insulting us by presenting them as disillusioned gen-Yers who wouldn’t know a bitchin’ wave if it fell on top of them.

The only great slacker of the past 10 years is the Dude from 1998’s "The Big Lebowski." I’d love to see a series with him working in a tourist store, making small talk with trinkets. Of course, TV executives would probably turn him into a Brad Pitt look-alike who isn’t really disillusioned, who isn’t really despondent, who isn’t really anti-social. And that would be, like, a bummer.

Wonderfalls

** 1/2 out of four stars

Starring: Caroline Dhavernas.

When: 12:30 a.m. Sat. (The series’ regular slot is 8 p.m. Fri., but it will be pre-empted locally for several weeks by coverage of state high-school tournaments.)

Where: KMSP, Ch. 9.