Every time the Wallace & Gromit films give Wallace, the human half of the claymation duo, a love interest of some sort, people tend to react as though there were something unusual about this, as though such a thing had never been done before. Case in point: in a recent post on the upcoming short film A Matter of Loaf and Death — which was called Trouble at Mill when it was first announced eight months ago — the sci-fi blog io9 actually emits a “gasp!” over the fact that Wallace seems to have a new girlfriend in the person of one Piella Bakewell. But what about Wendolene Ramsbottom in A Close Shave (1995) or Lady Campanula Tottington in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)? Hasn’t Wallace been friendly with the ladies before? I guess the difference this time is that Wallace may have finally gotten beyond the flirting stage. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how Gromit responds to there being someone else in Wallace’s life. As we saw when that penguin moved in, in The Wrong Trousers (1992), Wallace can be easily distracted, in ways that leave his pal in the doghouse — literally. And if the filmmakers ever really want to startle us, maybe they’ll give Gromit someone to pine for.
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