Outfoxed: Firefly
and Wonderfalls (TV)
Review by Garrett Mok
 Film Review Archive
Why am I reviewing two TV shows that are not even aired
anymore—rudely cancelled in mid-run in fact--and what do these two shows have in
common beside their premature deaths? Well, they both have Canadian leads, but more
importantly, they are both former Fox patients. In their crusade to pack more
‘reality-based’ brain slurpee into the I.V. of bedroom America, Fox managed to
outfox itself in the harebrained, bottom-feeder decision to terminate two promising,
potentially ground-breaking, brainchilds - perfectly illustrating the modus operandi of
dumbing down the masses to empty their wallets (or have them elect you to high office,
ahem). It ain’t news, but it is nonetheless maddening.
Firefly is a strange brew cooked up in the witch pot of one
Joss Whedon, the creator of seminal Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Firefly,
which first aired in 2002, is an unclassifiable hodgepodge of sci-fi and western - a
ridiculous premise if it weren’t so bold in its vision and high in production value.
Alberta-born Nathan Fillion plays Malcolm Reynolds or “Mal,” the hardened and
morally-conflicted captain of a renegade deep space salvage ship of “Firefly”
class operating under the radar of the overbearing galactic Alliance, taking in any job to
survive, legal or illegal, 500 years into the future. The grease-spattered
“Kaylee” Frye is a normally fresh-faced Jewel Staite, a fellow Canuck, and she
oozes sweetness and competency as the ship’s mechanic. The hulking Adam Baldwin as
“Jayne” Cobb, the ship’s hired muscle, is dead-on comically. Gina Torres
(“Zoe” Warren), the female warrior of the bunch, is at times more threatening
than the jarhead Jayne. Her husband and the ship’s pilot Alan Tudyk (“Wash”
Warren) brings lightness and humor.
In the two-hour pilot episode, which Fox summarily canned in favor of the more
action-packed second as the opener and throwing the show chronologically out of whack from
the get-go, the crew unwittingly picks up a pair of fugitives – a brilliant young
doctor played by Sean Maher (“Simon” Tam), and his even more brilliant, but
damaged, little sister, River. The ex-ballerina Summer Glau is all limbs and fetal anguish
as the tortured girl genius and a former test subject of Blue Sun, the galactic
super-corporation up to no good. The other passengers include the stunning Morena Baccarin
as “Inara” Serra, a high-class prostitute and de facto ambassador. Ron Glass, as
the passenger-turned-ship’s chaplain “Shepherd” Book, rounds out the very
serviceable cast. Their rapport is palpable on the ship, named Serenity, which is a
character on its own.
The notion that outer reaches of space are like the Western frontiers of yore, complete
with six shooters and forty-niner justice, is an intriguing and not illogical one.
Banality and treachery lay everywhere, and the crerw are forced to fight just as dirty.
The soundtrack, accordingly, is full of southwestern dirges and twangs, the main
characters talk in quaint western folk-talk and curse in Chinese in times of duress (US
and China are the only superpowers left), and they would rather ride a bronco (the
four-legged hissy kind) than a shiny metallic hovercraft to dodge their many
enemies--including some horrific cannibals called Reavers--in the galactic ghettos of the
Outer Rims. They shoot horses when they have to, and they are ardent feminists without
meaning to be. They push buttons, and not just to fire retro rockets. It is a confounding
mixed bag of mores and stylistic experiment that will irk many and delight many more, with
a hint of future brilliance that got cut down too fast by a group of by-the-book
unimaginative Fox executive stiffs.
 Wonderfalls,
on the other hand, takes place on earth, in New York state in fact, but it may as well be
on a derelict space ship orbiting the outer rings of Jupiter. It is an existential black
comedy, a furtive fart to cosmic loneliness – brazen and delicate at the same time.
Quebec native Caroline Dhavernas (“Jaye” Tyler) plays a college grad who
refuses to better herself. She works at a menial retail job at a Niagara Falls gift shop
called Wonderfalls, lives in a trailer, and shuns emotional commitment. She is something
of a walking wounded, an enigma, but she is also easy on the eye, and wears her quirk and
intelligence well on her downcast shoulders. Her life is like an old anarchist T-shirt
– full of holes, but fits her and is unapologetic. Her straight-edged upper middle
class parents hound her about her financial and professional limbo. And to complicate
matters, inanimate objects, like a toy lion, talk to her, egg her on to help people in
mysterious ways, and in doing so open her humanity just a little more. Is it God ,
schizophrenia, or a cosmic consciousness channeling through a plastic trinket?
That last bit drew initial comparisons to Joan of
Arcadia, another TV show I reviewed and liked, in which God talks to a young high
school heroine and asks her to perform seemingly incongruent and self-defeating duties
until a greater design of reconciliation and salvation is later revealed. Perhaps when
Joan grows up, goes to college, gets overeducated and disillusioned, ditches God and
decides to slack off for good, she may turn out something like Wonderfalls’
Jaye. But that wouldn’t be doing justice to Jaye; she isn’t slumming. She is
trying to find her own niche, a comfort zone, in an absurd threatening universe full of
Fox executives. She does it by walling herself in. It is the unwalling—by the
cosmically-charged talking figurines and by her all-too-human friends and family--that is
so captivating, and we begin to root for her in all her shortcomings and tentativeness.
Jaye is a flighty but grounded Chekovian creature who tries so hard to be an anti-heroine,
but is heroic despite herself.
Although the show ostensibly takes place in New York side of Niagara Falls, it is shot
in Ontario and with many cast members from the United States of Canada, has decidedly
north-of-the-border ambience, a Northern Exposure minus moose dung and
snowmobiles. The rest of the cast, which include Diane Scarwid as novelist mom and William
Sadler as doctor dad, Katie Finneran as closet-lesbian lawyer sister and Lee Pace as the
cerebral but aimless post-grad brother, are uniformly good. Tyron Leitso is a very
likeable bartender and Jaye’s potential soulmate. Tracie Thoms plays Jaye’s best
friend and confidante, who works as a waitress at the same bar and restaurant, which is
the three leads’ constant meeting spot. Wonderfalls is wonderful.
So why did Fox cancel these two shows? Firefly didn’t make it past its
tenth episode, and Wonderfalls its fourth. Why not? They are unconventional,
daring and intelligent, so they don’t lend well to rabid product placements for
starters. You can’t plaster Wal-Mart ads all over a broken-down salvage space ship
with a crew that curse in Chinese. You can’t put a Gap shirt on an anti-establishment
rebel gal. It’s all narrowcasting. Gotta give people what they want. What’s
Nietzsche got to do with anything when we can have wife-swapping?
Out of 30 shows on Fox, 13 are so-called reality-based. That’s nearly half of the
programming. A small sampling of such life enhancers - My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss
(deceit and humiliation as entertainment), The Rebel Billionaire (seemingly sane
people pee in their pants jumping out of perfectly good airplanes to kiss ass and make mad
cash), The Simple Life 2 (Paris Hilton, enough said), Trading Spouses
(swap wives, but not beer), The Swan (perfectly decent-looking women gaudily made
up to be beauty contestants by the billion dollar makeup industry), and of course, the
ever reliable American Idol, America’s Most Wanted, and Cops.
Like Blue Sun – the ominous mega-corporate entity in Firefly who will
stop at nothing to get their lab rat girl, Fox’s unabashed assault on American
intelligence is downright criminal. I won’t be shocked if Karl Rove—the PR
mastermind who sold Bush like Coca Cola--is on their board of trustees, and is the sly fox
behind Fox. Hell, Rupert Murdoch –Fox’s Aussie and very right-wing owner--can
afford a dozen Roves of the world in his and his ilk’s global quest to sanitize
dissent and curiosity. But I’ll save my full-out fox hunt for a later occasion. Whew.
Firefly is available on DVD (14 episodes), and Wonderfalls (13
episodes) DVD should be coming out in February of next year, largely due to fan effort
such as savewonderfalls.com. Fan
petition also succeeded in an upcoming Firefly motion picture, titled Serenity.
Meanwhile, please don’t email me asking where you can download the episodes,
nearly half of which never even aired. Buck the system at your leisure.
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