I don't see how Tru Calling, Joan of Arcadia or Wonderfalls are any less formulaic or any more trendy and foolish than Look Who's Talking variations. Which actually that's all these are. Whether it's dead people or inanimate objects, or in the case of Joan normal appearing people talking as if they're manifestations of God, it's all a weird trend toward trying to do something unique for unique's sake, and the result is like a goth bar. People being different in roughly the same way, which kinda defeats the point of being different.

ZachsMind | September 08, 01:18 CET

i loved Wonderfalls.. it's not "trying to do something unique for unique's sake"... i just loved the dialouge, the premise of the show could have been totally different and i still would have enjoyed the characters...
tru calling and joan of arcadia, on the other hand, don't have that going for them. when watching joan of arcadia i found myself more interested in the supporting characters, like joan's little brother and the shop keeper... just because they got all the good lines... as for tru calling there's not much going on there in the way of intriguing dialouge and story lines... i was disappointed in it.

kmacp | September 08, 18:48 CET

See that's the thing that made Buffy stand out. Some people really love the Vampire Mythology thing, but that isn't what makes the show work, at least not in my opinion. Buffy worked because it found a wonderful compromise between plot-driven and character-driven stories. It's sounding like Wonderfalls finds a similiar balance. No doubt due to Joss Whedon's influence on the storytellers that were in his employ.

ringworm | September 08, 19:00 CET

Good point, I have no real interest in vampires outside of Buffy.

I don't understand why is such quality in 'Wonderfalls' a surprise? Would you expect anything less from a driving force behind Angel? , not to mention a co-creator of Firefly?

Maybe I'm sucker for Northern Exposure/Sci-Fi, but I'm glad the networks are trying to be unique (if not gimmicky), at least they're not cranking out as many "Friends" clones, 'Family Friendly' sitcoms, and reality T.V. garbage. Though a shame that Tru Calling may not live up to expectations. Of course with Eliza Dushku as the feature, but also Doug Petrie as one of the writers, my hopes were high.

ascii_102_117 | September 09, 04:15 CET

Nit-picky, but Firefly was Joss' own baby. Tim was to become the showrunner, but he wasn't co-creator. At least not to my knowledge.

ringworm | September 09, 17:58 CET