Awake

Entertained, Provoked to Think

Wonderfalls. A TV series that lasted only a few episodes on the network, but one whose story and characters I immediately loved. Twelve episodes or so were released on DVD which I checked out from the library this past weekend. Kind of a post-modernism and Gen-Y primer, funny, but also containing almost disturbingly authentic performances that brought almost a heart-breaking realism to the tale (despite the dominant presence of talking stuffed animals, figurines, and other man-made objects with faces). What provoked me, though, was much more personal than intellectual. Watching a show that got axed after 4 episodes is kind of stressful. I find myself thinking, how many episodes did they end up filming? Will the series end with closure and a good ending or will it be cut off prematurely and haunt me forever? And about two-thirds through the story the romantic happy ending freebie that I thought was a sure-thing was ripped out from under me, just as it was ripped out from under the character of Jaye. She cried. I cried. And it really made me think. How much am I taking for granted right now with regard to relationships? Do I think I'm entitled to some happy ending, free of charge, with little or no effort? I think I have been thinking that and seeing that scenario played out on the screen made my heart stop. I couldn't get to sleep until I "wrote myself out of the shock" at two o'clock in the morning.

Maybe laughing and crying in response to a TV show or a movie can be a good thing. In some really great and heart-wrenching instances, I think it gets my soul ready to learn something previously stubbornly refused.

We'll see.