‘Wilfred’ Is a Dog, So Why Does Elijah Wood See Him as a Man?

Wilfred is a new television show. It is airing on FX in June. It features a suicidal Elijah Wood. Next door to Suicidal Elijah Wood is a woman with a dog. The world, by and large, sees the dog as a dog. Suicidal Elijah Wood, however, sees it as a man in a dog suit. The dog, by the way, is called Wilfred.

Does this baffle anyone else as much as it baffles me?

In the words of Eddie Izzard, I just want to have been in the room when they were working that one through.

I’ve actually just discovered that Wilfred was originally an Australian show that’s getting an American remake. I’ll be interested to see if it’ll work; American remakes of foreign television shows have a history of not going so well. Consider, for example, the extremely short-lived Viva Laughlin. Classified as a “musical-dramady,” Viva Laughlin featured an inexplicable jukebox musical format wherein characters would often burst out into song. But the weirdest part wasn’t the singing; it was that these musical sequences were done simply by having the actors sing over the original recordings of the songs in question. Weird, right? I know. That’s probably why it tanked. Here’s the thing, though: Viva Laughlin was based off of the British show Blackpool. I’ve seen Blackpool. It’s surprisingly enjoyable. And also, if I’d seen it before the creation of Viva Laughlin and someone had told me they were going to adapt it for American television, you know what I would have said? “That’s NEVER going to work.”

I understand the impulse to take these sorts of shows and remake them for American television. I do. They’re popular in their home countries and they’re remarkably unique ideas, so why not try to bring something like that to the States? Here’s the thing, though: I’m not surprised that the Brits came up with Blackpool. I’m not surprised that the Australians came up with Wilfred. American audiences are willing to watch these incredibly strange concepts in their original form because they have the veil of “Oh, how quirkily British!” (or whatever) to add to their mystique. They’re quaint. They’re a little wacky. And they’re from somewhere else. So of course we love them. They become much less interesting when they’re shoved through the American television system and just become weird instead.

Of course, this is by no means a rule, and even if it were, there are most certainly exceptions, The Office being the most notable; but it’s also worth noting that The Office only hit its stride after it stopped trying to be the British version and allowed itself to evolve into something of its own. So maybe the American Wilfred will surprise me. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt until I see it for myself. But it could go either way. Who knows?