Shut Up. Get Me A Coke.

What is the indescribable feeling of foreign-familiarity that only comes from a really great movie or TV show? Is it a result of successful storytelling? Do we become so connected to the particular tale that we lose all sense of our surroundings and when the screen goes black the deja vu-like confusion about time and space is the return to reality? Whenever someone asks what is deja vu I respond, "It's a glitch in the matrix." I don't know what is more strange, that I am regularly asked about deja vu or my quoting the Matrix as an answer. Quotes don't stick with me. I'm terrible with phrases for this reason. Until I commented on a coworker choking up her lung, I had never heard my boss laugh. But I remember that line because it's a good description of something indescribable. For a split-second we are not just participants but observers of our participation.
This brings me to Wonderfalls. I rented its sole season and found myself deja vuing every 42 minutes. I tried to prepare for my final deja vu that occurs after the last episode but knowing that I can never return to my friends and family is never easy. I tell myself I can rewatch the episodes but it's no different then looking at a photo album of a lost loved one. Wonderfalls was canceled after four episodes aired on Fox in 2004.

The story surrounds 24 yr. old Jaye who dismisses her upper-middle class upbringing and ivy league education as accidental and moves into a trailer with too many talking animal faces. There is a lot of eye-rolling, self doubt, getting arrested, and Barbara Stanwyck. For all of you who enjoyed Firefly, I suggest watching Wonderfalls. I don't remember much from my Firefly experience except that I was alone and friendless and spending the summer in New York so I escaped to the out-west of out-erspace. Rather, if you are somebody who would spend their Friday nights in New York City watching a sci-fi/western, then check out Wonderfalls.