Jaye Tyler (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomhigh_ooc2007-02-18 10:37 am
fates_jaye) wrote in fandomhigh_ooc2007-02-18 10:37 am
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Spotlight on Fandoms: Wonderfalls
Happy Sunday! I come bearing talk of snarky crack!
Wonderfalls was a show on Fox created by Bryan Fuller, Todd Holland and Tim Minear that ran for a whopping four episodes. Which were run kind of out of order. Oh, don't worry, I'll try to keep my "why Fox blows" rant short. Basically, it debuted in early 2004 after being pushed back from a fall premiere, and they not only ran it in the Friday night death slot that hasn't worked since X-Files, but they put it up against Joan of Arcadia, a similar show with better promotion. Ratings weren't great, so I think in about week three they decided to move it to Thursday to see if it helped, but didn't actually promote it, so the show got canceled due to low ratings.
The thing was, Wonderfalls was one of a series of shows that had Save Our Show campaigns running right about the time of the first episode/before it aired. So the fans knew it was coming, and said fans have also done pretty good with the DVD sales. I also know a lot of people who missed the show entirely and picked it up on DVD, and I really think everyone should, because the show's worth it. I may be biased, though, but I don't think so, and here's why.
The premise
Jaye Tyler is just your average twentysomething slacker who works in one of Niagara Falls' many giftshops, called Wonderfalls. She isn't making anything of her life and is kind of fine with that, until she gets passed over for promotion, nearly chokes to death on a sandwich, and has a little smush-faced wax lion start talking to her at work, all on the same day. Jaye finds that it's not just the lion that talks to her, it's pretty much any inanimate animal, and if she does what they say, things tend to work out in the end. It just kind of screws her over in the process.
Cue the hot new bartender who's dealing with some major issues, an immediate family full of nutcases and a therapist she really wants nothing to do with, and Jaye's kind of got a lot to deal with. Oh, and since no one else can see the animals, she's always kind of wondering if she's getting messages from God, the devil, someone else, or if she's just had something go snap in her brain. Fun thing is, canon never answers this question.
The main characters
Jaye Tyler- 24 years old, she graduated from Brown University with a degree in philosophy and moved right back to where she grew up, got a job in retail and lives in a trailer park. All by choice. She's the black sheep of her family (the only one without a rhyming name, even), both ostracized and isolationist. She is cynical, sometimes offensive (every time I wonder if Jaye would do something while writing her, I remind myself that she once compared a 10-year-old to Osama Bin Laden), unmotivated, and just a big ball of snark just waiting to explode. And she might be nuts. There's always that.
She's really really not perfect. She's kind of bitchy a good chunk of the time and does some really bad things (with or without being told to). She's obviously affected by her outsider status in her own family, but seems to revel in it at the same time. In short, she's strangely relatable.
Mahandra McGinty- Jaye's BFF at least since high school, Mahandra is a bartender at the Barrel, the same bar our main character frequents, and while she's got the same sort of snark about her that Jaye does, it's just differently applied. And while she knows there's something going on with Jaye, she for some reason thinks talking animals are a cover story told to throw her off. Can't imagine why.
Sharon Tyler- The oldest of the kids, Sharon is everything Jaye's not. She's a successful lawyer, a Republican, very by the book and does everything right. Also, a hardcore neurotic, chainsmoker, and closeted lesbian. She and Jaye seriously do not get along, but it's always Sharon bailing Jaye out, and Jaye keeping Sharon's secrets for her.
Eric Gotts- So one day Jaye goes to the Barrel and meets the cute new bartender, who was on his honeymoon in Niagara Falls when he found his new wife cheating on him with one of the hotel workers. He decided not to go back home to new Jersey and started working at the bar- and also living in a back room- to start fresh. He's got an issue or two from that, but keeps up his little flirty thing with Jaye anyway. And despite him not having much of a thing, he's really hard not to like.
Aaron Tyler- The middle child, Aaron is kind of a slacker in his own right, but a more acceptable sort. A comparative religions major, he still lives at home with his parents and I don't think he's ever actually given a job or anything the whole time. He and Jaye do develop a neat little relationship when he figures out some of the things going on with her, though. Plus he's snarky and cute. We'll keep him.
Karen Tyler- Jaye's mother, Karen is a successful author, and not the greatest mother in the world. She does have her moments, but she's more the type to go "You should wear your hair like that person does" or "You should be more like your sibling, they can do this." It's really no wonder Sharon is the way she is.
Darrin Tyler- Jaye's father, Darrin is a doctor, and he kind of just rules. He's probably the most normal of the bunch except for those moments where he's wondering if Jaye's 'sode at work is linked to orgasms.
The Muses- The animals that talk to Jaye are called muses. They can pretty much be anything inanimate and animal-shaped, from stuffed animals to cow creamers to Big Mouth Billy Basses and so on and so forth. So really, there's just no escaping it, as there's always going to be something around to babble. Some of the most notable muses include the wax lion, the brass monkey, the cow creamer, and the karma chameleon.
The secondary characters (aka people who showed up in more than one episode)
Dr. Ron- Originally Karen's therapist, Jaye was convinced to go to him, and then stole the brass monkey bookend and tried avoiding going back.
Alec- I seriously didn't know this character's name until a fairly recent visit to IMDb because he's primarily dubbed "Mouthbreather" on the show. He's the one who got the promotion to manager over Jaye, so he is now her boss. And he's in high school.
Heidi Gotts- Eric's wife, who does eventually come into town looking for him. Super possessive and kind of creepy about it, she and Jaye unsurprisingly kind of hate each other a lot. Also, you kind of have to love a show that gives its own characters nicknames like "Heidi-Ho."
Beth- Sharon's girlfriend (but only one person knows, shhh). She used to be married to one of the first people Jaye ever tried to help, which obviously worked out so well.
Gretchen Speck-Horowitz- She was one of the mean girls in high school, especially to Mahandra. She's peppy and self-centered enough to move the ten-year reunion a year and a half early because the timing is better for her and is generally just hysterical in a really weird way.
Why should I watch?
Besides being really funny, the show's got some great characters and is quirky in a way that doesn't get cloying. It also doesn't stay comedic all the time, giving a few moments of genuine "awww" either of cute or "oh my god, the show just made me cry". And seriously, the work that had to go into tying this whole show together plotwise is pretty amazing. I know I saw the last episode and had to watch it again just to see what I'd missed the first time.
Also, the producers come from Malcolm in the Middle, Dead Like Me, and Firefly/Angel. Think about that combination for a second, and then get back to me.
Where can I get it?
Luckily Wonderfalls is pretty easily available. It's on Amazon, I've seen it at Best Buy and Target, and it's available at Netflix.
The DVD's include all 13 episodes, commentary on certain ones, and considering the show wasn't on long, they did manage a couple little behind the scenes things. I highly recommend the "Greetings from Wonderfalls" documentary in addition to the episode commentaries, because it seems like the cast had a lot of fun.
Hi, I babbled. Any questions?
Wonderfalls was a show on Fox created by Bryan Fuller, Todd Holland and Tim Minear that ran for a whopping four episodes. Which were run kind of out of order. Oh, don't worry, I'll try to keep my "why Fox blows" rant short. Basically, it debuted in early 2004 after being pushed back from a fall premiere, and they not only ran it in the Friday night death slot that hasn't worked since X-Files, but they put it up against Joan of Arcadia, a similar show with better promotion. Ratings weren't great, so I think in about week three they decided to move it to Thursday to see if it helped, but didn't actually promote it, so the show got canceled due to low ratings.
The thing was, Wonderfalls was one of a series of shows that had Save Our Show campaigns running right about the time of the first episode/before it aired. So the fans knew it was coming, and said fans have also done pretty good with the DVD sales. I also know a lot of people who missed the show entirely and picked it up on DVD, and I really think everyone should, because the show's worth it. I may be biased, though, but I don't think so, and here's why.
The premise
Jaye Tyler is just your average twentysomething slacker who works in one of Niagara Falls' many giftshops, called Wonderfalls. She isn't making anything of her life and is kind of fine with that, until she gets passed over for promotion, nearly chokes to death on a sandwich, and has a little smush-faced wax lion start talking to her at work, all on the same day. Jaye finds that it's not just the lion that talks to her, it's pretty much any inanimate animal, and if she does what they say, things tend to work out in the end. It just kind of screws her over in the process.
Cue the hot new bartender who's dealing with some major issues, an immediate family full of nutcases and a therapist she really wants nothing to do with, and Jaye's kind of got a lot to deal with. Oh, and since no one else can see the animals, she's always kind of wondering if she's getting messages from God, the devil, someone else, or if she's just had something go snap in her brain. Fun thing is, canon never answers this question.
The main characters
Jaye Tyler- 24 years old, she graduated from Brown University with a degree in philosophy and moved right back to where she grew up, got a job in retail and lives in a trailer park. All by choice. She's the black sheep of her family (the only one without a rhyming name, even), both ostracized and isolationist. She is cynical, sometimes offensive (every time I wonder if Jaye would do something while writing her, I remind myself that she once compared a 10-year-old to Osama Bin Laden), unmotivated, and just a big ball of snark just waiting to explode. And she might be nuts. There's always that.
She's really really not perfect. She's kind of bitchy a good chunk of the time and does some really bad things (with or without being told to). She's obviously affected by her outsider status in her own family, but seems to revel in it at the same time. In short, she's strangely relatable.
Mahandra McGinty- Jaye's BFF at least since high school, Mahandra is a bartender at the Barrel, the same bar our main character frequents, and while she's got the same sort of snark about her that Jaye does, it's just differently applied. And while she knows there's something going on with Jaye, she for some reason thinks talking animals are a cover story told to throw her off. Can't imagine why.
Sharon Tyler- The oldest of the kids, Sharon is everything Jaye's not. She's a successful lawyer, a Republican, very by the book and does everything right. Also, a hardcore neurotic, chainsmoker, and closeted lesbian. She and Jaye seriously do not get along, but it's always Sharon bailing Jaye out, and Jaye keeping Sharon's secrets for her.
Eric Gotts- So one day Jaye goes to the Barrel and meets the cute new bartender, who was on his honeymoon in Niagara Falls when he found his new wife cheating on him with one of the hotel workers. He decided not to go back home to new Jersey and started working at the bar- and also living in a back room- to start fresh. He's got an issue or two from that, but keeps up his little flirty thing with Jaye anyway. And despite him not having much of a thing, he's really hard not to like.
Aaron Tyler- The middle child, Aaron is kind of a slacker in his own right, but a more acceptable sort. A comparative religions major, he still lives at home with his parents and I don't think he's ever actually given a job or anything the whole time. He and Jaye do develop a neat little relationship when he figures out some of the things going on with her, though. Plus he's snarky and cute. We'll keep him.
Karen Tyler- Jaye's mother, Karen is a successful author, and not the greatest mother in the world. She does have her moments, but she's more the type to go "You should wear your hair like that person does" or "You should be more like your sibling, they can do this." It's really no wonder Sharon is the way she is.
Darrin Tyler- Jaye's father, Darrin is a doctor, and he kind of just rules. He's probably the most normal of the bunch except for those moments where he's wondering if Jaye's 'sode at work is linked to orgasms.
The Muses- The animals that talk to Jaye are called muses. They can pretty much be anything inanimate and animal-shaped, from stuffed animals to cow creamers to Big Mouth Billy Basses and so on and so forth. So really, there's just no escaping it, as there's always going to be something around to babble. Some of the most notable muses include the wax lion, the brass monkey, the cow creamer, and the karma chameleon.
The secondary characters (aka people who showed up in more than one episode)
Dr. Ron- Originally Karen's therapist, Jaye was convinced to go to him, and then stole the brass monkey bookend and tried avoiding going back.
Alec- I seriously didn't know this character's name until a fairly recent visit to IMDb because he's primarily dubbed "Mouthbreather" on the show. He's the one who got the promotion to manager over Jaye, so he is now her boss. And he's in high school.
Heidi Gotts- Eric's wife, who does eventually come into town looking for him. Super possessive and kind of creepy about it, she and Jaye unsurprisingly kind of hate each other a lot. Also, you kind of have to love a show that gives its own characters nicknames like "Heidi-Ho."
Beth- Sharon's girlfriend (but only one person knows, shhh). She used to be married to one of the first people Jaye ever tried to help, which obviously worked out so well.
Gretchen Speck-Horowitz- She was one of the mean girls in high school, especially to Mahandra. She's peppy and self-centered enough to move the ten-year reunion a year and a half early because the timing is better for her and is generally just hysterical in a really weird way.
Why should I watch?
Besides being really funny, the show's got some great characters and is quirky in a way that doesn't get cloying. It also doesn't stay comedic all the time, giving a few moments of genuine "awww" either of cute or "oh my god, the show just made me cry". And seriously, the work that had to go into tying this whole show together plotwise is pretty amazing. I know I saw the last episode and had to watch it again just to see what I'd missed the first time.
Also, the producers come from Malcolm in the Middle, Dead Like Me, and Firefly/Angel. Think about that combination for a second, and then get back to me.
Where can I get it?
Luckily Wonderfalls is pretty easily available. It's on Amazon, I've seen it at Best Buy and Target, and it's available at Netflix.
The DVD's include all 13 episodes, commentary on certain ones, and considering the show wasn't on long, they did manage a couple little behind the scenes things. I highly recommend the "Greetings from Wonderfalls" documentary in addition to the episode commentaries, because it seems like the cast had a lot of fun.
Hi, I babbled. Any questions?