Wonderfalls: the First Four Episodes
Jun. 23rd, 2008 01:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerTHEY PLAYED THE VERONICA MARS THEME SONG IN EPISODE THREE. For this alone I am filled with love for Wonderfalls.
Fear not, I like Wonderfalls for other reasons too. Jaye may be the most obnoxious heroine in the history of the universe, but four episodes in I am filled with Jaye-love. The exorcism scene? Priceless. Hilarious AND creeptastic.
The female characters on the show generally are good. They have depth! They talk to each other about things that are not men! I like Jaye and Jaye’s sister (whose hair is a refugee from World War II, I swear) and the nun; even Jaye's mother might grow on me.
Also, Jaye’s brother: way cool. And the cute bar guy Jaye likes (yay romances with actual chemistry! One problem with Firefly: except for Zoe and Wash the romances lack spark).
However, I could get very tired of the talking inanimate objects that are always right. My tolerance for anything that’s always right is very, very low, especially if said things just sit back smugly until their victim abandons hope of an explanation and gives in to the Incredible Aura of Rightness, at which time everything works out.
Also, there’s this odd thing where there will suddenly, randomly, be shots of Niagara Falls. It’s like in Torchwood where there are all these inexplicable airplane shots of Cardiff at night. Either I am missing something deeply thematically significant (possible with Wonderfalls; I don’t think the Torchwood people have the subtlety) or the shots just got shoehorned in because, gosh darn it, we spent too much money shooting ‘em not to use ‘em.
I’m looking forward to the next DVD.
Fear not, I like Wonderfalls for other reasons too. Jaye may be the most obnoxious heroine in the history of the universe, but four episodes in I am filled with Jaye-love. The exorcism scene? Priceless. Hilarious AND creeptastic.
The female characters on the show generally are good. They have depth! They talk to each other about things that are not men! I like Jaye and Jaye’s sister (whose hair is a refugee from World War II, I swear) and the nun; even Jaye's mother might grow on me.
Also, Jaye’s brother: way cool. And the cute bar guy Jaye likes (yay romances with actual chemistry! One problem with Firefly: except for Zoe and Wash the romances lack spark).
However, I could get very tired of the talking inanimate objects that are always right. My tolerance for anything that’s always right is very, very low, especially if said things just sit back smugly until their victim abandons hope of an explanation and gives in to the Incredible Aura of Rightness, at which time everything works out.
Also, there’s this odd thing where there will suddenly, randomly, be shots of Niagara Falls. It’s like in Torchwood where there are all these inexplicable airplane shots of Cardiff at night. Either I am missing something deeply thematically significant (possible with Wonderfalls; I don’t think the Torchwood people have the subtlety) or the shots just got shoehorned in because, gosh darn it, we spent too much money shooting ‘em not to use ‘em.
I’m looking forward to the next DVD.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-27 02:07 am (UTC)JAYE'S BROTHER = LEE PACE = amazingness/my hero/pushing daisies star. see icon.
i think i have to disagree about the firefly, very much. it's an obligation. though wash/zoe do get lots of points for sparkage and marriage, which is where so many tv show relationships fail.
more niagra falls stuff comes into play, but i would agree that there're a lot of shots of the falls. i think it's supposed to be thematic? and really pretty? but yes, i don't know.
the talking animals are conviently right far too often. that's my one concern about the show- as loathe as i am to say it (and there are certainly other plot points that could've been developed) i'm rather glad the show ended when it did, because i think anything more than 13? 14? (i should know the total episode number, huh?) episodes with them would probably have gotten stale.
eee, i'm so glad you're watching this! and i love reading the extremley intelligent commentary you post.
(and soon/eventually (i've got current projects) i will have get to work on my next set of wonderfalls icons, because now you can fully appreciate them!)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-27 02:40 am (UTC)...I'm going to have to watch that. God help me.
Wonderfalls has 13 episodes total, and yeah, I suspect that more than thirteen episodes of the always-correct talking inanimate animals would probably push viewers over the edge, no matter how much fun the characters are. Unless the show runners were planning to have Jaye start to figure out how to communicate better with the animals or figure out where her powers come from?
The show runners were smart enough to make a very good show, after all, surely they knew that they would need to liven up the talking animals somehow.
Hmm. About Firefly, I think the relationship that really failed for me was Kaylee and Simon--they're both very pretty, but I didn't feel there was anything there except that they were the only two unpaired people on the ship (except Jayne, but he's not really boyfriend material).
I suppose that might count as solid basis for a fling. But it wasn't presented as a possible fling, it was presented as mad awkward mutual crushes crippled by Simon's lack of social skills.
I remember reading some really interesting commentaries on Mal and Inara, which I should dig up, because I remember wanting to write long thinky posts about them.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-27 03:20 am (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JtAKbecNTE&feature=related
and because i'm sure that made you go "wtf?" (or the part about her father probably should have, anyway...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLvMGGnLbQw
here's the most exposition-y promo i've ever seen. but it tells you what you need to know, without any spoilers past episode 1.
the worst part? it's not even canceled yet. season 2 comes next year.
er, your second guess gets attacked a little bit more, though it might be developed most in the the episode with the nun (that you've seen) already. mostly the episodes go into why jaye and what this power means to her. because her personal development really is the focus of the show.
jayne + kaylee is a pairing though- have you read the unaired episode? (and i thouroughly reveal my geekdom!)
but i see what you mean about everyone paired up. at the same time, they're a cute couple. and i think that's what their role is meant to be. (it seems to say a lot that they're the only cannon pairing that never kisses on the show)
mal and inara are my favorite pair ever. or at least my two favorite characters on the show...
no subject
Date: 2008-06-27 03:39 pm (UTC)Just watching those snippets put me in my happy place. The stylized candy-colored setting! The mixture of fantasy and mundanity! The awesome chemistry between Chuck and Jaye's brother (I didn't catch his name). It should not be possible to make a ceramic monkey kiss so hot.
Sometimes I think that couples have chemistry in inverse proportion to how much physical contact they have. Maybe screenwriters put more effort into the dialogue when there's less kissing, whereas once the kissing starts they figure that counts as chemistry and quit?
Although that didn't work for me with Kaylee/Simon, so there must be more to it.
Jayne/Kaylee is a canon pairing? *brain explodes* That is just so wrong.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-27 04:46 pm (UTC)the character is ned, though we never learn his last name. and the colors are awesome, and there is a lot of chemistry (with a couple different pairings, actually), the show is funny and clever and the sweetest thing ever. soooo much of it makes me go "awwww."
(i should probably apologize again for ranting about all this *before* the dvds come out....)
but pushing daisies has to be especially clever, since it's not just no kissing, it's no touching at all. so they do lots of cool clever angles, and vicarious hugs (which you saw), and dancing in bee keeping uniforms... but yes. very clever.
not really. it was a hinted-at character pairing that never went too far. jayne likes kaylee...that's pretty much it. it's also part of jayne's long-standing hatred for simon.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-28 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-28 03:50 am (UTC)he almost gave her a stuffed turtle though. in the unfilmed episode. it was cute.