Part of it is probably the western New York setting, which pushes my nostalgia buttons (and the show pretty much gets the look and feel of western New York right - I think it was shot in Toronto, which probably helped). Part of it is surely Dhavernas’ sheer charm, and on some level I think I relate to her character way too much, chiefly her sense of high expectations squelched, a sort of Gen-X cliché I suppose, but rendered amusingly and with real heart.
WONDERFALLS NIAGARA FALLS NY SERIES
How the cosmic instructions will impact Jaye’s fate, color her relationships, and help her grow as a person, is an unpredictable, quirky, and funny ride.īryan Fuller has done a lot of great TV series - Dead Like Me, Heroes, Pushing Daisies - but I think this is the one that really hit the mark the most for me. This is just the first of a series of inanimate objects that begin dictating Jaye’s fate, and she quickly realizes that ignoring the toy animals’ cryptic directives can have harsh consequences. Her witty slacker existence is challenged when one day at work, a wax figurine begins speaking to her - more specifically, telling her to do things. Set in Niagara Falls, New York, Wonderfalls stars the adorably exasperated Caroline Dhavernas as Jaye Tyler, a bright but aimless twenty-something who works as a retail clerk for a gift shop, lives in a trailer park, and languishes in the shadow of her considerably more successful immediate family members. And that’s where I came in: I pretty much watched it over a weekend when I first got it a couple of years ago, and recently went around the horn a second time with Jenn. Fox gave this one a measly four episodes before pulling the plug, barely enough time to learn of its existence! Fortunately, they actually shot fifteen episodes, which makes for a worthwhile DVD collection. The magnificent Wonderfalls (2004) has the odd distinction of being a died-before-its-time TV gem that I don’t have to feel guilty about for having killed.