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shadowkatSo, finally saw the fan favorite "Epitaph One" and the unaired pilot "Echo" from the Dollhouse S1, Disc 4 DVD - courtesy of netflix. (Gotta love netflix, it's managed to expand my tv and video watching even more than I thought possible, not that I haven't watched enough tv and videos in my lifetime already...but hey, we are nothing without our stories..right?)
As an aside, leaving the office today, I sniffed the air and thought, ah, that musty, smokey, smell of December, then glanced about and thought..or just the musty smokey smell of people smoking pot outside my office building. This really has nothing to do with Epitaph One, Dollhouse or Echo for that matter, but thought I'd mention it.
Saw Epitaph One first, so will review it first. It was written by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon and Jed's wife or rather the story was written by Joss, and the teleplay by Jed and his wife. It was directed by David Solomon.
Was not quite what I expected. I can see why it got mixed reviews on livejournal, the episode's narrative flow is not really linear in nature, and it jumps around a lot. Also we have the fill-in for the viewer or outside narrator device - which does not always work well but Joss Whedon and science fiction writers in general appear to be enamored of for some reason. Whedon has used it before in episodes ranging from The Zeppo to Storyteller. I personally find it annoying and jarring, but a lot of people adore it. The device basically involves a guest star, a recurring character or minor character telling the audience what the world is like, we jump into their point of view and see all the lead or stars of the series through their eyes. Medical shows do this all the time - the sick patient tactic - where we, the audience are inside the sick patient, we see what they see and experience the characters through their eyes. Not sure who did this first - but I do remember seeing it done in old black and white 1950s Gunsmoke reruns and MASH. The other device - which is the one used in "Epitaph One" is skipping ahead to the future, and the outside character coming upon the remains of the show or the characters, and trying to figure out what happened to them. (Which is a common thread in many dark science-fiction and fantasy dramas. Lots of them end in this manner, although I'm regrettably drawing a blank on specific examples.)
In Epitaph One - the outside character is "Mac" - a woman that up until now has not been introduced. The story has leaped ahead of the setting that we have become familar with, we find ourselves ten years in the future, it is 2019, and Mac is leading a team of refugees through the burned out remains of Los Angelos. The writer does not give us much exposition, instead we have to work to figure it out. It is there, but told in snippets, and the mystery of the episode or central puzzle is what happened here, what happened to the Dollhouse, and where did the characters go? Mac and her comrades must figure this out in order to escape the burned out shell of LA and the sorry fate of becoming mindless zombies open to whomever or whatever decides to take over their minds, otherwise known as "imprints". It's a landscape right out of a Terminator flick or Resident Evil, and in some respects reminiscent of such sci-fi classics as Richard Mathieson's I Am Legend and Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Racing away from those who wish to imprint them - they go deep underground and happen upon the seemingly abandoned Dollhouse. But they don't know it is the Dollhouse. And like every other character I've ever seen enter an abandoned structure in a horror flick - they proceed to do really stupid things. (Seriously, if I happened upon an abandoned structure deep underground, while fleeing for my life, and armed with weapons, I'd do a perimeter search, make damn sure there were no hostiles lying in wait, then proceed to make myself comfortable. But in horror movies people always do the exact opposite. It is mind-boggling.) As a result, one of them, an actress who looks a lot like Iyri Limon who played Kennedy, but isn't, called Lid(??) or Liv(?) decides to take a shower - informing her charge, an 8 year old girl, Iris, to go find the bathrooms by herself. (Sweetie, just pee anywhere - it's an abandoned building, you've almost been killed more times than you can count, who bloody cares where the bathrooms are. Or who sees you. Just pee in the shower. I would.) Liv, who for reasons I don't understand, decides to drop her gun, her clothes, and take a hot show at this public and sort of open spa like shower stall in the middle of the compound...up until now she's paranoid, pointing her gun every direction, not trusting anyone. But hey, she hasn't taken a shower in a year and there's hot water...so what the hell, throws all caution to the wind. Of course she gets killed. (I'm sure there's a deeper meaning in there somewhere, but I'm not seeing it.) And the little girl comes back and screams.
Meanwhile the others have located Topher's imprinting chair - and have decided to us the brain-dead Mr. Miller, Iris' alleged father, to download memories. They place him in the chair and program in the memories. (Not sure how they figured out how to do it - apparently the machine isn't as hard to program as Topher lead us to believe.) And this is when the episode starts to get interesting.
Dollhouse is at its best when it is focusing on the characters Adelle, Topher, Boyd, Saunders, Victor, and Prya/Sierra. And that's what happens here. We start getting memory flashbacks. The first is clearly the memory of either a male client or Adelle herself - entertaining the client, coaxing him to use the Dollhouse. In the memory, which is taken from the end of the unaired pilot "Echo" - Adelle informs the client that an active or doll is not the same as a prostitute - she/he will be in love with you, there is no pretending. They will feel for you, they will be programmed to believe that they had a wonderful romance and want you desperately. We flash back to Mac and her pals, who comment, oh so imprinting started out as just a high-priced escort service or brothel?? At this point, Iris returns, without Liv who has been killed. Iris (the little girl) is given a tatto that says "I am Iris Miller", first and last name. We are told this is how they know who they are, who the actual person is, in case they get imprinted with someone else and are lost. This is how they keep their identity.
The whole idea of loss of identity or mind is a constant theme in both the episode and the series. Whedon as he does in all his other works - is addressing the cost of immortality and the meaningless of it. He is also addressing the idea of identity - how the identity of an artist can easily be lost inside the corporate machine or the identity of human being lost inside the group or hive. It is by no means a new theme. The idea of technology replacing us or overtaking and controlling who we are...we reach the point in which playing god is akin to a child playing with matchs. We burn all that we and others have built to the ground.
Dollhouse in its totality strikes me as a psychological horror tale, old school Rod Sterling or Outer Limits, with a bit of Patrick McGooghan's Prisoner thrown into the mix. Whedon has essentially taken the zombie concept and given it a modern twist. In Epitaph, much like Night of the Living Dead or rather, the more modern Resident Evil crossmarketed to video gamers and film goers alike, the humans are fighting a losing battle against a menace that threatens to extend their lifespan by erasing their identity. True Death, mind plus body, can only be achieved through the imprint machine in which they find Caroline and safe haven, a means to block the imprinting and die with their minds intact - not preserved in a disc on a shelf in an underground bunker, with their bodies wiped clean, free of the memories. Memory we are told in Epitaph is everything, without it - we are wandering much as Mac and her friends in the dark.
And the memories of the Dollhouse are fed to us like jagged jigsaw puzzle pieces. Each not quite fitting the other. Topher's first day at the Dollhouse, where he meets Adelle and her top of security. His wonder. And his statement in the unaired pilot Echo to Manfriend Boyd Langton - "morality is a construct, something we ourselves create". Boyd tells Topher that he is not his manfriend, and Topher responds, how so? Are we not friends? Boyd states, "no, we are not men". "Men" being the operative term, as opposed to mere constructs, toys, puppets at someone else's whim. Men require justifications and rationals, toys do not.
In the next puzzle piece we begin to see how both Topher and Adelle are caught within their own web of justifications, Adelle's that this is science, advancement, the good of the species, and Topher's it is just a game, a means of evolving...we are expanding our knowledge...children with matches - they see the blaze begin to get out of their control when the Rossum Corporation informs them of its latest venture - via the use of Victor. Threatening them that if they do not allow it to keep Victor along with his enhancements, they will find themselves more than compromised.
Adelle and Topher are themselves, dolls. Puppets. Their strings being pulled by the larger corporate structure. It is a theme that Whedon first addressed in Buffy with the Initiative and the clueless but aggressive Watcher Council, and later with Wolf Ram and Hart - the orderly corporate law firm from hell, and then with Firefly - the rag-tag band of smugglers fleeing unification. The corporate structure that erases aggression and turns us all into mindless zombies, playing video games well into the night.
The next visual is Claire Saunders/Whiskey helping Boyd Langton escape, while Topher hides in one of the doll's sleeping chambers, rummaging through his books and papers, talking to a world-weary and distraught Adelle. He asks if it is better to pick up the phone or not to. To become part of the mindless hoard compromised by the signal distributed by phone or to stay isolated, emersed in guilt for being the one who came up with the idea to begin with. Who could come up with a way to turn people into their own private army? Who would think that up? Wait, was it me? Did I do this? Did I? And listening to Topher, one can't help but envision Oppheimer when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagaski and Hiroshima, or for that matter, the scientists who designed the death camps. Wracked with guilt, the amoral Topher appears to have constructed his own conscience.
Prya/Sierra and Victor meanwhile haggle over defenses. Prya stuck with her memories, wishes she was without them, uncomfortable in her skin, and yearning for contact with Victor, who pushes her away...that's right she mutters, we don't do that anymore. We aren't quite told why.
And finally before we're flipped to the dark and dreary future, we see Echo and Ballard pop in and save the gang, huddled deep inside the Dollhouse fortress. Letting them out and leading the way to safe haven or rather the place that Alpha resides for Alpha has found a way to block the imprints, to maintain their real selves. Saunders asks if Echo is with Ballard now. If they are "together". The jury is still out on that one or I would hardly call it that, Caroline replies.
Before she leaves, she confronts Adelle...one last scene between two adversaries. "Will you leave me here then? Abandon me to my fate? Or are you planning to kill me, Caroline?"
And Caroline lifts the gun aiming it in Adelle's face - we aren't told ...what happens next, for the screen flips back to the present or future, and Whiskey/Dr. Saunders stars at Mac, a shattered husk in her long flowing white evening dress.
The sociopath discovering morality is hardly new either - Whedon first played with the idea of moral constructs in the children's story Toy Story - where the old time lovable and somewhat morally bankrupt Woody learns the hard way to accept the big heroic doofus Buz Lightyear, the first Spike and Angel tale, later we see it erupting in the Angel and Buffy series...with souls or the lack thereof, and still later in Firefly with the ethical quandry of smuggling and the mercernary Jayne, as well as the not so clean beneath the collar Mal Reynolds. Adelle and Topher discover their morality almost too late ...and are described by Caroline in the final reel of Epitaph in response to Mac's question, what happened here...why did they do this? They were like children, Caroline states, now a child again herself, trapped inside the body of prepubscent Iris, playing with matches.
Iris - the girl child, both devil and savior, another common thread within the matrix of Whedon's stories. Buffy - the girl, the slayer, a mere 16, slaying her monsters. River - the 15 year old warrior, tortured and trained to be a ninja, a human weapon. And now Iris, first the nemesis, killing off Mac's team one by one, in order to survive, then the savior, imprinted to be Caroline, taking them, complete with snarky comebacks to safe haven. Whedon for some reason has avatars that are adolescent girls, given power beyond their years.
We aren't told if they make it to safe haven - which as Caroline snarks isn't really one at all - "is that what they are calling it now?" she asks as she strokes the pictures of herself and her friends on the wall. "I better have made it. I hope I made it."
We also aren't really told what happened here - given pieces of memory to tell the tale, a warning of sorts...about what happens when we play with matches. Each memory fitting haphazardly in the mix. We know Adelle tried to stop it - by bringing out her ex-henchman, the traitorous spy and second in command, but failed. And we know she and Topher somehow provided the Rossum Corporation with the signal that provides them the means to wipe everyone's memories and imprint them with new memories with little more than a phone call. Rossum might as well be the Umbrella Corp of Resident Evil, in the film version of the popular video game, a zombifying virus is unleashed turning all who die within its path, zombies....or Wolf Ram and Hart, the law firm with its faceless and unknowable partners plotting and weaving their endless and orderly schemes or the UnitedCorp of Firefly...the evil corporation with the best interests of humanity, that has now almost become a cliche. A faceless entity...that stands in silent power over all who worship power and money and advancement. The Ayn Randian horror of the individual conscripted by the group mentality, merged in turn with the Jack Finney horror of having your body snatched and turned into something else. All this feels vaguely familar to me, as if I've seen it countless times before. Something out of George Orwell or Huxley's Brave New World.
Then there is the first episode, the unaired pilot, Echo, written and directed by Joss Whedon...which up until now had only been seen in script form or teaser snippets on the internet. Told much as Epitaph One is told in jagged bits of narrative, flashes of memory. The central story, the linear one is one that is told through an outsiders eyes, someone who resides outside the Dollhouse but knows it exists and seeks to uncover it. An FBI agent named Ballard who stumbles upon a woman named Shannon Vickers who bears an uncommon resemblance to a missing girl whose picture is sent to him in a mysterious envelope. Much like Epitaph One, Echo raises more questions than answers. Snippets of Echo find itself intermingled in Epitaph One. We see Adelle work her manipulations and Topher rationalize his...he is on to Echo's odd behavior inside the Dollhouse and alerts only Dr. Saunders and Boyd Langton, both of whom have their own reasons to protect Echo neither of which is as self-serving as Topher's. Topher - who tells Boyd in this episode that morality is little more than a construct, that he feels little more than a scientist's curiousity for the dolls.
No fun zombie horror flick - we don't have gross ghouls and decaying corpses moaning in rhythmatic pentameter..ooom...ohmmm. Instead, we have people mind-wiped, turned into the fantasy object of the highest bidder. Saunders goes for the pro-bono approach - a means of justifying what they do. If we mind-wipe them for the greater good, she rationalizes, it's not so bad. Topher complains that doing such a thing, leaving them in that state for too long a time, causes a malfunction...the reality of who they once were could bleed in. And Adelle argues that they aren't whores, they don't pretend. The experience is real for them, then erased, and no one is hurt in the end. Making us wonder who are the real monsters in the mix.
It is unsettling to watch...as most good horror is...horror's purpose is to show us the worste case scenario. We get an almost cathartic thrill from seeing it played out on a screen, then resolved...in a satsifying manner, we hope. If they can resolve that, than so can we. No worries. Horror tales relieve our anxious and unspoken fears - fears of being raped, wiped, dying horribly from disease, murdered, tortured, kidnapped, or simply failing in a major way. Horror tales also shine a light on human weakness and the dark side of the human soul - showing us the consequences of those fantasies and desires we dare not utter for fear of being smacked. The Horror writer is the gutsy narrator of our own darkest desires, our own fears, and pangs, and those things we think that make us very happy no one is blessed with the gift of ESP.
As psychological horror tales, Epitaph One and Echo both succeed. Complete with common slasher horror twists and turns...the heroine taking a shower in the abandoned bunker, or the hero trusting someone who appears far weaker than they are. In horror, good psychological horror, there are no good guys and bad guys, so much as people complete with flaws and quirks, making mistakes that make the audience gasp and wince in horror.
The themes are clear here, even if the lead two characters, Ballard and Echo, feel a bit murky and lost within the jagged narrative and haphazard plotting. Whedon proves himself to be an adept narrator of psychological horror, capable of constructing emotional arcs that twist a character revealing hidden bits and pieces - such as Topher, who is originally shown as amoral, and latter wracked with guilt. But his plot winds and wanders, and almost, not quite peeters out, the characters...with the exception of Topher and Adelle, feel like they've been wedged into the puzzle of the plot at odd angles. Echo/Caroline fails to compel, marginalized as a one-note heroine, who changes little from scene to scene, and Ballard too, the straight-up hero, the tongue in cheek white knight to her damsel that will not be rescued. They are the black hole at the center...of a web of characters that make sense and compel to different degrees around them. But perhaps that is the point...to put these two tried and true stock characters in the center?
At any rate, on the whole, I find that I am rather fond of these two episodes, more so than the rest of season one. During Echo, I wondered why the network chose to air the other five pilot episodes instead - this episode was so much more gripping and so much less repugnant. Making me contemplate whether Fox may well be the one guilty of sexism here? Or rather Fox's marketing team.
Perhaps the reason I like these episodes is the very reason that Fox chose not to air them and others online did not like them - the puzzle aspect, the jig-saw effect, figuring out the plot, and not being given many answers. Fox may well think its audience prefers the more linear tale, one told simply and directly, without having to think too much on the particulars, and no need to fill in the gaps. I admit to an odd fascination with tv shows and stories that have gaps, that leave more to the imagination rather than less. The Haunting - the original Robert Wise film - scared me far more than the gruesome Amityville Horror or the Speilberg remake. And I love the Magna cartoon - Kimba as a child, which upon re-watching, I realized how vague the story was, and how much it left to my imagination. If I have to figure it out, if I am not told everything - I am far more fascinated with it. And Joss Whedon prefers to leave gaps in his stories...to leave things open to the imagination, much as James Cameron did in the classic horror tale Terminator - where we are told little about this nightmare future world...except the basics. The rest we fill in ourselves. The audience is allowed to think.
I don't recommend the extras. Rather boring. And a bit too self-congratulatory for my taste. But the two episodes themselves, the meat of the DVD, are well worth the price and time it takes to watch.
As an aside, leaving the office today, I sniffed the air and thought, ah, that musty, smokey, smell of December, then glanced about and thought..or just the musty smokey smell of people smoking pot outside my office building. This really has nothing to do with Epitaph One, Dollhouse or Echo for that matter, but thought I'd mention it.
Saw Epitaph One first, so will review it first. It was written by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon and Jed's wife or rather the story was written by Joss, and the teleplay by Jed and his wife. It was directed by David Solomon.
Was not quite what I expected. I can see why it got mixed reviews on livejournal, the episode's narrative flow is not really linear in nature, and it jumps around a lot. Also we have the fill-in for the viewer or outside narrator device - which does not always work well but Joss Whedon and science fiction writers in general appear to be enamored of for some reason. Whedon has used it before in episodes ranging from The Zeppo to Storyteller. I personally find it annoying and jarring, but a lot of people adore it. The device basically involves a guest star, a recurring character or minor character telling the audience what the world is like, we jump into their point of view and see all the lead or stars of the series through their eyes. Medical shows do this all the time - the sick patient tactic - where we, the audience are inside the sick patient, we see what they see and experience the characters through their eyes. Not sure who did this first - but I do remember seeing it done in old black and white 1950s Gunsmoke reruns and MASH. The other device - which is the one used in "Epitaph One" is skipping ahead to the future, and the outside character coming upon the remains of the show or the characters, and trying to figure out what happened to them. (Which is a common thread in many dark science-fiction and fantasy dramas. Lots of them end in this manner, although I'm regrettably drawing a blank on specific examples.)
In Epitaph One - the outside character is "Mac" - a woman that up until now has not been introduced. The story has leaped ahead of the setting that we have become familar with, we find ourselves ten years in the future, it is 2019, and Mac is leading a team of refugees through the burned out remains of Los Angelos. The writer does not give us much exposition, instead we have to work to figure it out. It is there, but told in snippets, and the mystery of the episode or central puzzle is what happened here, what happened to the Dollhouse, and where did the characters go? Mac and her comrades must figure this out in order to escape the burned out shell of LA and the sorry fate of becoming mindless zombies open to whomever or whatever decides to take over their minds, otherwise known as "imprints". It's a landscape right out of a Terminator flick or Resident Evil, and in some respects reminiscent of such sci-fi classics as Richard Mathieson's I Am Legend and Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Racing away from those who wish to imprint them - they go deep underground and happen upon the seemingly abandoned Dollhouse. But they don't know it is the Dollhouse. And like every other character I've ever seen enter an abandoned structure in a horror flick - they proceed to do really stupid things. (Seriously, if I happened upon an abandoned structure deep underground, while fleeing for my life, and armed with weapons, I'd do a perimeter search, make damn sure there were no hostiles lying in wait, then proceed to make myself comfortable. But in horror movies people always do the exact opposite. It is mind-boggling.) As a result, one of them, an actress who looks a lot like Iyri Limon who played Kennedy, but isn't, called Lid(??) or Liv(?) decides to take a shower - informing her charge, an 8 year old girl, Iris, to go find the bathrooms by herself. (Sweetie, just pee anywhere - it's an abandoned building, you've almost been killed more times than you can count, who bloody cares where the bathrooms are. Or who sees you. Just pee in the shower. I would.) Liv, who for reasons I don't understand, decides to drop her gun, her clothes, and take a hot show at this public and sort of open spa like shower stall in the middle of the compound...up until now she's paranoid, pointing her gun every direction, not trusting anyone. But hey, she hasn't taken a shower in a year and there's hot water...so what the hell, throws all caution to the wind. Of course she gets killed. (I'm sure there's a deeper meaning in there somewhere, but I'm not seeing it.) And the little girl comes back and screams.
Meanwhile the others have located Topher's imprinting chair - and have decided to us the brain-dead Mr. Miller, Iris' alleged father, to download memories. They place him in the chair and program in the memories. (Not sure how they figured out how to do it - apparently the machine isn't as hard to program as Topher lead us to believe.) And this is when the episode starts to get interesting.
Dollhouse is at its best when it is focusing on the characters Adelle, Topher, Boyd, Saunders, Victor, and Prya/Sierra. And that's what happens here. We start getting memory flashbacks. The first is clearly the memory of either a male client or Adelle herself - entertaining the client, coaxing him to use the Dollhouse. In the memory, which is taken from the end of the unaired pilot "Echo" - Adelle informs the client that an active or doll is not the same as a prostitute - she/he will be in love with you, there is no pretending. They will feel for you, they will be programmed to believe that they had a wonderful romance and want you desperately. We flash back to Mac and her pals, who comment, oh so imprinting started out as just a high-priced escort service or brothel?? At this point, Iris returns, without Liv who has been killed. Iris (the little girl) is given a tatto that says "I am Iris Miller", first and last name. We are told this is how they know who they are, who the actual person is, in case they get imprinted with someone else and are lost. This is how they keep their identity.
The whole idea of loss of identity or mind is a constant theme in both the episode and the series. Whedon as he does in all his other works - is addressing the cost of immortality and the meaningless of it. He is also addressing the idea of identity - how the identity of an artist can easily be lost inside the corporate machine or the identity of human being lost inside the group or hive. It is by no means a new theme. The idea of technology replacing us or overtaking and controlling who we are...we reach the point in which playing god is akin to a child playing with matchs. We burn all that we and others have built to the ground.
Dollhouse in its totality strikes me as a psychological horror tale, old school Rod Sterling or Outer Limits, with a bit of Patrick McGooghan's Prisoner thrown into the mix. Whedon has essentially taken the zombie concept and given it a modern twist. In Epitaph, much like Night of the Living Dead or rather, the more modern Resident Evil crossmarketed to video gamers and film goers alike, the humans are fighting a losing battle against a menace that threatens to extend their lifespan by erasing their identity. True Death, mind plus body, can only be achieved through the imprint machine in which they find Caroline and safe haven, a means to block the imprinting and die with their minds intact - not preserved in a disc on a shelf in an underground bunker, with their bodies wiped clean, free of the memories. Memory we are told in Epitaph is everything, without it - we are wandering much as Mac and her friends in the dark.
And the memories of the Dollhouse are fed to us like jagged jigsaw puzzle pieces. Each not quite fitting the other. Topher's first day at the Dollhouse, where he meets Adelle and her top of security. His wonder. And his statement in the unaired pilot Echo to Manfriend Boyd Langton - "morality is a construct, something we ourselves create". Boyd tells Topher that he is not his manfriend, and Topher responds, how so? Are we not friends? Boyd states, "no, we are not men". "Men" being the operative term, as opposed to mere constructs, toys, puppets at someone else's whim. Men require justifications and rationals, toys do not.
In the next puzzle piece we begin to see how both Topher and Adelle are caught within their own web of justifications, Adelle's that this is science, advancement, the good of the species, and Topher's it is just a game, a means of evolving...we are expanding our knowledge...children with matches - they see the blaze begin to get out of their control when the Rossum Corporation informs them of its latest venture - via the use of Victor. Threatening them that if they do not allow it to keep Victor along with his enhancements, they will find themselves more than compromised.
Adelle and Topher are themselves, dolls. Puppets. Their strings being pulled by the larger corporate structure. It is a theme that Whedon first addressed in Buffy with the Initiative and the clueless but aggressive Watcher Council, and later with Wolf Ram and Hart - the orderly corporate law firm from hell, and then with Firefly - the rag-tag band of smugglers fleeing unification. The corporate structure that erases aggression and turns us all into mindless zombies, playing video games well into the night.
The next visual is Claire Saunders/Whiskey helping Boyd Langton escape, while Topher hides in one of the doll's sleeping chambers, rummaging through his books and papers, talking to a world-weary and distraught Adelle. He asks if it is better to pick up the phone or not to. To become part of the mindless hoard compromised by the signal distributed by phone or to stay isolated, emersed in guilt for being the one who came up with the idea to begin with. Who could come up with a way to turn people into their own private army? Who would think that up? Wait, was it me? Did I do this? Did I? And listening to Topher, one can't help but envision Oppheimer when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagaski and Hiroshima, or for that matter, the scientists who designed the death camps. Wracked with guilt, the amoral Topher appears to have constructed his own conscience.
Prya/Sierra and Victor meanwhile haggle over defenses. Prya stuck with her memories, wishes she was without them, uncomfortable in her skin, and yearning for contact with Victor, who pushes her away...that's right she mutters, we don't do that anymore. We aren't quite told why.
And finally before we're flipped to the dark and dreary future, we see Echo and Ballard pop in and save the gang, huddled deep inside the Dollhouse fortress. Letting them out and leading the way to safe haven or rather the place that Alpha resides for Alpha has found a way to block the imprints, to maintain their real selves. Saunders asks if Echo is with Ballard now. If they are "together". The jury is still out on that one or I would hardly call it that, Caroline replies.
Before she leaves, she confronts Adelle...one last scene between two adversaries. "Will you leave me here then? Abandon me to my fate? Or are you planning to kill me, Caroline?"
And Caroline lifts the gun aiming it in Adelle's face - we aren't told ...what happens next, for the screen flips back to the present or future, and Whiskey/Dr. Saunders stars at Mac, a shattered husk in her long flowing white evening dress.
The sociopath discovering morality is hardly new either - Whedon first played with the idea of moral constructs in the children's story Toy Story - where the old time lovable and somewhat morally bankrupt Woody learns the hard way to accept the big heroic doofus Buz Lightyear, the first Spike and Angel tale, later we see it erupting in the Angel and Buffy series...with souls or the lack thereof, and still later in Firefly with the ethical quandry of smuggling and the mercernary Jayne, as well as the not so clean beneath the collar Mal Reynolds. Adelle and Topher discover their morality almost too late ...and are described by Caroline in the final reel of Epitaph in response to Mac's question, what happened here...why did they do this? They were like children, Caroline states, now a child again herself, trapped inside the body of prepubscent Iris, playing with matches.
Iris - the girl child, both devil and savior, another common thread within the matrix of Whedon's stories. Buffy - the girl, the slayer, a mere 16, slaying her monsters. River - the 15 year old warrior, tortured and trained to be a ninja, a human weapon. And now Iris, first the nemesis, killing off Mac's team one by one, in order to survive, then the savior, imprinted to be Caroline, taking them, complete with snarky comebacks to safe haven. Whedon for some reason has avatars that are adolescent girls, given power beyond their years.
We aren't told if they make it to safe haven - which as Caroline snarks isn't really one at all - "is that what they are calling it now?" she asks as she strokes the pictures of herself and her friends on the wall. "I better have made it. I hope I made it."
We also aren't really told what happened here - given pieces of memory to tell the tale, a warning of sorts...about what happens when we play with matches. Each memory fitting haphazardly in the mix. We know Adelle tried to stop it - by bringing out her ex-henchman, the traitorous spy and second in command, but failed. And we know she and Topher somehow provided the Rossum Corporation with the signal that provides them the means to wipe everyone's memories and imprint them with new memories with little more than a phone call. Rossum might as well be the Umbrella Corp of Resident Evil, in the film version of the popular video game, a zombifying virus is unleashed turning all who die within its path, zombies....or Wolf Ram and Hart, the law firm with its faceless and unknowable partners plotting and weaving their endless and orderly schemes or the UnitedCorp of Firefly...the evil corporation with the best interests of humanity, that has now almost become a cliche. A faceless entity...that stands in silent power over all who worship power and money and advancement. The Ayn Randian horror of the individual conscripted by the group mentality, merged in turn with the Jack Finney horror of having your body snatched and turned into something else. All this feels vaguely familar to me, as if I've seen it countless times before. Something out of George Orwell or Huxley's Brave New World.
Then there is the first episode, the unaired pilot, Echo, written and directed by Joss Whedon...which up until now had only been seen in script form or teaser snippets on the internet. Told much as Epitaph One is told in jagged bits of narrative, flashes of memory. The central story, the linear one is one that is told through an outsiders eyes, someone who resides outside the Dollhouse but knows it exists and seeks to uncover it. An FBI agent named Ballard who stumbles upon a woman named Shannon Vickers who bears an uncommon resemblance to a missing girl whose picture is sent to him in a mysterious envelope. Much like Epitaph One, Echo raises more questions than answers. Snippets of Echo find itself intermingled in Epitaph One. We see Adelle work her manipulations and Topher rationalize his...he is on to Echo's odd behavior inside the Dollhouse and alerts only Dr. Saunders and Boyd Langton, both of whom have their own reasons to protect Echo neither of which is as self-serving as Topher's. Topher - who tells Boyd in this episode that morality is little more than a construct, that he feels little more than a scientist's curiousity for the dolls.
No fun zombie horror flick - we don't have gross ghouls and decaying corpses moaning in rhythmatic pentameter..ooom...ohmmm. Instead, we have people mind-wiped, turned into the fantasy object of the highest bidder. Saunders goes for the pro-bono approach - a means of justifying what they do. If we mind-wipe them for the greater good, she rationalizes, it's not so bad. Topher complains that doing such a thing, leaving them in that state for too long a time, causes a malfunction...the reality of who they once were could bleed in. And Adelle argues that they aren't whores, they don't pretend. The experience is real for them, then erased, and no one is hurt in the end. Making us wonder who are the real monsters in the mix.
It is unsettling to watch...as most good horror is...horror's purpose is to show us the worste case scenario. We get an almost cathartic thrill from seeing it played out on a screen, then resolved...in a satsifying manner, we hope. If they can resolve that, than so can we. No worries. Horror tales relieve our anxious and unspoken fears - fears of being raped, wiped, dying horribly from disease, murdered, tortured, kidnapped, or simply failing in a major way. Horror tales also shine a light on human weakness and the dark side of the human soul - showing us the consequences of those fantasies and desires we dare not utter for fear of being smacked. The Horror writer is the gutsy narrator of our own darkest desires, our own fears, and pangs, and those things we think that make us very happy no one is blessed with the gift of ESP.
As psychological horror tales, Epitaph One and Echo both succeed. Complete with common slasher horror twists and turns...the heroine taking a shower in the abandoned bunker, or the hero trusting someone who appears far weaker than they are. In horror, good psychological horror, there are no good guys and bad guys, so much as people complete with flaws and quirks, making mistakes that make the audience gasp and wince in horror.
The themes are clear here, even if the lead two characters, Ballard and Echo, feel a bit murky and lost within the jagged narrative and haphazard plotting. Whedon proves himself to be an adept narrator of psychological horror, capable of constructing emotional arcs that twist a character revealing hidden bits and pieces - such as Topher, who is originally shown as amoral, and latter wracked with guilt. But his plot winds and wanders, and almost, not quite peeters out, the characters...with the exception of Topher and Adelle, feel like they've been wedged into the puzzle of the plot at odd angles. Echo/Caroline fails to compel, marginalized as a one-note heroine, who changes little from scene to scene, and Ballard too, the straight-up hero, the tongue in cheek white knight to her damsel that will not be rescued. They are the black hole at the center...of a web of characters that make sense and compel to different degrees around them. But perhaps that is the point...to put these two tried and true stock characters in the center?
At any rate, on the whole, I find that I am rather fond of these two episodes, more so than the rest of season one. During Echo, I wondered why the network chose to air the other five pilot episodes instead - this episode was so much more gripping and so much less repugnant. Making me contemplate whether Fox may well be the one guilty of sexism here? Or rather Fox's marketing team.
Perhaps the reason I like these episodes is the very reason that Fox chose not to air them and others online did not like them - the puzzle aspect, the jig-saw effect, figuring out the plot, and not being given many answers. Fox may well think its audience prefers the more linear tale, one told simply and directly, without having to think too much on the particulars, and no need to fill in the gaps. I admit to an odd fascination with tv shows and stories that have gaps, that leave more to the imagination rather than less. The Haunting - the original Robert Wise film - scared me far more than the gruesome Amityville Horror or the Speilberg remake. And I love the Magna cartoon - Kimba as a child, which upon re-watching, I realized how vague the story was, and how much it left to my imagination. If I have to figure it out, if I am not told everything - I am far more fascinated with it. And Joss Whedon prefers to leave gaps in his stories...to leave things open to the imagination, much as James Cameron did in the classic horror tale Terminator - where we are told little about this nightmare future world...except the basics. The rest we fill in ourselves. The audience is allowed to think.
I don't recommend the extras. Rather boring. And a bit too self-congratulatory for my taste. But the two episodes themselves, the meat of the DVD, are well worth the price and time it takes to watch.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 04:17 am (UTC)Huh.
I haven't watched Dollhouse so I don't know much about it. That description(re: phone signal creating zombie hordes, not the Dollhouse/prostitution thing) is strikingly similar to Stephen King's Cell (http://www.amazon.com/Cell-Novel-Stephen-King/dp/1416524517/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259727071&sr=8-3). (Except with King it's literally zombies). The novel ends on the father, who survived this apocalypse but it consumed his ex-wife and left his son zombie-fied, debating whether or not to also pick up the phone, leaving the reader with the question of what did he ultimately do.
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Date: 2009-12-02 04:59 pm (UTC)couldn't remember the title, so chose not to mention it. (Just in case my memory of it was wrong.)
Thanks for the info.
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Date: 2009-12-02 04:49 am (UTC)And I completely agree w/you about being mystified by Fox's reasoning: how could anyone think that superficial (and rather boring) first episode (opening w/the lame motorcycle chase and going on to the hackneyed kidnapped child story) was more exciting than the complicated and mysterious pilot episode?! It really blows my mind that executives could be so dumb.
And actually I liked the extras, they were made while Joss & company were sure that the show was cancelled... They thought that what was on that DVD set was all there would ever be. I'm glad they were wrong, I've been loving the 2nd season (and looking forward to the new episodes this Friday night!).
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Date: 2009-12-02 05:07 pm (UTC)Yeah, well, just read my comments thread.
My lj flist is basically filled with whedonhaters/whedonlovers and those who are sort of ambivalent or have no clue who he is.
Same with every show - there's the people who hate Firefly but enjoy Dollhouse, the people who love Firefly and hate Dollhouse, the ones who only adore Buffy...
At times it feels like being caught between cynical agnostics, god-hating athesists, unitarians, casual church-goers and devout born-again christians. ;-) When Dollhouse got cancelled - I saw posts from people doing the jig of celebration, and posts from folks crying in their beer. Will state that the diversity in opinions certainly makes life interesting, if at times a little more contentious than I'd like.
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Date: 2009-12-03 09:24 pm (UTC)personally I would have a tendency to delete such comments saying 'I don't care what you think, put it in your own blog'.... lol
Oh I just read the best interview w/Joss about Dollhouse, here:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/12/dollhouse-fox-joss-whedon.html
Where he said (in part) that he wanted to explore more about sexuality but Fox was scared of the whole sex thing:
"Because as I said before, when you’re dealing with fantasies, particularly sexual ones, you’re going off the reservation. You’re not going to be doing things that are perfectly correct. It’s supposed to be about the sides of us that we don’t want people to see. For me it was exploitation was part of it, but it was more about the idea of our identities and what we consider to be ourselves and how relating to other people affects that, how we incorporate other people in ourselves and how we project ourselves onto people and how everybody relates to everyone in their lives through the filter of their own beliefs, experiences and memories. That to me is kind of fascinating. What we think we want from each other when we say "I love you" or any of those other things is, I think, very complex and sometimes very depressing and sometimes kind of weirdly beautiful."
Now THAT would have been a very edgy show!
(edited because I forgot to include the link to the interview quoted)
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Date: 2009-12-05 02:54 am (UTC)Thanks for the link - by the way. It's a great article and perhaps one of Whedon's better interviews.
I think Dollhouse would have done better on cable. I know why it wasn't on cable and Whedon sort of hints at it - he really didn't get to choose the distribution. Eliza had a deal with Fox. Fox had a slot on Fox and chose, for whatever reason, not to add it to F/X lineup. I'm not sure why - but I don't think it was Whedon's decision and I get the feeling like most TV and Film writers - he really doesn't watch much tv and isn't aware of most of it. (Makes sense, why would you watch tv if you were creating it all day long?)
What Whedon wanted to do could never be done on network television - network tv is mainstream. Cult rarely does well on it. True Blood which does sort of go there with the sex is on HBO. Dexter - Showtime. United States of Tara - about a multiple personality disorder Mom - on Showtime. Weeds - Showtime. Secret Diary of a Call Girl? Showtime. Rescue Me - which featured the lead character raping his wife, and her forgiving him afterwards, as well as the lead getting raped by a woman while drunk, was on F/X, Nip-Tuck - which has sexual exploitation and out-there sex themes - F/X.
Whedon did come close to showing some of this in S6 Buffy and S4 Angel...but the fandom was decidedly split regarding it. And mention "rape", "sexual exploitation", or "sexual violence" to the online fandom - and it is akin to yelling Fire in a movie theater or terrorist in a NY Police Station. People "over-react" to it.
I can't talk about this in my lj without putting lots of warnings and caveats.
Torture - as long as it is not sexual - oddly doesn't bother people (Supernatural is a good example as is 24). Nor does violence - again as long as sex is not involved (boxing, gunfights, explosions, all the death and disembarment on Bones and countless other procedurals). People online have no problems watching humans blown up, eaten, or murdered on Doctor Who...but anything regarding sex or sexual violence which is not romanticized, watch out. And the weird reactions to Adam Lambert's performance at the American Music Awards.
It's very strange. And it is not just American.
There's something about sex that appears to scare athe beejeezus out of us or at the very least unsettle us...and I'm not quite sure what it is. And sexual fantasy has always been a subject of controversy. I remember a friend pooh-poohing fanfiction for being mostly female centric erotica or porn (like there's something wrong with that?).
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Date: 2009-12-05 03:49 am (UTC)Which is probably the very reason why Joss was keen on (and kind of terrified of) exploring it...
it is a huge taboo to actually talk openly about our sexual fantasies, we all have dark weird thoughts (well, maybe I should only speak for myself! lol)... and I would love to see what Joss would do if he was allowed to do anything he wants.
Frankly I don't think he would stretch the envelope all that far; he did do some outrageous things on BtVS and Ats, but personally I never felt that I was being pushed that far from my comfort zone....
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Date: 2009-12-05 04:17 am (UTC)Hee. Oh you aren't alone. Have you read Miss Edith's Revenge? I wrote a scene in that - which I think skeeved half my readers. Although it is nothing close to some of the stuff Bret Easton Ellis wrote in the best-selling American Psycho - which also went past my comfort zone - the only book that I actually considered throwing in the trashcan, outside of maybe The Purpose Driven Life...which I haven't thrown in the trash because my landlord gave it to me and I don't want my rent to go up too high.
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Date: 2009-12-02 05:57 am (UTC)But my real gripe was the supremely unimaginative vision of the apocalypse that comes with this technology. That phone call doesn't raise an army. What ruler with an ounce of sense wants to rule over a blowed up world? The real evil wielder of the technology uses the phone call to program more compliant consumers or voters. He or she installs dolls as presidents, prime ministers, generals and popes. And makes darned sure that nobody is aware that they are living in the midst of an apocalypse where everyone is a total slave and totally unaware of their enslavement. That vision of the apocalypse can resonate with our fears about media and how it controls us and so on. And it makes more sense cause the wielders of the technology end up with unlimited power and unlimited wealth, which beats the heck out of ruling over a blighted urban landscape.
I give the episode a pass, because if you think it's your last episode ever (which they did think), you want people to see in one hour just how dangerous this technology is. Blighted urban landscapes communicate very quickly. But I don't think I'm ever going to forgive Joss for "children playing with matches". And as you note, Echo remains relentlessly dull and one-dimensional. I've got to hope there were plans to do something with that. Maybe in the last 9 episodes we'll get a feel for what that might have been.
DH remains very frustrating to me -- so much potential, and so much uneven execution. Moments of brilliance too often followed by patches of astonishing lack of imagination. Also, Joss's cavalier attitude towards the logical coherence of his worlds is more problematic in a non-fantasy setting.
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Date: 2009-12-02 05:27 pm (UTC)I think part of the problem is we are expecting quite a bit right out of the box...and this is a writer who needs to build up to his theme. Buffy didn't get really good until halfway through the second and third seasons. The better episodes are
much later in the story, more than 20 episodes in. And the same can be said for Angel. It took a while for the writer/writers to hit their stride. Some writers do great pilots - see Ron Moore or Abrhams or the writers of ER, but their stories sort of peeter out a bit later on. Other's do lacklustre pilots or beginnings, yet their stories take off and become food for brain and heart.
So I took Epitaph One and Echo for what they were...and critiqued them on that basis.
But my real gripe was the supremely unimaginative vision of the apocalypse that comes with this technology. That phone call doesn't raise an army. What ruler with an ounce of sense wants to rule over a blowed up world? The real evil wielder of the technology uses the phone call to program more compliant consumers or voters. He or she installs dolls as presidents, prime ministers, generals and popes. And makes darned sure that nobody is aware that they are living in the midst of an apocalypse where everyone is a total slave and totally unaware of their enslavement. That vision of the apocalypse can resonate with our fears about media and how it controls us and so on. And it makes more sense cause the wielders of the technology end up with unlimited power and unlimited wealth, which beats the heck out of ruling over a blighted urban landscape.
Hee. I have seen this done quite a bit by Doctor Who and Torchwood, actually. Which makes me wonder why the UK and Brits seem to be producing apocalyptic pictures like the vision you state above, but the Americans are going the burned out hull route? Philip K. Dick certainly played with it in his novel the Three Stigmata of Palmer K. Aldritch and Huxley plays with it a bit in Brave New World. The idea of a mindless, media obsessed culture that does whatever the powers that be devise. I think another film that played with it was the James Wood flick Scanners by David Croenburg?
At any rate, I do share your frustrations.
And as you note, Echo remains relentlessly dull and one-dimensional. I've got to hope there were plans to do something with that. Maybe in the last 9 episodes we'll get a feel for what that might have been.
DH remains very frustrating to me -- so much potential, and so much uneven execution. Moments of brilliance too often followed by patches of astonishing lack of imagination. Also, Joss's cavalier attitude towards the logical coherence of his worlds is more problematic in a non-fantasy setting.
Nods vigorously. I'm having the same problems with his comic books interestingly enough.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 06:25 am (UTC)Because maybe it's been done for years, decades, forever even, with males as avatars? So why not even the scale a bit?
I suspect I am one of the few who prefers the aired pilot to the unaired one. The original was OK, but I found it trying to cram way too much info in at once. My opinion of the series improved tremendously when I got to rewatch it on DVD, one ep after the other, and without commercials-- I feel it holds together far better than it was given credit for.
I started doing a detailed review of the series a few months back, with some emphasis on one of Whedon's best skills, which is making TV with a cinematic look and feel to it. (The guys who created TSCC have the same gift, perhaps even to a greater degree). However, the first post got zero responses to it, so I quit-- way too much time to do if no one is interested, you know?
I liked Dollhouse quite a bit, but I can also see why it just didn't make it. While you are right about it using horror tropes, the problem is that the Dollhouse horror isn't fake-- it's all too real world, right here, right now. We are already being reprogrammed, and it doesn't require a fancy machine to do it. We freely hand people the keys to our brain, and pretend that we don't, or that it's for our own good.
Yeah, uh-huh.
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Date: 2009-12-02 06:24 pm (UTC)It wasn't really meant to be a criticism so much as an observation. But, now that you mention it - I'd personally prefer "women" or "mature women" avatars as opposed to prebuscent girls. Just me. That said, beggers can't be choosers...it's better to have a girl hero for a change, than a boy...and it is one of the reasons I admittedly like Whedon's stories, well most of them at any rate.
However, the first post got zero responses to it, so I quit-- way too much time to do if no one is interested, you know?
All too well. Notice that the vast majority of comments I get are for Buffy polls and Buffy comic reviews. So if your flist is anything remotely like mine (eg. a lot of ex-ATPOers) than yep, we're getting basically the same range of responses to Dollhouse.
Half of them did the happy snoopy dance when the thing got cancelled, which was admittedly annoying but I guess, understandable.
I did or was doing reviews for every episode...but the lack of responses made me stop. I only did one for the above...because a group of cool folks on my flist had seen it and wanted to know my thoughts. But it is an regrettably small group.
liked Dollhouse quite a bit, but I can also see why it just didn't make it. While you are right about it using horror tropes, the problem is that the Dollhouse horror isn't fake-- it's all too real world, right here, right now. We are already being reprogrammed, and it doesn't require a fancy machine to do it. We freely hand people the keys to our brain, and pretend that we don't, or that it's for our own good.
You aren't wrong. In some respects the horror of Dollhouse is far more terrifying than anything we see elsewhere. It reminds me a great deal of the better Doctor Who/Torchwood episodes, and old Twilight Zone - which also dealt with psychological horror. I also think in Dollhouse Whedon is critiquing the tortureporn fandom.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 03:53 pm (UTC)As you mention and as one of the comments above adds, "Epitaph One" was a mix of a bunch of themes and visuals from other franchises, in some ways done a little better.
"Echo" was okay but, like OnM, I don't think it was missed. All the threads leading forward played out much better in the actual series when spread out over several episodes.
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Date: 2009-12-02 05:42 pm (UTC)Regarding whether watching Epitaph One would hurt your enjoyment of Season 2? It doesn't at least it didn't for me, although I guess I can see why Fox might have thought it would. If anything it provides a nice counter-point to some of the more disturbing messages in the show - which may or may not have encouraged some of the less enthusiastic viewers. I admit for a while I thought it was going to ruine the show for me, which is why I was avoiding it. But it doesn't. Depends I suppose on why you are watching it, what keeps you interested.
If it's to figure out where they all end up - then yeah, I guess it would kill it. But if it is to figure out how and why they end up there, to see the changes, the progression in the characters, and see where or what they are planning next...then it will either intrigue or turn off.
I'm watching Season 2 and I don't know if he's heading towards Epitaph or not, can't really tell at this point, my guess is that he or rather they are.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 02:17 am (UTC)I've been trying to decide if I want to buy the DVD's...because while I enjoy the series, I don't love it.
"Epitaph" by the way isn't nearly as dark as some of the episodes this year...they went quite dark this year.
You bring up an interesting point regarding DVD's...
The whole season did work better for me in one binge of DVD watching than it did spread over months. With answers in hand, even if they weren't the answers to be played out in the secon season, I could see others like myself saying, 'I'll wait to watch season two till when the DVDs come out' - And that's not a good way to keep the series going.
A lot of people online did exactly that - either with this series or others. If I had to guess, I'd say about 20-30% of the people I've read on lj don't watch tv live, don't have cable, and either rent DVD's, watch via DVD, or download onto their computer/tivo.
When Buffy began we didn't have DVD's, nor did we when Angel started. We also didn't have 600 channels and
Premium Cable hadn't really taken off with new series nor had the other cable channels. Digitial wasn't quite here yet. This gave nitch cult shows such as Buffy and Angel time to develop an audience, to get a following. Now if you don't get one right off the bat, you are dead in the water. And a good portion of the audience has given up, and just waits for the DVD's.
Serial drama tends to play better in a binge...than with lots of days in between. It also doesn't tend to re-run well - killing a whole avenue of revenue.
I can't help but wonder if Dollhouse would have survived longer without the DVD's or if the DVD's kept it alive longer?
I also can't help but wonder if you may be right - if Epitaph One turned away viewers? I know of at least one other person from my flist who stopped watching Dollhouse because Epitaph One answered all their questions.
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Date: 2009-12-02 04:23 pm (UTC)It was good in parts, though, and like Maggie says, I can see why Joss made it. It was to do for Dollhouse in a minor way what Serenity does for Firefly.
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Date: 2009-12-02 05:32 pm (UTC)The outer scenes lacked an emotional resonance needed to really compell me. The flashbacks basically saved the episode for me and my fondness for it is for those flashes. The outter bits about Mac and her pals, reminded me too much of Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dark Angel, and countless other stories - the bleak apocalyptic future is unfortunately becoming a tad cliche.
Although 2Maggie2 vision has also been done or touched on quite a bit - most notably in Doctor Who and Torchwood.
I don't know if I liked it more than you did or not, to be honest. I enjoyed it, I was fond of the Topher and Adelle scenes, but that was in part due to the actors playing the parts.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 12:29 pm (UTC)I mostly enjoyed it, though like you, for the character scenes (Adelle and Topher, Adelle and Mr Saunders, Whiskey and Boyd), but I thought all the other good bits revolved around Amy Acker. The final scene in the Dollhouse where the zombies (or whatever you want to call them) break in and Whiskey releases the poison gas contained the striking image of Whiskey crumpled over the railing in her long white dress, like a broken doll, which is what she was, of course.
But I felt the same way as you about many of the 'present day' scenes. It was more like watching an ep of TSCC, plus muddy and dark. The kid version of Caroline was good, though.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 05:13 pm (UTC)I deleted from my post a comment about how good the kid was as Caroline (and the fact that you know you have a problem with the actress portraying the lead when every other actress including a kid who plays that lead is more interesting and better...)
I'm guessing my major beef with Dollhouse is Eliza Dusku - the actress just cannot carry an entire series.
She's great as supporting - such as Faith, but not nuanced enough a performer to handle the demands of a lead role. But I know that's partly subjective, so apologies if your mileage differs. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-04 03:37 pm (UTC)Well, I have no problem with her, (except when she's being 'straight' Caroline, because unfortunately Caroline is just not a very interesting character), but will cheerfully admit that my reasons for liking her are a lot to do with enjoying seeing her beat up men.
Have you read Joss's interview with the Chicago Times, btw?
no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 03:08 am (UTC)I think Dollhouse would have worked better on one of the cable channels. Why Fox didn't put it on F/X - I've no idea. Because F/X would have been a perfect fit - F/X - is the channel for edgy, dark, controversial dramas about somewhat noirish anti-heroes. Rescue Me - the Denis Leary drama is on F/X and it featured not one but three rapes, mucho sex, and lots of dark themes. The lead, Leary - raped his ex-wife and was raped while drunk by his girlfriend - both scenes were rather unsettling and neither was clear-cut. Nip/Tuck - by Ryan Murphy, the guy who does Glee, is very dark - and out-there.
It shows graphic scenes of sex and violence. That show is pornographic in its depiction of sex and sexual exploitation/objectification themes.
So why didn't Fox put Dollhouse on F/X? Did they misunderstand what the show was about? Think it was just a fun/cool sci-fi show like Buffy? (Bewildering).
Maybe the two are separate and you have to pitch to them separately?? That's probably it. And Dusku had a deal with Fox not F/X and they pitched it to Fox and Fox bought it.
Shame - it probably would have lasted longer on F/X or Showtime, which doesn't require as large an audience following and tends to like edgy dramas that are sort of "out-there".
At any rate...sort of agree with Whedon, people are weird about sex. Violence - people have no problems with. But anything to do with sex...particularly if it is sex + violence or sexual exploitation or sexual fantasy...they get really uncomfortable and squicked. It's odd. Because they don't seem to mind watching someone torture someone on a show like 24 or the countless procedurals, or see someone buried alive, or
mummified (both on Bones) but anything regarding sex or rape?
Forgetabout it.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-06 10:06 pm (UTC)I expect you're right about Eliza having the contract with Fox rather than F/X. It is a shame, and from what Joss says about his interest in cable shows, he possibly thinks the same.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-06 10:17 pm (UTC)I think Whedon's hands were a bit tied by Eliza and I think he may have lived to regret that. Nothing against Eliza - she did make the show happen, but her involvement also restricted him in some ways as a writer and show-runners - in that he had to keep the show centered on her character, and had to sell it to Fox. He didn't get to shop it around to other networks nor did he get to develop a series that did not have a central lead (which he's stated is problematic). Yet without her - I seriously doubt the show would have gotten made let alone aired. I know Mutant Enemy had pitched other series that did not get picked up over the years. In TV you need a name - a sellable name and Whedon is no JJ Abrhams, and Buffy is no Lost - it never brought in the numbers Lost did nor acquired the mainstream audience attention. It's a lot better than Lost in my opinion, but then I tend to like off-kilter things.
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Date: 2009-12-08 12:47 pm (UTC)Oh, I agree. I saw the first two seasons of Lost because they were bought by one of the terrestrial channels over here, but in season 3 it went to Sky, which I don't get, and I haven't missed it at all.
I jumped through I don't know how many convoluted hoops to watch BtVS back in the day (it was also on Sky and I had to get my sister to tape it for me, and then she'd send me the tape when it was full, so I got to see new episodes once a month), but I can't imagine doing that for Lost.