Dollhouse - Man on the Street.
Mar. 21st, 2009 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWell, I survived another week. Decided to forgo Friday Night Lights, and watch the two hour BSG final live instead, while DVR'ing the pivotal Dollhouse episode 1.6, Man on the Street, which I watched this morning.
I don't have a lot to say about BSG. Except that I enjoyed it and that the ending made sense and tracked. I can't say it was that big of a surprise. The series could only end a limited number of ways, and of the possibilities - this ending made the most logical sense thematically. What I loved about the finale is that it was in large part a mediatation on the main characters, exploring where they'd come from, been, and ended up. Who each character was within the framework of the story and the thematic arc. And through that mediation, it answered the central question posed by the series - which is what is it to be human, and what if anything should we make of our relationship to god, each other, and the universe? How do we resolve the inherent conflicts between ourselves, can we? Also the series ended much as it began - with Gaius Baltar and Six, and the line all this has happened before and it will all happen again, although as Six points out, it doesn't necessarily have to - we may and can choose differently.
Dollhouse - Man on the Street
This episode is by far the best I've seen to date, and does a good job of bringing the story arc into focus. I sort of wish it had been the pilot, but understand why the network shyed away from doing that. The episode could have been confusing to a new viewer, brain fried from work.
Man on the Street, written and directed by Joss Whedon, refers to a tv reporter doing a series of man on the street interviews with people about the Dollhouse. All shapes, sizes and ethnicities. The Dollhouse according to the interviewer and the people he talks to is a well-known urban myth in LA. Like many urban legends and myths - some people believe it is true, others shrug it off as not much more than legends.
Urban myths and legends are to a degree based on real events, and more often than not embellishments of that real event or occurrence. An example - someone probably at some point ended up with a rat in a shopping bag - but they don't remember what store - it may have a sleazy store, which makes a boring story. So they embellish it and say it was Nieman Marcus. Then they add that they heard it from their cousin, and of course it is "true". True stories have a greater impact than false ones. Other myths and legends are morality horror tales that we tell one another to provide good advice - such as don't park on the side of a deserted country road and have sex, because you might run into an escaped murderer. OR you might want to be careful of unwrapped, homemade or fresh fruit that you get from strangers homes on Halloween - if you don't know the person, taking food from them may or may not be the safest thing to do.
The interviews regarding the legend - which is about an underground facility somewhere in LA where there are people who can be turned into whatever fantasy person you desire. They are imprinted with your fantasy person's personality and will do more or less what you want. The possibilities are endless. Then wiped clean, no memory of it, and no consequences. You get to live your fantasy but needn't worry about the consequences or any strings. Sure you are using another person to do it, but the other person agreed, they volunteered, and they have no memory of it afterwards. They are compliant.
In an interview a while back, Joss Whedon stated that he's always been interested in the relationship between predator and prey, but in Dollhouse unlike all his other series, he finds himself writing from the perspective of the predator - with the predator the one in control. Which does have a certain "ick" factor - part of the ick factor is the realization that there are quite a few people out there, nice, kind, good people, who get off on the idea of a Dollhouse. Whedon explores that in this episode partly through the man on the street interviews.
Is it wrong to fantasize? Or is it wrong to role play and make that fantasy actuality? May depend on the fantasy and the players.
The episode begins with Echo playing Rebecca Miner, who learn is a hardworking nurse who died in a car accident before her video game developer hubby was able to give her the house of her dreams. The fantasy that we are in is the video game developer's - who now has more money than he knows what to do with, but misses his wife and on the anniversary of her death fantasizes about how she'd have reacted seeing the house he'd bought them - moving from the one room apartment to this. He's hired the Dollhouse to provide him with that fantasy, Echo is playing his wife, Rebecca Miner, and has his wife's personality.
Agent Ballard comes into the middle of this fantasy, hoping to save Echo or rather Caroline. And he tells Miner, the internet developer, that his fantasy and use of Echo is maligned, icky, not to mention criminal. Miner aptly defends himself, stating, are you in a better position to judge? You are in a way chasing your own fantasy - to be the hero, save the girl. How do you know that your fantasy isn't real? Ballard insists what he is doing is for the greater good and it is not just Caroline he wishes to save, but all the dolls. But Miner says, is it so wrong to want to live out my fantasy? It's there. I don't own the Dollhouse. I don't run it. And I can't stop it. Why I can't I use it? Also you can't arrest or hurt me, the internet will overrule you.
A commentary, I think, on one of the downsides of the information and technology revolution. If we can do it - does that mean we should? And to what degree are we responsible?
It's an interesting dilemma. A few weeks back, I had a rather distasteful argument regarding the video game Rapeplay. I'm repeating it here - because in a way it fits with one of the questions posed in this episode.
Me: Did you see the article about the Japanese role playing video game Rapeplay? It's a game where the user, the person who purchases or plays the game, is in the role of a recently released sexual molester. (You/Player) Molester -- are the sexual predator, you go after the mother and younger sister of the woman that you had raped and molested. You get points for the number of times you capture them and rape them. This is prohibited in the US but permitted in Japan. And people can get versions of it.
D: Sounds perfectly harmless. A fantasy that they are playing. I don't see the problem. Sure it's icky. But it's just a fantasy. People have nasty thoughts. It's human nature.
Me: But this is encouraging people to engage in those thoughts.
D: They are just doing it in the privacy of their own home.
Me: But they are getting awarded for hurting others. Not seeing the consequences. It's like a rat being awarded for hitting the right button with cheese.
D: Points aren't the same as cheese. (Pause) I'm a libertarian. I disagree with you. I think people should be permitted to do what they want.
Me: Within reason, if they are hurting others or being cruel - that shouldn't...I mean, I'm not saying you can't have fantasies and think whatever you want inside your own head. But to make money off of a game that encourages people to hurt one another in this way? To get points for doing it??? This isn't the same as reading Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho..
D: Isn't it? You are playing the game in the privacy of your own home. You aren't doing it. Why not be unihibited and let yourself live the fantasy? No one is being hurt. The people in the game aren't real.
I don't know the answers. But the justifications disturb me. Dollhouse is disturbing in the same way - because we are in the point of view of the predator, seeing their justifications and rationalizations. How they look at the world. And unlike other shows, where the predator is often punished for hurting someone, these predators rarely are. In this respect, Dollhouse reminds me a great deal of David Lynch's surreal horror tale Twin Peaks, which barely made it to two seasons. Both ask similar questions - to what degree are we responsible for encouraging this behavior in ourselves and in others?
The reason I'm fascinated by this series is the puzzlebox aspect. In last night's episode, we learn that there is someone inside the Dollhouse who is working to expose it. That individual tells Ballard and through Ballard the audience - that there are Dollhouses around the world. I can't remember the exact number - I'm guessing around 20, but it is most likely more than that. And each House is connected to people high up in the political/power food chain. While they do for the most part mainly provide high-paying clients with fantasies, there is a larger purpose. The inside person or group, doesn't know what this purpose is. Finding it out may be the key to taking down the Dollhouse. So who is the inside man? Adelle DeWitt?Lennox Boyd Langton (must stop calling characters by actors names especially when I can't spell them correctly)? Topher? Ivy (Topher's assistant)? Or Dr. Saunders? I seriously doubt it is Dominic. Also Lennox Langton doesn't seem to know enough to be the right candidate. It has to be someone who knows what is going on and can manipulate things - my guess is DeWitt. Because Echo also tells Ballard - that he needs to let the Dollhouse win this engagement. Get them to back off. That they won't kill him, but they will kill others, innocents that know too much. So whomever is telling this to Ballard - knows Dewitt sent a nasty Handler after Ballard's girlfriend/neighbor April Mellie (according to one of the many fan sites). What is not clear is if they know April Mellie is a sleeper agent or doll?
That's the other piece of information that is revealed to us but not to Ballard -April Mellie is a doll or sleeper agent. The trigger is provided, she shifts into action mode and takes out the handler, killing him. Then shifts back to victim mode when Ballard reappears. Dewitt orders Dominic to bring AprilMellie in for debriefing, then send her back, because April Mellie is in love with Ballard and it helps to keep someone on his case.
What is not clear is whether Dewitt deliberately set up both situations to a)cover her ass and b) get information to Ballard. Dewitt reminds me a bit of a spider, in how she's written and her plotting.
As for our Dolls - turns out Sierra was being abused by her handler, who was basically raping her or molesting her. When the handler was asked if he enjoyed it more because she didn't struggle - the handler stated, no, that just made it easier. DeWitt's way of dealing with him is icky but also clever. She sends him off to kill Ballard's innocent girlfriend. Stating he should enjoy it, might even consider it a promotion, because this one will struggle. But the twist is that the girlfriend is a sleeper active, with one phone call, Dewitt switches the girl on and girl not only fights back, but she takes out and possibly kills him. Dominic says she played a good hand, DeWitt disagrees - I played a bad hand well. DeWitt may well be my favorite female character in this show - I can't quite decide what motivates her or what she cares about.
Echo - remains as mysterious as DeWitt - we aren't really sure what motivates her either.
Or why she came to the Dollhouse. The character consistently is attempting to help others.
TellingLennox Langton that Seirra cries in her pod. And DeWitt that she felt the picture was unfinished - which DeWitt reads as the assignment that Ballard so rudely interrupted. Because that is the last scene of the show.
Before that scene - as a reminder of the ick factor - we get an interview with yet another man on the street or talking head. This one is a scientist/professor and he states that if we have the technology to mind-wipe people, to remove, if you can imagine it, all our memories, our personality, our friends, who we love and our feelings regarding them - so that those people become enemies or strangers to us - then what are we? And if that technology existed, wouldn't it be used? On a global level? And used for nefarious and horrible reasons, not necessarily just good ones? If this is the case - then we are over as a race, we cease, it's all over, and maybe that is what we deserve.
It's odd to watch Dollhouse after the series finale of BSG, which dealt with similar issues but in a different context and way. Both ask the same questions - if we are capable and choose to destroy one another for our own selfish gain - do we deserve to survive? To what degree and when - do we take responsibility for the choices we make, and control our own nefarious desires? Acknowledge that actions have far reaching consequences?
Yet, the last scene of Dollhouse, on its surface is rather begnign (sp?) (harmless). It's just Miner seeing Echo as his long dead wife Rebecca, her face filled with joy at their house. Reliving that tragic day as it should have played out, and often has, in his own mind.But is it beinign? Is it harmless? Miner hasn't moved on. He has all this money, but for all we know he hasn't spent a dime to help others - to set a fund to help accident victims. Instead he lives in his mind, in his fantasy, whining about what could have, should have been. And the fantasy becomes almost a narcissitic day dream - his wife reacting the way and doing what he wants her to do. Not necessarily what she would have done. And Echo losing herself once again to play someone else...taking on a role, feeling these emotions, only to lose them all a moment later.
Is it ever justified? Regardless of the purpose? Using someone else...to make ourselves feel better, to live out our fantasies, to satisfy our dreams? Even if they are willing? Even if we pay them? Even if they forget it afterwards?
Like all well-written stories, these questions are left unanswered. At least for now.
I don't have a lot to say about BSG. Except that I enjoyed it and that the ending made sense and tracked. I can't say it was that big of a surprise. The series could only end a limited number of ways, and of the possibilities - this ending made the most logical sense thematically. What I loved about the finale is that it was in large part a mediatation on the main characters, exploring where they'd come from, been, and ended up. Who each character was within the framework of the story and the thematic arc. And through that mediation, it answered the central question posed by the series - which is what is it to be human, and what if anything should we make of our relationship to god, each other, and the universe? How do we resolve the inherent conflicts between ourselves, can we? Also the series ended much as it began - with Gaius Baltar and Six, and the line all this has happened before and it will all happen again, although as Six points out, it doesn't necessarily have to - we may and can choose differently.
Dollhouse - Man on the Street
This episode is by far the best I've seen to date, and does a good job of bringing the story arc into focus. I sort of wish it had been the pilot, but understand why the network shyed away from doing that. The episode could have been confusing to a new viewer, brain fried from work.
Man on the Street, written and directed by Joss Whedon, refers to a tv reporter doing a series of man on the street interviews with people about the Dollhouse. All shapes, sizes and ethnicities. The Dollhouse according to the interviewer and the people he talks to is a well-known urban myth in LA. Like many urban legends and myths - some people believe it is true, others shrug it off as not much more than legends.
Urban myths and legends are to a degree based on real events, and more often than not embellishments of that real event or occurrence. An example - someone probably at some point ended up with a rat in a shopping bag - but they don't remember what store - it may have a sleazy store, which makes a boring story. So they embellish it and say it was Nieman Marcus. Then they add that they heard it from their cousin, and of course it is "true". True stories have a greater impact than false ones. Other myths and legends are morality horror tales that we tell one another to provide good advice - such as don't park on the side of a deserted country road and have sex, because you might run into an escaped murderer. OR you might want to be careful of unwrapped, homemade or fresh fruit that you get from strangers homes on Halloween - if you don't know the person, taking food from them may or may not be the safest thing to do.
The interviews regarding the legend - which is about an underground facility somewhere in LA where there are people who can be turned into whatever fantasy person you desire. They are imprinted with your fantasy person's personality and will do more or less what you want. The possibilities are endless. Then wiped clean, no memory of it, and no consequences. You get to live your fantasy but needn't worry about the consequences or any strings. Sure you are using another person to do it, but the other person agreed, they volunteered, and they have no memory of it afterwards. They are compliant.
In an interview a while back, Joss Whedon stated that he's always been interested in the relationship between predator and prey, but in Dollhouse unlike all his other series, he finds himself writing from the perspective of the predator - with the predator the one in control. Which does have a certain "ick" factor - part of the ick factor is the realization that there are quite a few people out there, nice, kind, good people, who get off on the idea of a Dollhouse. Whedon explores that in this episode partly through the man on the street interviews.
Is it wrong to fantasize? Or is it wrong to role play and make that fantasy actuality? May depend on the fantasy and the players.
The episode begins with Echo playing Rebecca Miner, who learn is a hardworking nurse who died in a car accident before her video game developer hubby was able to give her the house of her dreams. The fantasy that we are in is the video game developer's - who now has more money than he knows what to do with, but misses his wife and on the anniversary of her death fantasizes about how she'd have reacted seeing the house he'd bought them - moving from the one room apartment to this. He's hired the Dollhouse to provide him with that fantasy, Echo is playing his wife, Rebecca Miner, and has his wife's personality.
Agent Ballard comes into the middle of this fantasy, hoping to save Echo or rather Caroline. And he tells Miner, the internet developer, that his fantasy and use of Echo is maligned, icky, not to mention criminal. Miner aptly defends himself, stating, are you in a better position to judge? You are in a way chasing your own fantasy - to be the hero, save the girl. How do you know that your fantasy isn't real? Ballard insists what he is doing is for the greater good and it is not just Caroline he wishes to save, but all the dolls. But Miner says, is it so wrong to want to live out my fantasy? It's there. I don't own the Dollhouse. I don't run it. And I can't stop it. Why I can't I use it? Also you can't arrest or hurt me, the internet will overrule you.
A commentary, I think, on one of the downsides of the information and technology revolution. If we can do it - does that mean we should? And to what degree are we responsible?
It's an interesting dilemma. A few weeks back, I had a rather distasteful argument regarding the video game Rapeplay. I'm repeating it here - because in a way it fits with one of the questions posed in this episode.
Me: Did you see the article about the Japanese role playing video game Rapeplay? It's a game where the user, the person who purchases or plays the game, is in the role of a recently released sexual molester. (You/Player) Molester -- are the sexual predator, you go after the mother and younger sister of the woman that you had raped and molested. You get points for the number of times you capture them and rape them. This is prohibited in the US but permitted in Japan. And people can get versions of it.
D: Sounds perfectly harmless. A fantasy that they are playing. I don't see the problem. Sure it's icky. But it's just a fantasy. People have nasty thoughts. It's human nature.
Me: But this is encouraging people to engage in those thoughts.
D: They are just doing it in the privacy of their own home.
Me: But they are getting awarded for hurting others. Not seeing the consequences. It's like a rat being awarded for hitting the right button with cheese.
D: Points aren't the same as cheese. (Pause) I'm a libertarian. I disagree with you. I think people should be permitted to do what they want.
Me: Within reason, if they are hurting others or being cruel - that shouldn't...I mean, I'm not saying you can't have fantasies and think whatever you want inside your own head. But to make money off of a game that encourages people to hurt one another in this way? To get points for doing it??? This isn't the same as reading Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho..
D: Isn't it? You are playing the game in the privacy of your own home. You aren't doing it. Why not be unihibited and let yourself live the fantasy? No one is being hurt. The people in the game aren't real.
I don't know the answers. But the justifications disturb me. Dollhouse is disturbing in the same way - because we are in the point of view of the predator, seeing their justifications and rationalizations. How they look at the world. And unlike other shows, where the predator is often punished for hurting someone, these predators rarely are. In this respect, Dollhouse reminds me a great deal of David Lynch's surreal horror tale Twin Peaks, which barely made it to two seasons. Both ask similar questions - to what degree are we responsible for encouraging this behavior in ourselves and in others?
The reason I'm fascinated by this series is the puzzlebox aspect. In last night's episode, we learn that there is someone inside the Dollhouse who is working to expose it. That individual tells Ballard and through Ballard the audience - that there are Dollhouses around the world. I can't remember the exact number - I'm guessing around 20, but it is most likely more than that. And each House is connected to people high up in the political/power food chain. While they do for the most part mainly provide high-paying clients with fantasies, there is a larger purpose. The inside person or group, doesn't know what this purpose is. Finding it out may be the key to taking down the Dollhouse. So who is the inside man? Adelle DeWitt?
That's the other piece of information that is revealed to us but not to Ballard -
What is not clear is whether Dewitt deliberately set up both situations to a)cover her ass and b) get information to Ballard. Dewitt reminds me a bit of a spider, in how she's written and her plotting.
As for our Dolls - turns out Sierra was being abused by her handler, who was basically raping her or molesting her. When the handler was asked if he enjoyed it more because she didn't struggle - the handler stated, no, that just made it easier. DeWitt's way of dealing with him is icky but also clever. She sends him off to kill Ballard's innocent girlfriend. Stating he should enjoy it, might even consider it a promotion, because this one will struggle. But the twist is that the girlfriend is a sleeper active, with one phone call, Dewitt switches the girl on and girl not only fights back, but she takes out and possibly kills him. Dominic says she played a good hand, DeWitt disagrees - I played a bad hand well. DeWitt may well be my favorite female character in this show - I can't quite decide what motivates her or what she cares about.
Echo - remains as mysterious as DeWitt - we aren't really sure what motivates her either.
Or why she came to the Dollhouse. The character consistently is attempting to help others.
Telling
Before that scene - as a reminder of the ick factor - we get an interview with yet another man on the street or talking head. This one is a scientist/professor and he states that if we have the technology to mind-wipe people, to remove, if you can imagine it, all our memories, our personality, our friends, who we love and our feelings regarding them - so that those people become enemies or strangers to us - then what are we? And if that technology existed, wouldn't it be used? On a global level? And used for nefarious and horrible reasons, not necessarily just good ones? If this is the case - then we are over as a race, we cease, it's all over, and maybe that is what we deserve.
It's odd to watch Dollhouse after the series finale of BSG, which dealt with similar issues but in a different context and way. Both ask the same questions - if we are capable and choose to destroy one another for our own selfish gain - do we deserve to survive? To what degree and when - do we take responsibility for the choices we make, and control our own nefarious desires? Acknowledge that actions have far reaching consequences?
Yet, the last scene of Dollhouse, on its surface is rather begnign (sp?) (harmless). It's just Miner seeing Echo as his long dead wife Rebecca, her face filled with joy at their house. Reliving that tragic day as it should have played out, and often has, in his own mind.But is it beinign? Is it harmless? Miner hasn't moved on. He has all this money, but for all we know he hasn't spent a dime to help others - to set a fund to help accident victims. Instead he lives in his mind, in his fantasy, whining about what could have, should have been. And the fantasy becomes almost a narcissitic day dream - his wife reacting the way and doing what he wants her to do. Not necessarily what she would have done. And Echo losing herself once again to play someone else...taking on a role, feeling these emotions, only to lose them all a moment later.
Is it ever justified? Regardless of the purpose? Using someone else...to make ourselves feel better, to live out our fantasies, to satisfy our dreams? Even if they are willing? Even if we pay them? Even if they forget it afterwards?
Like all well-written stories, these questions are left unanswered. At least for now.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-22 04:08 pm (UTC)Of course, I didn't buy that the mindwipe could just make Connor naturally better, no reprecussions from getting his old memories back. They fudged this by saying his old memories felt more distant than the new, false ones.
What I did in TD was have the old memories gradually build in strength until Connor kind of went nutso and had to deal with them the hard way - by working through them. I also expanded on canon a little by saying that the mindwipe was actually a form of "mystical therapy" utilized by a client of Wolfram and Hart in which traumatized individuals had their memories erased and replaced with healthy memories. They and their families would live that way for a year or two, then get their memories back, and it was like therapy in that the new memories taught them the coping skills and emotional levelness psychotherapy normally would. I wrote it that Angel co-opted this in cahoots with Lilah in "Home", intending that Connor and the Reillys would never get their memories back, ever.
I don't think Angel thought that taking away the memory of Connor could possibly have the kind of reprecussions it did on his friends' lives. I think he maybe even thought he was doing them a favor, given that the last couple years sucked in so many ways. Which is totally an in-character paternalistic disenfranchisement Angel would do with the best of intentions to help his son.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-22 05:28 pm (UTC)Also agree - that was my problem with Origin and the episodes that followed. I was disappointed that we didn't get more fall-out. I expected Angel's friends to really be upset with him. Granted Fred - by that stage is already gone, and Illyria wouldn't really care one way or another. Wes - does care, but is crushed by the weight of the things he had done.
Gunn- by that stage is crushed by the weight of what he did in regards to Fred, to even notice. So...that leaves Spike - who wasn't around and wouldn't care either. In an odd way, the timing of the reveal was on Angel's side.
Also, I agree he probably didn't think it through, he reacted to Connor's situation and grabbed the option provided. And to be fair, he was dealing with an emotionally corrosive situation at the time. Connor had just attempted to blow up a store with himself and thirty or forty innocent people inside. From Angel's perspective - Connor was beyond help, he had two choices - kill the boy or take Lilah's offer. I can't say I blame him for taking the latter, I probably would have done the same thing considering the situation.
Also, at the time, his friends seemed to be seriously considering taking WRH's offer, for their own reasons which had nothing to do with Angel or Connor. And, from Angel's perspective - he was removing Wes' pain and guilt regarding Connor, what was bad about that?
Another...thing, which I argued in the past, we don't know if Fred would have chosen to go to WRH or not, without the mindwipe. Wes - probably wouldn't have.
But we don't about Fred. We also don't know if Fred would have opened the casket without it, nor do we know about Gunn. Both Fred and Gunn seemed to be on the verge of accepting the offer before Angel made his decision. Wes was the wild-card, and I think, the one most affected by the choice. But...I'm not sure if Wes would have lived if Angel chose differently.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-22 05:53 pm (UTC)That was a big gap in the story-telling that made it hard to speculate on anything--if you take Connor out of the past two years, what's left? I think at one point we are told they remember Jasmine, but it's a version of Jasmine without Connor in it. Rewriting seasons three and four without Connor being a reason for the actions of the various characters leaves a lot open. Especially for Wesley, who had a major character change during that period with Connor as his pivotal reason for it.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-22 10:05 pm (UTC)We can speculate all we want, but we really don't know because very little information has been provided.
Whedon and his crew are interesting storytellers in that they like to leave huge gaps, and unanswered questions. For reasons I do not entirely understand - I appear to be attracted to that type of storytelling or its the type I get obsessed with and find myself writing about - while stories that don't do that? I enjoy but seem to forget rather quickly. I don't know why that is. (shrugs) At the same time - the unanswered questions frustrate the heck out of me. (So perhaps, I'm a bit masochistic in this regard?)
The problem with the gaps in this storyline - as you point out - is it is difficult to know for certain why Fred, Wes, and Gunn react the way they do. What do they remember, and what don't they? What memories were replaced? I remember when I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with cjlasky - cjl pointed out that a big flaw in that story about two lovers who remove all their memories of each other and their love for one another - was if you remove all the memories of a person, you remove everything they were associated with - which is akin to well pulling a strand out of a delicately woven spider web - the whole web unravels.
You have to replace it with something. And when you do, you change the person, who they are, to a degree.
That's why time travel and memory tales are so difficult to pull of in fiction - you have to be careful of the details. You can't skim over them, or the story you are writing will either unravel or have huge plot holes.
So... I agree. We aren't given much information, and as many fans stated at the time - Home felt a bit like a huge "reset" button. Almost as if the writers wrote themselves into a corner, couldn't figure a way out and ran out of juice, so chose to hit a reset button as a means of telling the story they wanted to tell, while not having to deal with all the baggage from the previous one. I get the feeling that the network may have a hand in this - I remember at the time that Angel was on the brink of cancellation - and Whedon kept pitching storylines at the network, until he finally came up with one that appeared from their perspective to be more episodic in character and less dark and serialized.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-22 11:29 pm (UTC)