Wilfred, FX's new comedy series starring Elijah Wood, debuted Thursday night — and it's a far cry from Frodo's Middle Earth quest. Wood stars as Ryan, a gloomy lawyer who, after a failed suicide attempt, starts hanging out with his neighbor's dog, Wilfred. But there's a twist. While everyone else sees Wilfred as an actual canine, Ryan (perhaps as a side-effect of his depression) sees a walking, talking man dressed in a cheap dog suit. As Ryan struggles with confusion, Wilfred starts serving as his life coach, "a potty-mouthed, bitter" Oprah." Absurd as it sounds, the "brilliant, twisted" comedy is getting near-universal rave reviews. Can a show this weird possibly be that good? (Watch a clip from the show.)
It's "surreal"... in a good way: Wilfred is "strange, twisted," and, yes, "hilarious," says Alan Sepinwall at HitFix. There's an unlikely cleverness in the way actor Jason Gann portrays Wilfred as a man and dog "in equal measure," eloquently expressing a real canine's "fears and fixations." And Wood's "wide, ridiculously blue eyes" are put to good use conveying horror, confusion, and disbelief at the whole bizarre situation.
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