more tru calling thoughts (I am clearly taking this way too seriously)

[jmtorres]

So if I want fix-it fic on Tru Calling where it's rescued by snark and the boyfriend doesn't die, clearly I need look no further than Wonderfalls. I had this headtilt when Tru's blonde lawyer sister was introduced and the more I think about it, the more certain I am that Wonderfalls was clearly the smarter version of Tru Calling:

--heroine with unexpected powers is resistant and WHY ME about it, instead of horribly vapid
--her blonde lawyer older sister has a secret, which turns out to be lesbianism instead of a coke addiction
--her bitchy brother is once again the one who eventually figures her out, and also follows the "you're crazy" to belief route, but he comes with a philosophical background to ask interesting questions about it instead of just bugging her for the winning ponies
--her best friend is hooking up with her brother but instead of being all sugary helpful about it, Jaye's horrified
--her sweet, understanding boyfriend comes with a backstory and damage for extra tension
--her creepy boss is acknowledged to be creepy and referred to as the mouthbreather
--hey, they even ripped off the high school reunion episode, but they changed it from five years to seven and a half to point out extra hard that oh by the way this is dumb!

So you know, with better developed characters, snark, more narrative tension, and did I mention snark. Really, I'm a fan of the snark.

I should get around to watching the rest of Wonderfalls one of these days...

Comments

[ide_cyan]

Q: haved you watched Pushing Daisies and Being Erica, the TV shows that Jaye's brother and boyfriend went on to appear in afterwards?

[jmtorres]

I have not! Are they good?

[niqaeli]

Pushing Daises is way the fuck too in love with how Very Fucking Quirky it is. I don't know if you have a better tolerance for that than I do. *wry*

Other than it was good? But it was so pervasive, the Look, Look, We're So Fucking Quirky, that I couldn't deal, when Teresa was watching the first few episodes. I wanted to throw hard, sharp objects at the writers all the time.

[ide_cyan]

Yes, they are.

Pushing Daisies is now cancelled after two seasons. It is very stylised and quirky, as Niqaeli says, but I enjoyed it. It's gloriously colourful, sometimes too precious for its own good (the whole nunnery plot in S2 goes on too long), but it's also very morbidly funny, and it had musical numbers before Glee did. I haven't watched Tru Calling, but Pushing Daisies also features frequent visits to the morgue. Ned (Lee Pace) is like the Risen Mitten from Torchwood: when he touches dead things they come back to life, but with consequences. And there's this whole delicious technicolour noir detective stuff, along with unrequited and/or impossible to consummate love storylines and there's PIE! Lots of pie. And genuinely touching emotion underneath all the quirks.

Being Erica is still running, with its second season now airing on the CBC. Tyrone Leitso (sp?) plays Erica's main love interest, Ethan. The show is great. It's quirky, but nowhere near as stylised as Pushing Daisies. It's about Erica Strange, a 30-something woman in Toronto whose life is a mess, until she steps into the Tardis and meets the Doctor, basically. :-) Well, it's not exactly the Tardis, but it's an office that kind of acts like one. And the Doctor she meets is called Dr. Tom, and he becomes her therapist, sending her back in time to relive her biggest regrets differently so she can try to learn from them how to sort out her life in the present. The show being a comedy-drama, it sometimes treads dangerously near my embarassment squick threshold, but Erica does learn and grow, and although the ramifications tend to be at the personal level rather than putting the universe in peril, the show does not shy away from the possibilities offered by its time-travel premise.

[ide_cyan]

Another show Being Erica has some similarities to, apparently, though I'm much less familiar with it, is Quantum Leap, since Erica's time-travel involves leaping back into her younger self. And Dr. Tom sometimes appears, blending into the time and place, to give cryptic advice during those sessions (Michael Riley, who plays Dr. Tom, is really great in the role and fun to watch, whether wearing a hairnet in a cafeteria, white face paint and a black hoodie, fishing gear, or sitting naked behind his desk). (Her sister's named Sam, so I can't call Erica herself Sam for the purposes of a QL comparison.)

She has issues with her family I think I should mention, stating in the first episode that she feels like she's "suffocating under the weight of [their] collective disapproval", but that improves as the series progresses

[noracharles]

You're making Wonderfalls sound so good. Oh how I wish I could enjoy it like that, because it was so beautifully filmed, so well acted, so stylish and dryly snarky and I loved all the tacky figurines. Why did you have to laugh at that guy's detached retina and break my heart!

(I'm one of the philistines who prefer Dead Like Me to Wonderfalls. I need my heart of gold beneath the sarcasm and crankiness.)

[jmtorres]

It's possible that the passage of time has softened my memory of it.

Everything I have seen regarding Dead Like Me suggests it would be of interest to me, I have never gotten around to watching it though.

[noracharles]

It's a great show. I think you'll like it :-)

[sineala]

...This had never actually occurred to me. Sadly, I own all of Tru Calling on DVD. Because Eliza Dushku is pretty. I wasn't actually expecting anything else from the show, and this way I am not disappointed.

[jmtorres]

Eliza Dushku on her own was not enough for me but I'm on a Matthew Bomer kick at the moment. I wasn't expecting muc either, I just got sucked into plot against my will.

[tommygirl]

Oh wonderfalls. I miss that show. And I love Jaye's relationship with her brother - they're protective of each other, but they fight and torment one another as well, like siblings tend to do.

Plus, it had a wax lion that sang songs.