Talk:Wonderfalls

Episode order.

Just curious, what is indicated by the "PC" designation? There was an anonymous edit that altered all of them to be in intended airing order, but the episode guide on TVTome has the previous version. I assume it's some kind of production number, and has little to do with story ordering...? -- Wapcaplet 16:39, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Nevermind. I couldn't find a very thorough answer, but did get enough to write, and link to, production code number. I've reverted to the version I assume is correct. -- Wapcaplet 17:00, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it's production code, which can differ from aired order. I took the version on TVTome and applied it to the article previously, since that's usually accurate. There are one or two clashes where the previous set of production codes that were on the article were the same as the TVTome ones, but on different episode, but I left those in until I can find the complete production order. -- Michael Warren 17:09, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

Cool. If you know any additional info about production codes and how they're used, please improve production code number. -- Wapcaplet 17:14, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've slightly reordered the episodes to match the listings on TVTome and other sites, though this site disagrees with them. I haven't confirmed them yet by watching them (most of them are available on BitTorrent now!) but I'm fairly sure this is the correct ordering (and titles). -- Wapcaplet 05:06, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

DVD order, from savewonderfalls. -- Jeandré, 2004-09-23t15:11z

Télé-Québec.

When, if ever, were the episodes aired on Télé-Québec? If they were aired, we should have some premiere dates. -- Wapcaplet 22:16, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

TQ site says Wednesday nights (repeated Sundays). Probably 2004-11-03, 2004-11-10, 2004-11-17; 2004-12-08, 2004-12-15 for episodes 7/9; 12/13. -- Jeandré, 2004-09-23t15:11z

Geos.tv lists the broadcast dates for the unaired sodes, 5 through 13. Télé-Québec premiered the unaired sodes dubbed in French. Jaye Tyler's voice was done by Caroline Dhavernas herself (source savewonderfalls.com). It ran Oct 20, 2004 through Dec 15, 2004 every Wednesday. -- Mouse209 06:36PST 6/3/2005

Show similarity

The article says : possibly to avoid competition with the then-unproven, similar series Joan of Arcadia and Dead Like Me. While I completely agree about the Joan of Arcadia point, I think Tru Calling would fit better than Dead Like Me in that comparison, so I was wondering if someone should change that (I'm obviously new to this and I don't want to do something I shouldn't). Mynock 20:26, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Done. If, in the future, you see something you think is wrong on an article, be bold, and fix it! That's the purpose of a wiki, after all. :D -- Michael Warren | Talk 21:53, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ok next time I will ;). Mynock 00:33, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

On a related note, an anonymous contributor made the accusation that it was "no coincidence" that Joan of Arcadia and Wonderfalls were similar because both were based on Joan of Arc. I felt the statement to be rather POV so I reworded it to say that it was a coincidence, which by all accounts it was. 23skidoo 14:05, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Related Comic Strip Productions

Wonderfallouts. A short lived comic series that became almost synonymous itself with the series. It appeared shortly after FOX's cancellation and premiered on SaveWonderfalls.com's disscusion board. Its characters centered around the fall-out of show's talking animals; hence the name Wonderfall-outs. Set in the day in the life of Jaye Tyler in Niagara Falls, NY, and as the unemployed souvenirs/actors they were.

The artist, from California, is a C.A.D. and Compsci AS grad. and drawing as a non-professional cartoonist for 14+ years. He signs his name "Luigi" to 100 original & inspired characters (including 9 from Wonderfallouts).

Its 3-frame strips were infamous for its colorful humor and bad spelling. Hence non-professional. --Mouse209 6/6/2005 10:14PST Wonderfallouts

DVD comment re: savewonderfalls.com

Someone added a statement that the DVD release of the series was directly a result of the savewonderfalls.com campaign. I am aware that a few statements to this effect are made on the commentary tracks, but has it been confirmed officially that the DVD was the result of public demand? We're in an era where the DVD release of a TV series is considered almost as obligatory as the eventual release of theatrical films to DVD. What we need is a citation of a press release, news story, or some other reliable source that confirms Fox's decision was based on the fan campaign and not other factors. 23skidoo 02:28, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Denial of Existence

I don't particularly care whether other TV shows have wrong entries too. Wonderfalls does indeed exists; if you disagree, please let us know where you think it went. If you think it still exists but is no longer a TV show, please tell us what it is now.

You might also find it instructive to read some other articles about works of art like Ulysses (novel), Romeo and Juliet, Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven). None of these is no longer in production, in fact the authors are long dead. The art remains though and is present.

This was one of the silliest arguments I've seen on Wikipedia in a long time. It is perfectly correct to use either the past term "was" or present term "is" to describe a television series that is no longer in production. The whole "no longer in existence" thing just made the debate look stupid, I'm sorry. 23skidoo 12:43, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it isn't, and just saying doesn't make it so. You are borderline WP:NPA, please take care to offer arguments instead of just trying to start an argument.

As I have pointed out in the examples above, it is common to regard a piece of art as present, because it is present. I can't see why this should be different with TV shows.

And as his two cents to this "debate" pointed out, it is just as reasonable to refer to it in the past or present tense. Look, it really has reached ridiculous levels - it grew even pettier when you made a completely nonconstructive edit to...what, prove a point, I guess? At this point, I don't really care whether a show I never watched was or is. Keep it this way, and I'm sorry you (seemingly) took it so personally. And please remember to sign with four tildes. Bkessler23 15:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

He claimed it did, but gave no reason why it should be different than with other works of art. --193.254.155.48

HDTV?

The infobox says Wonderfalls was made in HDTV. Unless there's a source to back that up I dispute that as Fox certainly never aired it on HDTV and there's no indication on the DVD set that it was HDTV either. It was widescreen but not all shows produced widescreen are HDTV. Enterprise wasn't produced in HDTV until it's 4th season. 23skidoo 14:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I changed the picture format to EDTV, since this is what Fox was broadcasting in when Wonderfalls was on. They didn't start broadcasting in 720p HDTV until the 2004-2005 season. According to this site, Wonderfalls was broadcasting in 480p Dolby Digital 5.1, but not in HDTV. rvb_strongbad 03:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Other air zones

I may be mistaken, but I remember catching one or two episodes of this series in Australia earlier this year (April or May?) on late night television (perhaps Channel 9). I haven't been able to verify this at the moment. However, I'm quite sure I saw MUCH more than the first four episodes; what I saw seemed to be a conclusion of some sort. Will keep tracking.Ratty86 14:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm in Sydney and on watched the show earlier this year on Ch9. They did air the entire series on a pretty late time slot though. Ran until the final episode. RandomEcho 23:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm in Singapore and my sis told me she watched the entire series broadcast on free-to-air some time back after she saw me watching the DVDs the other day. The version shown on TV was of course censored. Roy 09:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Censored? Seriously, what could they censor in this? :o 82.161.89.103 16:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm late, but seriously what could be censored? As close as they get to even swearing is "fu--" with a cut half way through the word... EAi 18:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

This August 2005 Times of Oman article suggests Wonderfalls was to broadcast in the Middle East. Awesome! Anyone heard anything out of Antarctica? --Mouse209 03:15PST 10/29/2006

Plot

Would it be appropriate to include an overview of the series, as well as the behind-the-scenes trivia that this article is mainly composed of?Davind 03:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Someone really should do this ... Bryan Fuller deverse better! --Cokeandpoprocks (talk) 19:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Production history section

I have edited this section because it became a rant against reality TV; remember WP:NPOV. Also, the article cited the Friday night death slot as a factor in Wonderfalls' cancellation, however if you look at the original airdates for the 4 Fox episodes and actually compare them to the calendar for March and April 2004 you see that no episode actually aired on Friday; three episodes aired on Saturday and one on Thursday. If in fact the show did air on Friday, then the episode dates given in this article, as well as at tv.com and the IMDb are incorrect. 23skidoo 12:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the comment should be removed, but regarding the air dates, they are correct. The first three episodes aired on March 12th, 19th, and 26th, all Fridays (I checked the computers calendar and they all correspond to Fridays). The fourth episode aired on April 1st, a Thursday, so the dates do not need to be changed. Remember that the fourth episode aired is the second episode on the DVD. The dates are also confirmed by the dates listed on the DVD box for disc one. The Wikipedia article for March 2004 is wrong, other websites confirm that those dates are correct and that they were all Fridays, the last being a Thursday. rvb_strongbad 03:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Never throw away an old calendar. The calendar people change the days of the dates every year ;) Seriously though, I don't see anything wrong with the sentence. It is supported by a reference, and there are plenty of other sources for it, and more generally about reality tv having an effect on scripted shows. - Chip Zero 13:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm willing to stand corrected, but can anyone explain this to me? -- Check the calendar at March 2004. It shows these dates as being Saturdays; if this calendar is wrong then that means a big problem. 23skidoo 13:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a better source for this than the existing source? The title of the review is "Wonder Falls was Wonderful! FOX MUST PAAAAAAAAAAY!" and it reads more like a rant than a proper review or discussion about cancellation. Since the site is self-published, I don't think it passes the criteria in WP:RS, so it cannot be used as a source for that material. I think removal of that passage is justified per the above. If there is a reliable source that talks about the reason for cancellation, that a similar passage can be added to the article. --GargoyleMT 16:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to add to the above, I have to state that I am only standing corrected on the date issue -- which would mean Wikipedia's calendar for March 2004 is wrong -- I still do not feel the POV statements that were removed have any place in the article. 23skidoo 17:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

cal (Unix) agrees that the Wikipedia March 2004 is wrong. According to cal, in 2004 the 1st was a Monday. The Wikipedia article says that the 1st was Tuesday. April 2004 agrees with cal, and February 2004 has no month box. I'm going to correct the Wikipedia article now... --GargoyleMT 18:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm scared to look and see if the error didn't create some sort of domino effect with other months. Well, if nothing else comes from this episode at least we caught a major error in Wikipedia. 23skidoo 21:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not scared, it just makes more to clean up. As I said, April was good, it started on the day after cal said March ended. And there was no calendar present in February, so there was nothing to fix there either. The style on the monthly pages is inconsistent, but nothing seems broken as a result of my change. The calendar in March wasn't added until January 11, 2005. It's been wrong for a while, but not from the beginning. --GargoyleMT 21:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems there is no good (automatic) month template yet, so the march calendar was actually coded by hand, which explains the mistake. About the cancellation — I changed the wording and added new references. I really think these statements should be there, as they are the main reasons for the cancellation. Leaving them out makes the article read like Joan of Arcadia was the sole reason of its cancellation, with the superficial similarity and all. And it probably was a factor, but not as major as the other reasons (i.e., they "foxored" it up). - Chip Zero 22:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

If the goof was made by hand, that's a relief. I had visions of dozens of calendar articles having to be fixed. 23skidoo 22:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a better source for the "reality TV" angle? The Iron Warrior article mentions Wonderfalls only in passing, and the "world's greatest critic" link is still there... I don't think either really back up the claim. (The first one is good. I guess Tim Minear has his own blog? This might be useful in talking about Friday being the reason for cancellation... but there's nothing in the cancellation announcement or afterwards on his site that makes the connection (and would be a better source.))--GargoyleMT 22:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

If you guys feel the passage about reality tv should be removed, so be it. It is mostly mentioned on ("self-published") blogs and some site-news articles. I couldn't really find a better source for it, perhaps due to time constraints. (But remember that WP:RS is just a guideline.) If you think the source is too weak, you could also add a {{Fact}} tag — and perhaps one on the statement about "[viewers] dismissing the series as a ripoff of the now-popular Joan of Arcadia" would be appropriate too. - Chip Zero 08:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to jump in on a dead conversation, Tim Minear actually released a general letter to fans of Wonderfalls regarding the Friday night death slot on 16 March 2004.[1][2] I have it with a couple of graphics, converted into pdf back on 25 March 2004. [3] Also there is a poster that announces the move to Thursdays beginning 1 April 2004.[4][5] As to the showing being a rip-off of Joan Of Arcadia, it was intended to be a mid-season show.[6] The link that page on Tim Minear's site is dead thanks to the SciFi → Syfy thing. The full SciFiWire article is available at archive.org.[7] If you happen to have noticed, tv shows go in trends. A decade ago the big thing was medical dramas. Then the lawyer shows. These years the big theme is criminalistics. The "am i talking to God?" genre is fairly small but just because Joan beat Jaye to our tv screens is no reason to call Wonderfalls a rip-off. There are months and sometimes years of work that go into a show before you see it on Friday night. delirious & lost ☯ ^{~talk to her~} 23:25, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Airing delayed

The article currently mentions that Wonderfalls "was delayed until early 2004, possibly to avoid competition with the similarly-themed series Joan of Arcadia". Is there any source that this was or could have been the reason for the delay? It seems to me that they should've aired it sooner rather than later in face of the competition/confusion with Joan. - Chip Zero 21:48, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed this for now. If anyone wants to see it back, please source it and/or discuss here. - Chip Zero 18:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine without it.. :P Illyria05 (Talk • Contributions) 01:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If the strategy was to avoid competition with "Joan", it certainly backfired. Delaying "Wonderfalls" until "Joan" had tested the waters and been on the air for three months made "Wonderfalls" look like a copycat series (which it was not) and probably contributed to its early cancellation.CharlesTheBold (talk) 16:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

What about View-masters in Wonderfalls?

The whole point of Wonderfalls was the symbolism of view-masters used within each episode. The view-master page links to this one so it'd be good to give some detail about this, don't you think? 86.133.163.84 (talk) 21:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• What is your source for the Viewmasters being the "whole point"? That's OR unless you can provide a source that supports such a statement. They could just as easily been a simple design motif. If someone has actually written an article or other work on this subject, then yes it should be included. But otherwise it's just trivia, which is forbidden under the current Wikipedia regime. 23skidoo (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Teen Drama?!

It is listed as a Teen Drama, but, come on, it is not a "teen drama"... It has nothing to do with teen drama, the show is totally not about teenagers, it is more likely to be listed as a Black Comedy. Someone should change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.17.200.170 (talk) 01:10, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I've removed the "teen dramas" category. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:11, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

• • I support that. There aren't even any teen cast members, and Jaye is clearly depicted as being in her late 20s. Possibly added by someone unfamiliar with the series. 23skidoo (talk) 23:19, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Canada

How is this show Canadian? - unsigned comment by 85.220.117.244 (talk)

• It was filmed in Canada, using Canadian crew, and featured a Canadian actor in the lead role. There were other factors that made it a Canadian co-production. (Similarly, Minnear's other series, Dead Like Me was also a Canadian co-production.) 23skidoo (talk) 19:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

However it was NOT filmed for Canadian broadcast, It was filmed for American broadcast. It was financed by Amercian production companies to be aired on American tv. Swampfire (talk) 03:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

According to MAPL guidelines, that qualifies it to be considered a Canadian show. 68.149.186.57 (talk) 05:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Two Words theme song?

The article says that the title of the theme song is two words, but everywhere I check, it lists the "Wonderfalls" in the theme song as one word "I wonder why the Wonderfalls" thats how they have it on iTunes, and when I googled it as two words, it didn't come up with anything, but as one word it worked 24.148.26.74 (talk) 01:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Infobox image

I'm going to restore the previous infobox image, which I believe conveys much more information about the series and so is a lot more helpful and informative to readers, while still falling under fair use guidelines as a promotional image. If there is some reason to use another image, please explain in this talk page section. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 17:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Muses?

Never in any of the episodes does the show refer to the talking animals as muses, so I'm curious why that word has been chosen for them in this article (if perhaps it was used in DVD commentary or something). A muse is a very specific thing in terms of mythology and religion, and since the show leaves the question of spirituality open I don't think it's right to just use that term. Even if you are just using "muse" in a general way, it doesn't fit. The animals don't exactly provide inspiration.71.190.182.22 (talk) 12:40, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The creators/writers refer to them as muses in the commentary tracks and in interviews for special features on the DVD. Drovethrughosts (talk) 13:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Episode order revisited

It is long-standing WP:TV practice that episodes in episode tables should be listed in the order they were aired in, not in the so-called "production order". We include the prod. codes at many articles – that is why prod. codes are included: for anyone who is interested in the so-called "production" or "story" order. But that is not how they should be arranged in episode tables. (For series that were aired significantly out of "story" order, prose can be added to the section to go over all of that...)

In any case, I'll be intending to reorder the episodes in the episode table in airing order in the near future. This message is just an advanced heads up on this. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:02, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. If there's precedence to use another order, which happens to be the correct order, we should do that. The order in the article is the DVD order, which definitely makes it official; it's some order made up by fans. Plus, the production codes don't reveal the chronological order either, because as you can see, they're not sequential. Using the correct order is more beneficial to readers. Changing it after so many years is arbitrary, backwards and unhelpful. Drovethrughosts (talk) 17:12, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Drovethrughosts: If this is going to be insisted upon (and, FTR, I think Firefly (TV series) is the only other article that doesn't follow WP:TV practices on this issue, and doesn't do it right either, IMO...), then the first column needs to have its heading changed to "DVD order" (and preferably sourced) as per Earth 2 (TV series). Not doing this is highly misleading, because every other TV series under WP:TV lists episodes in airing order. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:54, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Agreed that the only way we should be order television series episodes is in the order they were broadcast/aired. Any other order is irrelevant. Amaury (talk | contribs) 18:03, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm OK with there being a few exceptions to the general practice, as long as they are limited in number (right now, I think it's just two...), are justifiable, and are following some sort of "system" for making clear that the episodes are not being shown in "airing order". That should involve explanatory prose, a different column heading, and clear sourcing/referencing... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:06, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd have to argue that Any other order is irrelevant is wrong. There are always exceptions to rules, or in this case guidelines. Firefly is a great example of that. The airing order is arguably the reason that the program was cancelled early. It was aired in an order that made no sense and which confused viewers. Fortunately most programs aren't like that. Even those with the odd episode that is aired out of sequence are not adversely affected the way that Firefly was. As for this program, I can't say that I have ever watched an episode. --AussieLegend (✉) 18:14, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes. When this came up at Earth 2 (TV series), there was opposition to ordering by anything other than airing order because only two episodes out of 21 were aired "out of order" – in situations like that, it makes sense to follow the guideline. Wonderfalls and Firefly are arguably the two cases where it does seem to make sense to not follow the guideline and list episodes by other than by "airing order". My problem with this is that all of this needs to be very clear, some sort of "system" to follow, in these exceptional cases – there is literally nothing in the 'Episodes' section at Firefly (TV series) that explains what is going on there. At least at this article, there's some explanation of what's being done – I'd just like to see that column heading changed to make it painfully clear. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

To follow up, I guess for your traditional sitcoms it doesn't matter so much, but with dramas, airing in production order matters much, much more. Amaury (talk | contribs) 18:42, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Just to have a quick note on Firefly, there's an explanation about the airing order in "Broadcast history" and I think at one point (I might be wrong), the episode list was in a sub-section under "Broadcast history" until it was moved farther up the page into its own section; it's easy really to just shift the information around to make the explanation leading into the list. IMO, like, this isn't a case of "production order" vs "broadcast order" but a specific case of the series' entire narrative being written for a specific order of episodes that was not, for whatever reason, broadcast that way. That's a significant reason to list the episodes in a narrative order rather than broadcast order. To say that episodes should always be listed in airing order, no matter what, as Amaury seems to be suggesting in my understanding, just seems unreasonable. I absolutely support IJBall's suggestion that, here and on Firefly and other series where this happens in a significant manner (Almost Human (TV series) for another), the articles should make more clear what's going on, whether that is by adding a "broadcast order" column, renaming headings, or adding some prose right before the listing explaining the situation. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 18:37, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Almost Human (TV series) seems to be listed in airing order, from what I can tell... There is a prose section, further down, explaining the ordering thing, though the way it's set up right now is confusing – probably that info needs to be put in tabular form... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:41, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Prior to this edit, List of Firefly episodes contained a fairly substantial explanation. When it was removed it wasn't moved to the main article. List of Firefly Episodes (note the capitalisation difference) points to the section noted by TenTonParasol. --AussieLegend (✉) 18:47, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

OK, I'll try to remember to take a look at that, and restore the relevant parts to the 'Episodes' section of Firefly (TV series), when I'm less busy (hopefully, a couple of weeks from now... [fingers crossed] ), unless someone beats me to it... In the meantime, here, I'm going to change the column heading to the episodes table, like I suggested. It might also be worth adding an "airing order" column to the table at this article, similar (but flipped) to what we did at Earth 2 (TV series), but I'll hold off on that to see if there are any comments about it... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:59, 6 May 2018 (UTC)