Unlike a lot of television critics, I actually have a lot of respect for the audience. Sure, they sometimes have different tastes than I do, but that's the case in books and music too. I could complain about the success of crap like Third Rock From The Sun, but the truth is that more often that not, when the audience doesn't like a show, there's a good reason.
So I'm hesitant to say that a show--particularly a drama--is too good for television. Although I can reel off a number of shows that should have been hits. Nowhere Man, Leaving L.A., Cracker, Freaks and Geeks..the list is a long one. And yet, it pains me to say that a show is just too strong, too honest to find a mass audience.
And yet that's then case with Wonderland.
It took Peter Berg a long time to get this show on the air, and one look at the first episode lets you know that he's created something as distinctive in its own way as Hill Street Blues, E.R. or Homicide: Life On The Street.
Much of the show is set in New York City's Rivervue Hospital, a psychiatric and emergency hospital engulfed in the sick, troubled and violent. From the first scene, viewers are buried in the psychosis. The camera jumps frantically from scene to scene, often in a split second. While there's a momentary attempt to lessen some of the impact with short flashes of normalcy, in the end the relentless sadness of it all buries the viewer.
The nominal head of the wing is Dr. Robert Banger (Ted Levine), who heads up the forensic psychiatry wing and struggles to balance the intensity of his job with the love he has for his two boys. He's in the middle of a custody battle, and as it plays out in the pilot, it's clear that he's a great father. It's just not so clear whether they need some distance from him--just to protect their childlike impression of the world.
In fact, Banger sets the mood for every other character in the show. The underlying theme is that everyone is battling with mental demons, and the only thing separating the stable from the troubled is the luck of the draw and some internal strength.
The nominal centerpiece of the the pilot is a man who guns down Police and pedestrians in Times Square. It turns out that he was turned away from Rivervue several days earlier by the head of the hospital's Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program. The ramifications of that decision are horrifying on a number of levels, and lead to a climactic scene in the emergency room where a pregnant Dr. Garrity's (Michelle Forbes) life is changed forever.
As I write this review I realize there's no way I could begin to describe the plot of just this one episode. The writing is dense, frentic at times, and often I had to rewind my tape to catch some brief snippet of dialogue or movement. There are jarring explosions of emotion and texture in nearly every scene, and even now I'm not sure that I caught half of what I should have noticed.
There's a lot to recommend about this show. Peter Berg's writing is sharp and well-layered. And his direction compliments his writing style completely--even if I did occassionally wish he'd let me take a breath.
And the acting was just as varied and powerful. There isn't a bad performance in the bunch, and some deserve special mention. Michelle Forbes (Homicide: Life On The Street) runs through every emotion in the book in the pilot, and manages to humanize her character perhaps more than any other in the ensemble. Ted Levine steals every scene he's in and guest star Leland Orser does things as "Rickie" that I won't soon be able to forget.
In fact, there's not a reason in the world why this show shouldn't succeed. Except for this one.
ABC has seemingly made a mini-trend out of creating amazing, dark and depressing dramas. Then after the shows hit the air, they seem to just drift on into the horizon. Thursdays and Saturdays have both been dumping grounds for these generally wonderful dramas. Remember Nothing Sacred? Cracker? Murder One? A person could fill a network schedule with these things and still have programming left for syndication.
And in the end, that's my fear for Wonderland. It's powerful, often dark, sometimes painful and depressing. But it's a magnificent example of what broadcast television can accomplish. And if ABC could put 1/10th of the promotional muscle behind this show that HBO does with its schedule, I'd be here talking about this show next year.
I just have this feeling it's not going to happen.