tv meme day 1
Jun. 3rd, 2010 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marrow_skyStolen from everyone because I am a thieving whore.
Day 1 - A show that should have never been cancelled.
Not many people I know or have talked to have seen this show and it retains a very small fandom besides. You may know the creator of this show's other works, mainly Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies - Bryan Fuller is a man known for his really quirky existential sort of shows that, despite being on the side of a touch fantastical, can be suddenly down to earth realistic (while having really happy music courtesy of Jim Dooley, or at least, this does happen a lot in Pushing Daisies. Everyone should listen to his song "Death Came". The cheery beginning is absolutely hysterical to me.)
He's also known for writing all these really good shows that get shafted after one or two seasons. I still don't understand how ABC could have fucked up the promotion for the second season of Pushing Daisies so badly, but it still only got two series and actually, by Bryan Fuller standards, Pushing Daisies was lucky.
This show? Didn't make it to five episodes on TV time. Perpetrator? FOX. Of course.
Despite getting an extremely well-written show with rounded characters and extremely funny fast-paced dialogue, and a cast you would stab your mother for, FOX didn't know what to do with it, and they kept switching up the time slots until no one knew when the fuck it was on. It got pulled after the fourth episode, but after a lot of mailing and bitching and calling FOX out on doing this to a great show once again (Arrested Development, Firefly, Keen Eddie - aaaaarrrhhgggg) they released all the thirteen episodes that had been filmed on DVD. And trust me, after you've seen this show, thirteen episodes seems paltry. Like eating the left behind crumbs of the best cake you've ever eaten. I mean you still feel tingly in all the best places, but would you be satisfied?
Wonderfalls takes place, appropriately, near a wonder fall, namely the Niagra Falls, where Jaye "Over-educated but working in a dead end job" Tyler, a Brown University graduate who lives in a trailer park, works at a souvenir shop by the Fall. It would be difficult to say she's content with life, but she wasn't expecting or wanting much of a change - she has a totally crazy family who loves her, but is totally crazy, and her best friend works in the bar that she spends half her time in. Life isn't good, but it's hers, so hey. It works.
Until the smushed faced wax lion that a customer demands a refund of begins talking to her.
"Word of advice? Don't give her money back."
Jaye faints and wakes up to her worst nightmare: her family who are all extremely successful and worried about her. Great.
Her dad, Darrin, is an odd but caring physician, her mother Karen is a critical but loving travel book guide writer, her oldest sister Sharon is an overly-ambitious lawyer (who is in the first episode revealed to be a lesbian), and her brother is an existentially conflicted PhD graduate in theology, despite being an atheist. It's obvious to see where Jaye gets her black wool in the family, but she's perfectly happy being the black sheep, she just wishes her family would see that too.
At least Mahandra does. (I wish I had more to say about her than 'Mahandra is very pretty', but this is getting way long.) Mahandra is a waitress at the bar Jaye spends half her time in, and is Jaye's voice of slightly hysterical reason. She is lovely and snarky and huggable and seeks revenge like whoa.
Basically from this moment onward, Jaye starts... well, she doesn't hear voices, that would imply they're not coming from anywhere, but they're always coming from somewhere. Anything with a mouth suddenly comes to life and talks to her, from dolls to posters, offering her advice that, if she doesn't follow, turns out badly. Well, I say badly - in the show it becomes extremely arguable that even when she doesn't follow the advice, things turn out well. She never reveals to anyone that she hears all this advice, for the obvious reasons of not wanting to seem totally crazy, which becomes very conflicting and difficult for her when she also meets good-looking bartender named Eric, with whom she has extreme amounts of unresolved sexual tension with until it becomes resolved sexual tension that after a series of circumstances goes back to be unresolved again. Then it's resolved again? I don't remember anymore.
"So why do you have an ass that rings if you don't answer it?"
"Oh I used to answer it, I just haven't answered it since I got married and that was like six days ago. ... Yeah. Her name's Heidi. She's obsessed with bed linens. She was my college sweetheart. Married in New Jersey, honeymoon in Niagra, it was like a fairytale. Until I caught her with the bellman in our room. I guess the sheets had an 800 thread count and she couldn't control herself. I walked out of that honeymoon suite, into this bar, then cried for three days until someone gave me a job."
It's not the Ross/Rachel kind of UST that swings back and forth, though, trust me. Not nearly as frustrating and infinitely as heartbreaking, it's rare to see relationships done well in television, which is an odd thing to say, I guess, coming from a shipper, but it's true. But if there is someone that does it well, it is certainly Bryan Fuller. Seriously, if you don't want to hug Jaye tons in 'Cocktail Bunny' then you have no heart.
The thing is with Jaye is that she definitely doesn't try to be anyone but herself. She goes through a very subtle character change through the first season as the advice slowly turns her into a better person, if a bit reluctantly, but she still remains Jaye - mostly bored, a bit restless, a bit crazy, occasionally selfish and largely insecure. I suppose it's true that she's very similar to George from Dead Like Me, but I feel like George would just punch someone in the face or yawn and Jaye turns into much more of a person who wants to do the right thing, even if it means ignoring the voices and risking something bad, or listening to them, even if it'll break her own heart.
"The voices, the animals, I was just mad at them. But they aren’t demonic. It just feels like that sometimes when they make me help people."
It was a great show that I really loved and had such an extremely short run that it's the reason I put it here over shows like Arrested Development or Clone High.
Plus it has tons of Lee Pace walking around with his shirt half open. It's hard to say who's my favourite character in this? But I love Aaron because he does have a lot of the stuff I remember going through when I made my transition from Christianity to atheism - he's an atheist who's a theology major who, while not believing in God, does want to know that there is some sort of higher power. He's really laid back but it's never quite in a way that exudes indifference - he cares, he just doesn't like to overreact with it. It's also a great contrast with the neurotic no-touchy, bordering on Victorian Ned - Aaron is damned sexy and he knows it. So I guess it's weird that it's in Pushing Daisies where he spends an entire scene naked in his boxers. But it was for Chuck, so I guess this makes sense.
"Did the cow creamer talk to you?"
It was a show with great potential and the second season, had it existed, would have involved Jaye being thrown into a mental institution after being diagnosed with Joan of Arc syndrome, after her therapist publishes a book about their sessions. There would also have been a new wax lion with a whole face that would tell her not to do what the other wax lion said. Look, basically what I'm saying is, was that this show had crazy potential and it got axed because people at FOX didn't understand what they had. Then again, they rarely do.
Because I'm really indecisive and I don't want to leave out other shows that I wish hadn't been cancelled, here are some honorary mentions: Arrested Development, Keen Eddie, Green Wing, Invader Zim, Clone High, Futurama, Firefly, Life on Mars US (look, the ending wouldn't have been so totally crazy if they hadn't been rushed to making one up because they were cancelled), Dead Like Me, everything Bryan Fuller has done except for maybe Heroes.
Day 1 - A show that should have never been cancelled.
Not many people I know or have talked to have seen this show and it retains a very small fandom besides. You may know the creator of this show's other works, mainly Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies - Bryan Fuller is a man known for his really quirky existential sort of shows that, despite being on the side of a touch fantastical, can be suddenly down to earth realistic (while having really happy music courtesy of Jim Dooley, or at least, this does happen a lot in Pushing Daisies. Everyone should listen to his song "Death Came". The cheery beginning is absolutely hysterical to me.)
He's also known for writing all these really good shows that get shafted after one or two seasons. I still don't understand how ABC could have fucked up the promotion for the second season of Pushing Daisies so badly, but it still only got two series and actually, by Bryan Fuller standards, Pushing Daisies was lucky.
This show? Didn't make it to five episodes on TV time. Perpetrator? FOX. Of course.
Despite getting an extremely well-written show with rounded characters and extremely funny fast-paced dialogue, and a cast you would stab your mother for, FOX didn't know what to do with it, and they kept switching up the time slots until no one knew when the fuck it was on. It got pulled after the fourth episode, but after a lot of mailing and bitching and calling FOX out on doing this to a great show once again (Arrested Development, Firefly, Keen Eddie - aaaaarrrhhgggg) they released all the thirteen episodes that had been filmed on DVD. And trust me, after you've seen this show, thirteen episodes seems paltry. Like eating the left behind crumbs of the best cake you've ever eaten. I mean you still feel tingly in all the best places, but would you be satisfied?
Wonderfalls takes place, appropriately, near a wonder fall, namely the Niagra Falls, where Jaye "Over-educated but working in a dead end job" Tyler, a Brown University graduate who lives in a trailer park, works at a souvenir shop by the Fall. It would be difficult to say she's content with life, but she wasn't expecting or wanting much of a change - she has a totally crazy family who loves her, but is totally crazy, and her best friend works in the bar that she spends half her time in. Life isn't good, but it's hers, so hey. It works.
Until the smushed faced wax lion that a customer demands a refund of begins talking to her.
"Word of advice? Don't give her money back."
Jaye faints and wakes up to her worst nightmare: her family who are all extremely successful and worried about her. Great.
Her dad, Darrin, is an odd but caring physician, her mother Karen is a critical but loving travel book guide writer, her oldest sister Sharon is an overly-ambitious lawyer (who is in the first episode revealed to be a lesbian), and her brother is an existentially conflicted PhD graduate in theology, despite being an atheist. It's obvious to see where Jaye gets her black wool in the family, but she's perfectly happy being the black sheep, she just wishes her family would see that too.
At least Mahandra does. (I wish I had more to say about her than 'Mahandra is very pretty', but this is getting way long.) Mahandra is a waitress at the bar Jaye spends half her time in, and is Jaye's voice of slightly hysterical reason. She is lovely and snarky and huggable and seeks revenge like whoa.
Basically from this moment onward, Jaye starts... well, she doesn't hear voices, that would imply they're not coming from anywhere, but they're always coming from somewhere. Anything with a mouth suddenly comes to life and talks to her, from dolls to posters, offering her advice that, if she doesn't follow, turns out badly. Well, I say badly - in the show it becomes extremely arguable that even when she doesn't follow the advice, things turn out well. She never reveals to anyone that she hears all this advice, for the obvious reasons of not wanting to seem totally crazy, which becomes very conflicting and difficult for her when she also meets good-looking bartender named Eric, with whom she has extreme amounts of unresolved sexual tension with until it becomes resolved sexual tension that after a series of circumstances goes back to be unresolved again. Then it's resolved again? I don't remember anymore.
"So why do you have an ass that rings if you don't answer it?"
"Oh I used to answer it, I just haven't answered it since I got married and that was like six days ago. ... Yeah. Her name's Heidi. She's obsessed with bed linens. She was my college sweetheart. Married in New Jersey, honeymoon in Niagra, it was like a fairytale. Until I caught her with the bellman in our room. I guess the sheets had an 800 thread count and she couldn't control herself. I walked out of that honeymoon suite, into this bar, then cried for three days until someone gave me a job."
It's not the Ross/Rachel kind of UST that swings back and forth, though, trust me. Not nearly as frustrating and infinitely as heartbreaking, it's rare to see relationships done well in television, which is an odd thing to say, I guess, coming from a shipper, but it's true. But if there is someone that does it well, it is certainly Bryan Fuller. Seriously, if you don't want to hug Jaye tons in 'Cocktail Bunny' then you have no heart.
The thing is with Jaye is that she definitely doesn't try to be anyone but herself. She goes through a very subtle character change through the first season as the advice slowly turns her into a better person, if a bit reluctantly, but she still remains Jaye - mostly bored, a bit restless, a bit crazy, occasionally selfish and largely insecure. I suppose it's true that she's very similar to George from Dead Like Me, but I feel like George would just punch someone in the face or yawn and Jaye turns into much more of a person who wants to do the right thing, even if it means ignoring the voices and risking something bad, or listening to them, even if it'll break her own heart.
"The voices, the animals, I was just mad at them. But they aren’t demonic. It just feels like that sometimes when they make me help people."
It was a great show that I really loved and had such an extremely short run that it's the reason I put it here over shows like Arrested Development or Clone High.
Plus it has tons of Lee Pace walking around with his shirt half open. It's hard to say who's my favourite character in this? But I love Aaron because he does have a lot of the stuff I remember going through when I made my transition from Christianity to atheism - he's an atheist who's a theology major who, while not believing in God, does want to know that there is some sort of higher power. He's really laid back but it's never quite in a way that exudes indifference - he cares, he just doesn't like to overreact with it. It's also a great contrast with the neurotic no-touchy, bordering on Victorian Ned - Aaron is damned sexy and he knows it. So I guess it's weird that it's in Pushing Daisies where he spends an entire scene naked in his boxers. But it was for Chuck, so I guess this makes sense.
"Did the cow creamer talk to you?"
It was a show with great potential and the second season, had it existed, would have involved Jaye being thrown into a mental institution after being diagnosed with Joan of Arc syndrome, after her therapist publishes a book about their sessions. There would also have been a new wax lion with a whole face that would tell her not to do what the other wax lion said. Look, basically what I'm saying is, was that this show had crazy potential and it got axed because people at FOX didn't understand what they had. Then again, they rarely do.
Because I'm really indecisive and I don't want to leave out other shows that I wish hadn't been cancelled, here are some honorary mentions: Arrested Development, Keen Eddie, Green Wing, Invader Zim, Clone High, Futurama, Firefly, Life on Mars US (look, the ending wouldn't have been so totally crazy if they hadn't been rushed to making one up because they were cancelled), Dead Like Me, everything Bryan Fuller has done except for maybe Heroes.