![]() Although given the way AMC botched its pristine run with “The Killing,” I won’t be shy about pulling the “Wilfred” season pass if it doesn’t improve within a few episodes. ![]() It airs Thursday nights on F/X (and opened with the highest debut for a comedy in the network’s history), and that station has a remarkable track record with both dramas and comedy (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Archer,” “The League”), so it’ll get the benefit of the doubt, for now. The pilot episode, overall, isn’t all that engaging, but it lays out the ingredients of a more promising show, one that I’d be inclined to continue watching. ![]() Watching a grown man hump a teddy bear is mildly amusing once, but the welcome mat will be pulled if Wilfred continues to dry hump through the series. Easy jokes, yes, but I didn’t say they weren’t funny, although it’s hard not to believe that that aspect of the show might wear thin quickly. Zuckerman also brings some of his sophomoric humor over from “Family Guy,” giving in to the easy jokes, as in the scene where Wilfred motorboats a waitress and humps her leg. By episode’s end, the sentiment is already bubbling up as the MacFarlane influence takes a backseat to slightly more sophisticated emotional beats of Einhorn. Through some perseverance, in the pilot alone Wilfred convinces Ryan to smoke a bong, quit a job he hadn’t even started, and shit in a boot, as the two form a budding bromance. Woods’ Ryan is a pushover, a sensitive yes man, and Wilfred is trying to get him to give in to his baser, Seth MacFarlane instincts, to be less responsible, more of an asshole. You can feel the two sensibilities competing in the show’s themes. The series - adapted from a darker, more daring Australian show of the same name - is being reworked by David Zuckerman (“Family Guy,” “American Dad”) for American audiences, and Randall Einhorn (a TV director for shows such as “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation, and “Happy Endings”) directs many of the episodes (including the pilot). Ed,” or The Beaver or Lars and the Real Girl, or any other show where the lead forms a therapeutic relationship with an imaginary friend, and that’s all we need to understand. Gann - equal parts deadpan and boorish, like a muted Dane Cook minus half of the douchebaggery - is compelling enough that we overlook the obvious, and in a matter of minutes, we readily give in to the conceit. Supernatural explanations, dreams, and hallucinations are ruled out early on it’s just the way it is, and “Wilfred” is not the kind of show that begs answers. ![]() The world sees Wilfred as a dog Ryan sees Wilfred as a man dressed in a dog suit. Wilfred - played by Jason Gann in both the American series and Australian one it’s based upon - is part Australian Shepherd, part Russell Crowe on a bender. Transport your pet to Middle Earth with this handmade cotton costume bandana Frodo Baggins’ shirt, waistcoat, and jacket are trimmed with tiny buttons. The next morning, his attractive neighbor, Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann), asks Ryan to take her dog, Wilfred, for the day. Elijah Wood - formerly Frodo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Puppet Master on “Yo Gabba Gabba!” - plays Ryan, a depressed introvert struggling to find social and professional happiness, who, in the opening scenes, fails to take his own life after revising his suicide letter three times. Build A Bear.I’m reluctant to pass judgment on a show based on the first 23 minutes of a series, but if the pilot episode is any indication of the series as a whole, F/X’s “Wilfred” looks to be a casually amusing, but not a particularly resonant television program. I do have the matching bear on my other page. Item: 404347477371 LORD OF THE RINGS Build A Bear BNWT Frodo Costume Cloack Slippers Sword WRISTIE.
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