fedtho

What I like first and foremost in this show are the AWKWARD situations. I feel like crawling under my seat with embarrassment two times per episode at least. And it's the worst kind of awkward! Just when a moment seems perfect, no clouds in the sky for once, someone says something totally embarrassing for everyone present (yes: most of the time, that would be the mother, Sally Field at the very top of her game if she ever was), and it makes everyone mad at her for destroying the perfect moment - but they find it hard to say it in his/her face as brutally as they feel it...

I feel utterly powerless. This is such a poor description of the brilliant writing, the perfect casting (I agree Flockhart is not at her very best - but she still brings that soft and confused quality she always had to the show, and she fits into the cast just as well as everyone else). Something in this show is just making me applaud at the end of each episode. I find it highly enjoyable to watch its creators striving for new, exciting situations and unknown territory with each episode. It's REFRESHING. And although I'm at least one season behind (I'm in Europe), until now, I find it's getting better and better: I remember I liked the romance between Flockhart and Lowe at the beginning... but all the wrong turns this family's story keep taking are SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING as things progress.

I think this is a show that deserves to be checked out. At the very least. I'm really grateful it's there. Warmly recommended!

(At the time I'm writing this, I'm wondering if this year, 2010, the show's has been canceled - it would seem so, IMDb doesn't put a final year unless a show has come to an end.)

For reasons so subjective I don't' feel like discussing them, I loved this movie. I caught it on TV on a December 31st and cried a lot, as it just kept addressing issues that were of extreme relevance to me...

Now: I was particularly struck by the contrast between the pro and contra comments. I forced myself to read some of the "negative" comments (containing the recurring formula "worst film I have EVER, EVER seen" in their title), and I had to admit that these comments made perfectly valid points on several issues all through the movie that were hard to defend. I had chosen to push aside these issues so I could enjoy the movie. I could also say: I had been struck by most of them myself, but it didn't prevent me from diving into the story and characters.

Then i began to look at the "Was this comment useful to you" ratings, and I realized something remarkable: roughly put (I didn't do a study of every comment), while the positive reviews got about two thirds of "yes" (yes, this comment was useful to me), the extremely negative ones almost invariably got about fifty-fifty of yes' and no's. Meaning strongly negative opinions (some of them outright hateful) got at least half of their readers on their side. At the very least, that made me think that there had to be something seriously wrong with this movie, and that still, I had managed to ignore it. I also realized that there were issues related to the U.S. of which I, as a European (German living in Switzerland), wasn't aware, but were very real and obvious in the States.

I apologize for not ending this with a conclusion that makes even a bit of sense: I didn't find any. Except a renewed confirmation of how subjective perception can be, depending on the mere MOOD one is in. When I watched this picture, I was in an absolutely non-critical, non-putting-into-perspective mood, only concerned with emotions and with what I could relate to within the boundaries of my personal life. So all the while I was watching, I extracted exactly what I needed out of what I saw, not an ounce more. I feel like having had a glimpse on why *anyone* can embrace *any opinion* at some point and feel he is absolutely right and sincere about his reasons. Kind of scary.

Switzerland is amazing... Between the three national linguistic areas ("swiss German", French and Italian), who *each* have *two* TV channels, we pretty much get almost all of the best American and British TV shows there are. And most of the time, thanks to double-channel audio, with the original English sound!

We got to discover TWIN PEAKS probably first in Europe (at least on the continent, not sure about the U.K. ...), it started in Germany six months later. Just one example.

Three or four years ago, I discovered Wonderland late at night, and surely was absolutely riveted. I wrote to the (german swiss) channel who'd broad-casted it to thank them for selecting it, and they seemed obviously delighted someone had appreciated their choice...

Couple of nights ago, I found it running again. It was the episode where Dr. Lyla Garrity (Michelle Forbes) has suddenly to give birth to her child while visiting an innovative institution... I guess this is the "cliffhanger" someone mentioned here: the baby's fine, but she is in very bad shape, in a coma when reaching the hospital... and we don't get to know the end of it, of course...

Everything that needed to be said has been said here about Wonderland. So I'll just silently mourn once more how such a jewel was put to sleep against all odds - but we learn to be thankful when something good lasts on TV.

I'll finish with an apology in the name of the European Community. And that would be: for the blunt stupidity of Wylie_Times from Sweden, stating that, supposedly, "as soon as something good comes along there's hundreds of protest groups immediately calling it offensive" AND that this is "Just typical America". Simplification is still the easiest way, and the easiest way still the favorites choice of so many. I'm not saying I'd never take this kind of shortcuts, I know I'm human. It still horrifies me when I see others taking them, though.

Will they ever put WONDERLAND on DVD?