Wilfred is one weird, weird show. It begins, normally enough, with a guy trying to kill himself and failing. But then the meat of the premise is introduced: Ryan meets his neighbor Jenna and her dog Wilfred--who looks like man in a dog costume to Ryan, only he's actually a dog. People see Wilfred as a normal dog, but Ryan sees Wilfred as a guy in a dog suit and hears Wilfred speaking to him. It's kind of like Calvin and Hobbes in live-action form with much cruder jokes.
The weirdness is what carries the show, at least initially. I was entranced by the bizarre nature of this whole thing, how Ryan reacts to Wilfred and Wilfred's outrageous behavior which is normalized by the fact that he is a dog. Elijah Wood and Jason Gann are terrific together and it makes for an all-around good time.
I'm not quite sure about the plot, though. There's Ryan's sister Kristen who spends the episode yelling at him for being a loser, Wilfred and Ryan breaking into Spencer's house and stealing pot plants, and Wilfred pinning it on Ryan, and finally Jenna and her belief that Wilfred really likes Ryan. But we don't get much indication exactly how the plot will work through the course of the season aside from the general idea that both Wilfred and Ryan are messed up in their own ways which will drive each episode.
Score: 8.9/10
