Wonderfalls’ Wax Lion pilot, like nearly all television sitcoms nowadays, has its strong points, but is overshadowed by its tendency for crappy jokes and poor dialogue. I found myself laughing at the lesbian cheek wiping scene and the ironic hookups that followed, but it was a sort of embarrassed laughter. I wasn’t laughing at the humor in it, but more at the principle that the writers were trying to cash in on cheap laughs for hot lesbians.
As for the strong points of the episode, Wax Lion had great cinematography and CG animation. The extreme close up of the manager’s mouth with spit flying out as she handed out a promotion to an idiot stayed fresh in my mind while the storyline fell short. As I watched, entertained by the complexity of the waterfall god, wax lion, and the brass monkey animation, I all of a sudden thought of the 1970’s rock band Kiss. Known for their outrageous live shows far more than their actual music, I realized the correlation between Kiss and Wonderfalls. Both use the art of skillfully distracting the viewer with entertaining visuals from the package beneath. When you take away the rockets flying out of guitars, the blood, the face paint, and the signature long tongue of Gene Simmons, you’re left with another bland and generic Rock N Roll band with senseless lyrics about sex, and partying. Much like Kiss, when you take away the CG animation and talented direction of photography from Wonderfalls, you’re left with another bland and generic sitcom with senseless dialogue and cheesy jokes so far away from reality its deemed unrelatable.
Maybe if Wonderfalls took a lesson from Kiss and involved gratuitous pyrotechnics and blood it would’ve lasted more than 4 episodes.
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