So Joss Whedon makes his return to the Friday night Fox death slot in hopes of defying the odds with “Dollhouse.” There has been much controversy over the creative process of the series, with Fox supposedly not being happy with original scripts and taking a heavy hand. This would be the same Fox that insisted Firefly’s pilot episode be aired at the end of the series’ truncated run, prompting Kathleen and me to watch the pilot, turn to each other and say, “Okay, the series makes a lot more sense now.”
So where do we stand with “Dollhouse?” Not really sure yet. Commentary with no real major spoilers follows:
First of all, you have the fundamental premise that there’s an organization which brainwashes operatives, called “Actives,” into becoming whoever and whatever is required for various situations. At one point the question is posed as to why such an organization would be necessary. If you need someone who is a top notch escort, why not simply hire an escort? A top notch negotiator? Hire a top notch negotiator. What is the point and purpose of the outfit itself? No answer is really provided. The real reason is that it provides a great opportunity for an actress to play a multitude of roles, thus luring Eliza Dushku back to series TV after the far more intriguing “Tru Calling” crashed and burned. Plus you’re supposed to accept it because, well, if you don’t, there’s no show. Just like you’re supposed to accept the fact that, into each generation, a slayer is born. Except the latter is supernatural, so you’re inclined to give it a pass. When you’re grounding yourself in science fiction, you need more of a concept then, “Because there’s no show otherwise.” There may be a more story-oriented reason forthcoming, but based on Fox’s SF track record, we can’t count on them keeping the series around long enough to learn what it is.
Second, aside from a two minute intro during which Dushku is acting in a manner indistinguishable from Faith, the protagonist–Echo–is a cipher. That is, of course, by design. But whereas the fun of watching, say, Jennifer Garner in “Alias” portray different people is that we have a sense of her own personality, Echo is entirely in the moment. So we have no idea who she is, what her background is, or why we should care about it. Presumably her past is going to become a factor in the series, but we need to be involved with her NOW in order to become invested in her fate.
The series also has some internal logic gaps in its very set up. The Actives are not supposed to have any inkling of their true nature. So what would happen if an Active is on an assignment and she runs into someone she encountered during a previous incarnation? And that person says, “We met at such-and-such a place. How can you not remember?” Echo seems like she’s being held together mentally with spit and bailing wire as it is. She seems just as likely to break down during a mission as accomplish it.
As for fans of Joss Whedon’s writing, well…you won’t see much of it here. Or at least not what we’re accustomed to. In one respect, that’s a good thing. Aaron Sorkin TV characters all seem to sound alike, whether they’re in “Sportsnight,” “The West Wing,” or “Studio 60.” Indeed, some of them use the same dialogue. It provides a same-ishness that can be off putting. In his previous TV work, Whedon developed distinct rhythms, cadences, dialects, that gave each series a unique feel. There’s nothing like that here. The dialogue is generic; there’s no “writer’s voice” on display here. It doesn’t sound–for want of a better term–Whedonesque. The only way you know it’s a Whedon series is that Amy Acker is back playing Fred, except a less interesting version of herself. Again, not necessarily a bad thing. Dialogue tics and styles can become crutches; it’s good to operate outside your comfort zone, to strip down your writing to its essence and see what’s there.
What’s there thus far is enough to keep me around, if nothing else than the fact that even middling Whedon is better than a lot of people at the top of their game. But the bottom line is that thus far I’m not entirely sure who I’m supposed to root for or why, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
PAD
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I started watching this, but I fell asleep about 10 minutes into it. It definitely didn’t hold my attention at all.
I’ve yet to read a truly positive review of it. If Dollhouse last 2 more episodes, I’ll be shocked.
Not that audience size is an indication of a show’s quality, but Dollhouse did dismally in the overnight ratings. I’ll be surprised if it lasts as long as Firefly did.
From a tech perspective, there are another few problems. .
1) The McGuffin tech is insanely powerful. These people have the abilities to a) erase memories, both wholesale and selectively [a deimplanted Echo is still able to interact with people, recognize them, etc. instead of being a vegetable]. b) Store memories; it’s implied Echo will get her true self back in 5 years, and she’s implanted with a memory of a personal experience, not just info. c) design new personas from multiple sets of memories and overlay some info to make them coherent (the “Ellen Penn” persona over what was said to be multiple negotiator personas) d) tinker with the perceptual info feeds into the brain to effectively physically alter the body (giving Echo near sightedness and asthma…the latter of which, btw, was just stupid and a plot device as the persona didn’t need to have it).
Think about what you can do with any of those, let alone the combo. At the very least, how much do you think [insert multi-billionaire or very powerful government type] would pay/do to have their memories stored and then downloaded into a new body on their death or when they reach old age?
Or, grab various important people and rewrite their memories a bit, either to make them do something you want or to have totally loyalty and trust in you. And this can be accomplished by first grabbing their bodyguards and those around them and doing the same thing.
Or, keep your core persona, and have the expertise bits from someone else added in.
Etc. Two quick examples from SF that come to mind are Spider Robinson’s Mindkiller and Jack Chalker’s The Identity Matrix.
This is insanely powerful tech. And it’s being used only for a combo escort agency and temp job shop?
And then there’s “the A-Team problem”. Somehow, all their clients know about them and how to contact them. But the government, save for one quirky good guy, thinks they’re a myth and has no idea how to find them. Not to mention the number of non-operative people in the Dollhouse who are all keeping the secret.
Unfortunately, the background comes across as “wow! cool idea!” but without anyone having thought through the consequences of it.
I agree that the big question is why would someone hire an active instead of someone who came by the skills naturally. I can think of a lot of reasons why, but they haven’t actually given any yet.
However, they did give one in the early previews, which I think are from the pilot that has now been scrapped. There was a scene in the early previews where the Boss Lady was explaining to someone that an active who had been hired for romance wasn’t a prostitute, she was a woman who was really, truly in love with the client. I can totally see how rich people would love to throw their money away on that. That’s the place where the concept is the strongest. I can see why Whedon would have wanted to tell that story first, but then FOX wanted to have something more life and death for the premiere. To be fair, I can see why FOX would feel that way.
PAD, I disagree about Amy Acker’s character being a less interesting Fred. I can see the similarities, but I didn’t get that impression from her. This character seems more mature than Fred ever was. If she seemed less interesting, I think that’s mainly because they had so little time to devote to her in the first episode.
Bill Clay, the overnight ratings were not “dismal.” They weren’t terrific, but they were much better than dismal. They got almost double the ratings of a show that premiered this time last year at that slot. They held 90% of the audience from Terminator. Also, make sure you don’t compare overnight ratings to regular ratings. Overnight ratings only include the biggest markets. The actual ratings will be higher once all the smaller markets are added in.
On top of that, overnight ratings don’t include DVR +7, so the network doesn’t look at a 4.9 rating today the way that they looked at a 4.9 rating 5 years ago. They know those aren’t the only people who watched the show. Despite the controversy over whether DVR people watch commercials, it still has some affect on advertiser revenue so that is factored into Network decisions.
Oh, and the show is also doing quite well on iTunes. That’s money that goes directly in the Network’s pockets.
These days, ratings only tell a small part of the story.
I haven’t seen this yet (it’s on my TiVo), but it sounds like the ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ problem. After watching the first episode of that, I couldn’t figure out why you would want to overlay the “normal married guy” persona over the “spy who knows what’s going on” persona. Why not just have the spy pretend to be a normal married guy sometimes? Having it be two different personas doesn’t eliminate the long unexplained absences problem ALL the “normal married guy” spies have. 🙂
And you just end up with the problem of the Russian guy the spy tortured capturing the married guy who has no idea what’s going on (well, not much of an idea, anyway). I was not curious enough to watch any more episodes to find out if they ever explained it. I suspect they didn’t because they couldn’t.
Tom Galloway: d) tinker with the perceptual info feeds into the brain to effectively physically alter the body (giving Echo near sightedness and asthma…the latter of which, btw, was just stupid and a plot device as the persona didn’t need to have it).
This seemed pretty reasonable to me. Stage magicians make people have physical sensations. I’ve even heard to people with multiple personalities having differences like this. This seemed like the least significant sci-fi stretch out on the show.
I’m also not sure what you mean by it being stupid and unnecessary. They specifically said that they make the personalities from real people and that means taking the good with the bad. That sounds to me like something that’s going to be important later in the series, especially since they’ve already hinted that the first guy they made went horribly wrong. The nearsightedness and the asthma were necessary to get the point across, if they’d just said they have to take the bad stuff without demonstrating something that was clearly bad, it wouldn’t have meant anything.
It think it makes *more* sense to show that the technology has some limitations. If they can’t just built a perfect human, they have to throw some bad stuff in with the good, then that’s more realistic. It also gets across the idea that they don’t actually know how to build a personality, they’d just grabbing great big chunks of real minds, which is a much cruder tactic.
No new Battlestar review? Shame on you! 🙂
During the episode, a character did ask why not just hire an escort rather than someone brainwashed into being an escort, or a chef rather than someone brainwashed into being a chef. I got the impression that the question would be answered.
I think it’s got quite a bit of potential and I’m very disappointed to see so many people dismissing it so early – especially considering FOX’s track record with science fiction.
I want to like the show, it’s a Whedon show, and more importantly, it’s got Eliza Dushku.
But all the problems already mentioned above are really interferring with that.
I’ll give it a few more weeks, but it’s not looking good right now.
Since the asthma wasn’t technically real (according to the way Tech Geek Guy explained it), is her inhaler just a placebo, or is it at least physically safe for a non-asthmatic to take a hit from an inhaler?
The “nearsighted” explanation I can “see” (pardon the pun)
But the government, save for one quirky good guy, thinks they’re a myth and has no idea how to find them. Not to mention the number of non-operative people in the Dollhouse who are all keeping the secret.
Who says the Government thinks they’re a myth? Or more specifically, who says that that the whole government thinks they’re a myth? Just because there’s a relentless good-guy FBI agent who is getting told by his superiors that the Dollhouse doesn’t exist, it doesn’t follow that there can’t be knowledge/tolerance/sponsorship/hiring of the Dollhouse by (very) black ops sections of the Government.
Or maybe part of the premise of the world of Dollhouse is that the ultra-rich are the one who are really in charge and that the government and everything going on there is just part of the Puppet Theatre put on display for the sonambulant public.
I really wanted to like it, but there was just nothing there to really latch on to for me as a viewer. I’ll give the show a few eps since Whedon has the potential make this an amazing show, but it won’t be too many eps if I end up spending 60 minutes waiting for them to actually get good like I did with the pilot.
It’s a shame really. It’s Whedon, it’s a clever concept and it’s a good cast, but it just seemed hollow and empty.
I wonder if we’ll ever get to see (or at least read in a novel) what Whedon really intended for the pilot…
This is like the movie Buffy all over again (studio messing it over and ordering changes)
My main issues with the show were that it wasn’t very exciting. Partly that’s because, being the first episode, they spent a lot of time explaining the premise, which I had read about months ago. So far the character that I find the most interesting is the handler, he seems to have some conflict about what he’s doing.
I’ve heard that the people who’ve seen the next few episodes say they get better and better. They also say there’s some real excitement about episode 6. I guess we’ll know by then how the show will shape up.
You pretty much summarized my thoughts exactly. There are just too many fundamental problems with the very premise, not the least of which is a protagonist with literally no personality of her own. Not being a Whedon fan to begin with (more from lack of exposure than antipathy, though I did read and enjoy his run on Runaways), I see no reason for me to keep watching. And anyway, I’m tired of genre shows about pouty young women.
One thing I didn’t understand at all: if the personas Echo adopts don’t know they’re fake, why do they know about the “treatments”? And why did “Ellen Penn” insist that she needed the treatment in order to find the girl? That part confused me.
They know they need some kind of procedure on a regular basis. They don’t know their entire lives are fake. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.
The “return for treatment” thing seems to be a failsafe to keep Actives from going off the rez (like one does in the previews for next episode).
I’m not a big Whedon fan as a general thing (I loved Firefly, don’t give a whit about the Buffyverse), but I gave this a try. I may even watch it again this week. But I won’t weep if it dies. The “You have to watch the entire story to really get it” pitch that Dushku gave on Letterman doesn’t wash with me. I’ll grant that seeing the entire story will enhance the enjoyment, but it has to be worth watching from the word go, I’m not going to slog through a half dozen eps in the hopes that it’ll get good.
I enjoyed it. I think we’ll probably see more of the trademark Whedon wit once they’re finished with the exposition dump. There’s a lot to explain with this show still, I think.
I was bothered by the cheesecake factor though. Where were Eliza’s pants at the beginning there? Those ridiculous promos they made her and Summer do were even worse. I smell studio jackassery all over that.
I think the pilot was decent and the premise has lots of potential (I also like how dark and controlling and sinister the whole operation really is at it’s core). And I dug how the dialouge wasn’t too Whedon cutesy, it was actually much more realistic than the self-referential way it usually sounds. I am going to check it out because I think, once you buy into the central concept (which does have big flaws which were apparent in Echo’s mission going tits-up in the first outting) there’s alot of room to play around here.
My biggest problem was Echo’s real “First Mission” wasn’t really all that. If this is a pilot episode, and it’s the first time we’re seeing her, just go hogwild and have her jumping out of helicopters wearing leather and landing on motorcycles and shooting bazkookas all at once. The best way to draw an audience in with Eliza Dushku is NOT to put her in glasses and a librarian hairdo. Big swing and a miss at the Echo’s outting, but the concept and her performance when she’s simply a blank was very good.
(also, small plus/minus – I liked how possibly the cop was presented as a crazy guy instead of the standard “good cop”, and a huge minus was when Echo walked into the girl being mindwipes. Multi-billion-trillion dollar operation going on and they can’t invest in a freakin’ lock? Or blinds for the windows?)
This opening didn’t thrill me. While it’s possible we’ll learn more about Echo’s personality as the show goes on, playing a different character each week is a dream for an actor — and a potential nightmare for the audience. Also, as she keeps more of her memories, will she fake her amnesia or keep going along with the missions? (And will this super-tech control organization and surveillance group fail to notice her change?) Then again, since she cvolunteered for it in the first place, would she want to forget again?
In addition to the basic, unanswered question of why pay for a professional when you can pay for someone who believes they’re a professional, I also question the need for installing weaknesses. Maybe they thought having a near-flawless hero each week would be boring (though I don’t see people complaining how skilled Batman is), but flaws aren’t needed tfor the skills. If you need someone who’s fluent in Chinese, you don’t have to make them agorophobic and stuttering to explain how they got so proficient.
I’ll keep watching — but not necessarily that much longer.
Jason M. Bryan: “Bill Clay, the overnight ratings were not “dismal.” They weren’t terrific, but they were much better than dismal. They got almost double the ratings of a show that premiered this time last year at that slot. They held 90% of the audience from Terminator.”
That’s not really as good as you make it sound. Terminator, which already dropped 43% in the ratings from its season 1 premiere to its season 2 debut, dropped somewhere around 27% below its previous series low rating in the last few shows according to James Hibberd’s Live Feed at the Hollywood Reporter. If that’s true then retaining 90% of its ratings might not mean all that much in the long run where the money men are concerned.
Really? I thought it was exactly as good as I made it sound.
The ratings weren’t sky high, but they were better than other shows FOX has put in its time slot. That’s even before you count the fact that overnight ratings are less than actual ratings.
The show isn’t jumping off the charts, but it’s not jumping off balconies yet, either. The really important thing is not how it did last week, but how much of the audience it holds through the season. If the season finale has 90% of the ratings of the series premiere, I’ll bet on the show returning next season. If it has half, then it’s head off into the same oblivion as Bionic Woman and the new Knight Rider.
Tech guy made it pretty clear the weaknesses were all due to how he’d tinkered with her brain/memory. If so, letting her keep the asthma or installing it deliberately, is a dumb thing to do for an agent going into a potentially physically hazardous situation.
And they obviously aren’t just installing someone’s persona as a complete and whole overlay. “Ellen Penn” still knew her handler, didn’t wonder why it was suddenly 2009 or why she was working for the Dollhouse, etc. So they should be able to leave the asthma out, or add a bit about some miraculous cure a year or so back.
Tom Galloway: Tech guy made it pretty clear the weaknesses were all due to how he’d tinkered with her brain/memory. If so, letting her keep the asthma or installing it deliberately, is a dumb thing to do for an agent going into a potentially physically hazardous situation.
That’s only a small part of what he said. First he said how he did it, then he gave a fairly long speech about why he needed to do it. The personalities are based on real people, so he has to include the drawbacks of those real people.
It’s like putting together a motorcycle. If someone asks how you put a bolt in a particular joint, you could tell them that you used a wrench. But the fact that you used a wench doesn’t mean the bolt is optional. Even if you took the engine from one motorcycle and put it in a different one, you still need to put that bolt in there, despite the fact that some people might think the bolt sticks out and looks bad.
This is the same thing. Tech guy knows how to construct a personality out of a few large chunks, he knows how to assemble all the little pieces and make it go, but he can’t just leave out a particular small piece that he doesn’t like.
My biggest problem with the show what is happening to the protagonist. With “Buffy” we were told that the show was about female empowerment–having the teenage girl slay the monsters instead of running from them. Echo, however, is a victim. As the bit at the beginning of the episode showed us, she was more-or-less forced into the program. Now that she is there, well, “she” doesn’t exist. She’s been completely mind-raped. She only has the abilities that they choose to provide her with and what the Dollhouse gives they’re dámņ well willing to take away. Buffy = hero. Echo = victim.
I hope–HOPE–that Joss will turn this on its head and have Echo overcoming the limitations set upon her. He better do it very, very soon, though, or he may not have a program to show the plan to us with.
Jeff, I interpreted that opening scene differently than you. Echo said she had to join the program, but she didn’t say that they were forcing her, just that she had no alternative. In fact, the Boss Lady specifically asked if she was volunteering. Boss Lady also pushed a contract forward, which is dumb because a what they’re doing is illegal so a contract is meaningless, but it did reinforce that Echo was “signing up” for something and had some choice in the matter.
My impression was that outside events had forced her into this situation. The first thing that Boss Lady says is that she’s offering a clean slate, which Echo responds to by saying that you can’t completely clean a slate. She said that with disgust, as if she hated what was in her head and wanted to get rid of it. I think that she willingly volunteered and her reasons for doing something so drastic are a mystery that we’ll discover as the show progresses.
Another thing, having Echo slowly develop a personality is definitely part of the plan. It’s something that Joss has talked about since the show was announced.
I agree that Echo needs to develop a personality soon. I don’t feel terribly attached to her right now. That’s kind of how I feel about the show in general, the pieces all seem reasonable, but they’re not in a whole that grabs me just yet. Hopefully they will in the next few episodes.
I think we’re supposed to like “blank” Echo in these early stages kind of like how you’re supposed to feel sorry for a dog. She looks at you big, puppy eyes and you just instantly feel empathy for her. Works for me.
Jason M. Bryan: “Bill Clay, the overnight ratings were not “dismal.”
Maybe “dismal” was the wrong description? NY Magazine described it’s ratings as “unspectacular”, adding “Dollhouse’s was the lowest-rated series premiere of any scripted show this season, except for NBC’s Crusoe.”
To be evenhanded, Variety described Dollhouse’s debut ratings as “fair” and stated “Fox’s “Dollhouse” got off to a credible start in the ratings Friday.”
Reading all the reviews, this one quote was most telling-
“Even more ominous: Seven years ago, 400,000 more people tuned into the first-ever episode of Firefly (Whedon’s last TV show, which aired on Fox in the same time slot and was canceled after eleven episodes).”
Yeah can’t say it kept my interest, but after reading so much about the trouble with shooting the pilot I’m willing to give it a chance and see what happens. Right now I’m more worried about Terminator getting renewed.
I plan to watch the first episode online, since I was at Farpoint all weekend and could only tape some of the stuff I was going to miss (and managed to screw up my programming enough to miss some of them anyway).
I do think the notion of Echo being a tabula rasa between assignments could be a problem. On Quantum Leap, Sam Beckett leaped into a different person each week, but from our POV he was still Sam Beckett. We could get invested in Sam as a character. If there’s no “real” Echo for us to get to know, then what we have is Eliza Dushku Anthology Showcase.
I’d like to think the show will last long enough to find its way, but given that it’s on Fridays on Fox I wouldn’t be surprised to see this in about a month:
TV Guide lists a first-run Dollhouse on Friday at nine;
Fox runs on-air promos for it as late as Tuesday during Fringe;
I turn on the TV (or set the VCR) to Fox at the appointed time;
And hear, (musical intro) “It’s the American Idol Recap Show!“
The first episode is also available on iTunes. I don’t use iTunes, but for those who do, it’s there.
Apparently it’s doing pretty well on iTunes. It was the #1 episode on their store, though I don’t know how long that lasted.
Yeah, the ratings could have been more spectacular, but there were some positives. I’m not sure where this “90% of Terminator” number comes from – amount of viewers of TSCC who stayed on Fox through Dollhouse? Because in raw number of actual viewers, overnights showed Dollhouse with straight-up one million MORE viewers than TSCC. Still only number three in the timeslot overall – but number one in Fox’s most valued demographic, males 18-34 years old, with the highest numbers Fox has pulled in that category on a Friday in quite some time. (The ratings discussion on Whedonesque, with several links and some comments from people employed in or with connections to the industry, is at whedonesque.com/comments/19107, for more details.)
And Fox’s offical rationale for putting Dollhouse on Fridays is to give it time to grow in a place with lower expectations. They’ve been pretty reassuring about letting the season play out; and a change in the network from the days of some infamous quick hooks is the presence of Kevin Reilly (sp?), who nurtured shows such as Friday Night Lights despite less-than-superior ratings. I’m actually a little glad to hear that Dolhouse rated within a half million of Firefly, as network TV ratings are down significantly across the board since that time; in today’s numbers, that would actually seem to indicate a stronger premiere, I think. Anyway – not slam-dunk safe numbers, but, for the moment, there actually seems to be cause for cautious optimism. Retaining the numbers – especially the 2.0 in the advertisers’/Fox’s coveted M 18-34 group – will be key.
Oh, yeah – the show itself. I liked it – didn’t quite love it, but expect I probably will grow to love the show, and certainly am highly anticipating seeing the next episode. I thought it was well-acted and filmed, found Echo more relateable than some seem to have, and think there are layers to be considered already present in the first episode.
Ðámņ! I wish I had known Amy Acker was in it, I would have watched it. I’d watch anything she’s in.
Tom Galloway wrote: Think about what you can do with any of those, let alone the combo. At the very least, how much do you think [insert multi-billionaire or very powerful government type] would pay/do to have their memories stored and then downloaded into a new body on their death or when they reach old age?
In the mid 90s, Whedon wrote a screenplay called AFTERLIFE, a thriller where a dying old scientist gets his brain imprinted in the body of a young death row inmate, so it’s obvious Whedon has considered that notion. I’m not sure how much of that script will make it to this series, though, because it was bought by a studio that still dusts it off for development every few years.
Dave Robeson wrote: I haven’t seen this yet (it’s on my TiVo), but it sounds like the ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ problem. […] Having it be two different personas doesn’t eliminate the long unexplained absences problem ALL the “normal married guy” spies have. 🙂 […] I was not curious enough to watch any more episodes to find out if they ever explained it. I suspect they didn’t because they couldn’t.
Actually, they explored that very subject quite thoroughly in a solid arc starting around episode 3 or so, where the other agent, Raymond, was struggling to keep his alias persona’s marriage from falling apart when his wife got suspicious and discovered a few things. Sadly, that thread, as well as the rest of the series, ended on one hëll of a cliffhanger, but it’s still a series I’d recommend watching one day.
One of my problems with the show, was the “base” and the fact that they had the treatment room in full view of all the “inmates”, esp with the big flashy light. Seemed a very poor decision that would constantly cause the staff problems.
Yeah, the strange lights flashing in the window of the mad scientist room was weak. Right up there with Echo crashing her motorcycle and then taking her helmet off.
I thought the plot structure and the ending largely fell flat and made no sense. In any type of science fiction thriller series, including one by Joss Whedon, I expect some amount of action, or at least some suspense or tension. There was none here, and I can’t imagine why, since the premise, and even the needs of the pilot’s story seemed to provide opportunities for this, if only the story–and for that matter, the ending–were framed a bit differently.
I don’t understand why, if they can create assassins, did the Dollhouse not send special ops extraction experts instead of a negotiator and her bodyguard to the pier, or even make any effort to track the boat in case Divina was not returned. This was just plain stupid. But even dumber was Echo pursuing Divina at the hideout without being reprogrammed into an ášš-kicker. As it was, she was manhandled by the creep who kidnapped her, and she got out the situation not by handing him his ášš, but by relying on disloyalty on the part of his collaborators. Not a bad twist in and of itself, but it’s not a very smart into which she should’ve invested so much confidence. What I would’ve done was this:
Open with an action sequence showing Echo as an assassin of some kind. Ditch the stupid motorcycling-to-the-party sequence, since it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the plot of the story. This sets up how the Dollhouse can reprogram their Actives for physical abilities. Then, do the negotiator plot. The idea of the tall, bald kidnapper being a guy who kidnapped one of the personas in Echo’s noggin is a good twist, and the way the operation went south as a result was also good, but I’d work in the asthma as something the Dollhouse was unaware of, perhaps considered irrelevant, since it’s a physical condition that isn’t carried on the engrams with which the Actives are programmed. It can be revealed that the persona’s knowledge of her asthma triggereda psychosomatic response, which the Dollhouse did not foresee. They’re not perfect, so a glitch like that sounds narratively plausible. That still leave the problem of not having an extraction team, but that’s workable. Maybe they thought the kidnappers were small-time amateurs and didn’t think they’d need one, or maybe they had one in backup, but the kidnappers outsmarted them or outgunned them, or something.
The final Act could’ve depicted the Dollhouse intending to reprogram Echo as the aforementioned ášš-kicker, but for some reason–either she sneaks some of the negotiator’s engrams into her noggin, or just retains them, unbeknownst to the Dollhouse, so that when goes to rescue Divina, she does kick some ášš, but her final victory involves her doing what she did in the episode. It would be revealing of character.
And ditch the stupid Muay Thai kickboxing sequence that was interspersed with that guy’s interview. It added nothing to the scene, or the episode. Sure, the creators want to give some eye candy to the female or gay viewers, and/or show that this character is a physical as well as mental presence, but there should be opportunities down the road to do this, and they it was done in the episode wasn’t successful to me.
Luigi: But even dumber was Echo pursuing Divina at the hideout without being reprogrammed into an ášš-kicker.
I think you’re thinking of it like Trinity in the Matrix, where someone can just say “I need to know how to fly a helicopter” and they’ll download that info into her head.
In Dollhouse, they’re putting whole personalities into someone’s head. It’s like ordering a specialized vehicle for a mission, you either get a speedboat or a tank. If you want to add armor plating to your speedboat, that may be possible, but not quickly.
And ditch the stupid Muay Thai kickboxing sequence that was interspersed with that guy’s interview. It added nothing to the scene, or the episode. Sure, the creators want to give some eye candy to the female or gay viewers, and/or show that this character is a physical as well as mental presence, but there should be opportunities down the road to do this, and they it was done in the episode wasn’t successful to me.
It’s called metaphor.
I thought it was pretty good, and even Joss has said that this first episode isn’t as good as episode two.
I have mixed feelings on the kickboxing scene.
At first I did feel that it was a little much. Then at the end I liked how it showed that he was lying to his bosses.
There’s also the fact that they needed to do this scene to establish his character and his conflict, but it’s a scene we’ve all watched 100 times before. The rebel cop whose boss is this close to taking his badge. They had to get this information across, but they had to do it in a way that wouldn’t be boring, that wouldn’t be just another rehash of every Dirty Harry movie.
Oh, and they had to do all this in very limited time because the rest of the episode isn’t about him. Plus, they’re going to be repeating the info for new viewers in upcoming episodes, so all those versions have to be interesting and different from each other.
This is the kind of thing that makes me respect professional writers. Even though the scene has legitimate problems, it still accomplishes certain things. So I simultaneously have issues with it and wish that I could write half that well.
Yes, Jason, I know that. So what not give her the personality of an ášš-kicker?
Whedon said that? Well, I hope he didn’t say it before it aired.
It’s worth noting that Eliza Dushku is featured in this month’s MAXIM magazine. So if the near-naked promo photos of Eliza weren’t enough for you, here’s a chance to see her in lingerie!
Luigi, the client specifically said he wanted a negotiator. He was very insistent that he just wanted a negotiator, not a rescue operation. So they gave the the off-the-shelf negotiator package. Once the action got started, they didn’t have time to build a new personality that had both the negotiator personality and ášš kicker skills.
It’s like asking why warp drive doesn’t transfer the Enterprise to a new solar system instantly. It’s science fiction, it doesn’t work that way because they didn’t make it that way. Every science fiction show has the right to establish its own rules. The rule for Dollhouse seem to be that they build whole personalities by mixing and matching from experts, they don’t just tack on one skill at a time. If they contradict an established rule, that’s bad, but Dollhouse hasn’t done that yet.
I have to agree with some of the comments already posted about Dollhouse. It does seem counterintuitive to have the “treatment room” be right out in the open, as it were. But maybe the Dollhouse administration feels that since the “Actives” are mind-wiped back to a tabula rasa state each time, whatever they might see doesn’t matter.
Not what I would call the best argument for putting their “treatment room” front and center, but maybe that’s a plot point and that “what could possibly go wrong with this arrangement?” situation will come back to bite them in the ášš.
Likewise, the “why not hire an actual negotiator/Chief Cook & Bottle washer/Cliche cop/Whatever” question is a valid one. “Maybe you can hire the Dollhouse Team”, as Tom Galloway implies. Except why would you need to?
If the “Dolls” were, say, androids who could handle situations ordinary humans couldn’t, it might make sense in certain situations to go to the Dollhouse for help. Though that would imply that the clients know the Dolls are androids. Otherwise why wouldn’t they go to “Negotiators R Us”?
Maybe the Dollhouse is meant to handle those situations that can’t go through “ordinary channels” for whatever reason. But that doesn’t explain the need to program the “Actives” rather than just have people with various skills “on staff.”
I agree that we have to care about Echo in order to really get emotionally invested in the show, and Paul1963’s Sam Beckett analogy is a valid one. To the other characters, he was Bill or George or sometimes even Sue, but to the audience, he was always Sam. Of course Sam had Al to talk to. I don’t know how Echo could have an Al (probably in the form of her “handler”) without getting rid of the basic concept that she is reverted to a blank slate after each “assignment.”
And maybe that’s where the show will go. I’m under the impression that Echo is going to start “remembering” things. Maybe like Edward/Henry in My Own Worst Enemy (and believe it or not the obvious Jekyll/Hyde allusions didn’t initially occur to me), Echo will have an ally or two who knows that she’s “broken” (a term used in My Own Worst Enemy about those agents whose “cover” personalities became aware of the truth), but is making sure those in charge don’t find out.
In short, maybe Echo will have to keep “pretending” to be a “doll” because her contract has a “if you remember anything before the five years are up, we have to kill you” clause.
Why would there be such a clause (to say nothing of the whole “why the ‘Dolls’?” question)? As the Daleks said in response to the question “why do you have chairs on a Dalek spaceship?” in The Curse of Fatal Death, “we will explain later.”
However, if my theory is correct, we should have gotten more of an indication of it from the start. Even something like a subtle, throwaway comment by the Penn “persona” to her handler that she’d like to see whatever his name was from the party again. She’d apparently immediately forget it as she’d continue on about whatever assignment-related topic they were discussing, but it would hint to both the audience and her handler that something was a bit off.
I plan to watch it again tonight, but it’s too early to tell if I’ll be on board for the full season (however long that may be).
Rick
P.S. With regards to PAD’s comment about an Active running into someone he or she had met in a previous incarnation, The Fugitive addressed something similar once. I don’t recall the episode title off the top of my head, but Dr. Kimble, using the name “Ralph Smith” (or whatever it was) encounters someone who’d known him some months ago in another town as, say, “Danny Johnson.” Thing is, when “Danny” disappeared, everyone assumed this other guy had killed him for whatever reason. So Kimble, himself an innocent man, made the decision to back to this town to clear things up and get this other guy off the hook. Basically: “I’m ‘Danny Johnson’, I’m not dead. This guy didn’t kill me. Please don’t ask any embarrassing questions. Can I go now?”
1I’m afraid I gave up on Wheton a long time ago.
1I’m afraid I gave up on Wheton a long time ago.
1I’m afraid I gave up on Wheton a long time ago.
It should’ve been “you need more of a concept than”, not “you need more of a concept then”
I don’t know…. i see the inherent flaws in the concept… the cheesiness of some of the dialogue & the overall, MTV-ification of the idea translated out to the Fox-ified final product.. But at the same time, i see the potential in this to be another Joss gem if nurtured the right way.
Read an article in rolling stone tonight w/ Joss claiming that Fox being so heavily involved w/ tweaking & requesting re-writes for the show so far has lead him to want to flee TV after this run of Dollhouse, whether a success or not. That is disappointing for so many reasons… first off, even if the show is a success with Whedon’s disinterest & corraling by Fox Executives, chances are he wont’ want to continue producing it another year regardless — So we’ll take the time to invest ourselves in it, only to be cheated when its pulled off the airwaves like his last baby was, Firefly. What’s the point in likin it when it’ll just be cancelled again? I can’t take any more Joss heart break… they took Angel, & Firefly before their times, & now we won’t even get the opportunity to soak up the messages in Dollhouse before its removed from the airwaves prematurely. The TV industry has just become way to knee-jerk… if something doesn’t deliver knock out ratings in its first night, captivating 20 million americans.. that must mean it’s worthless right? Geez.
I think Bart Simpson said it best when he said, “TV sucks!”
I liked it. There are plenty of questions (why isn’t Amy Acker’s face fixed after Alpha’s rampage?) but I’m confident some of them will be answered–and I find it entertaining enough I’m not worried if all of them are not (it’s like Mission Impossible: I accept the whole IMF premise because it’s fun, whether or not it’s a plausible “black” operation).
I think the shot of pre-doll Echo talking about all the amazing things she’s going to do in life is meant to make her more sympathetic. And to raise the question of why she wound up feeling she had to do this.
As for why the Doll House exists, I think it’s a matter of power. A regular negotiator for something like this would have probably been tied to some established law-enforcement body; this way, the guy got a woman whose guaranteed to be working for him alone, and after it’s all over, won’t remember anything.
I’d imagine the asthma inhaler was a placebo. And the asthma would be psychosomatic (trust me, it can happen).
Fraser: why isn’t Amy Acker’s face fixed after Alpha’s rampage?
Someone I really care about still has facial scars from a car accident that happened a long time ago. I truly wish that scars could just be “fixed.”