When I watched the preview for ‘Echoes’ the first thing I said was “Oh God, I hope they don’t turn Caroline into an animal rights activist. I liked Caroline.” This clearly says more about my issues than it does about the show. I had assumed that Caroline was an activist who had got into massive legal/other trouble, but I hadn’t actually expected to be right.
I didn’t expect this episode to be as brilliant as last week’s, but I was hoping that it was going to be good on its own terms. Instead I found it the most incoherent episode of Dollhouse yet. While there were lots of individual scenes I enjoyed, the only thing that bound these together was a plot that was sometimes sense deficient.
I think the writers gave Eliza Dushku a very difficult task this episode and she wasn’t up to it. She had some very nice Alice moments ((And huge props to the costume department – Alice’s outfit was hilarious. Matt is such a creep)) – such as the fists she tries to make when she thinks she’s going to fight. But in general Alice didn’t feel clearly delineated. I really didn’t understand the boundaries between her and Caroline. I think the writer’s should take most of the responsibility for this. I think a little bit more Alice before she started glitching would have gone a long way.
The biggest problem I had with this episode was the drugged staff of the dollhouse. While I found a number of lines and moments very funny, ((So I thought the funniest line was “say hi from me” – which is possibly a sign I’ve watched Innocence too many times (or as I like to think of it – almost enough times)) I think it was far too early in the run of the show to do an effective “everyone acts wacky” episode. We’re not familiar enough with how people act normally for this to be much more than generic wacky humour. ((Julie talked about this in the trouble with Topher, go read that post. Although I don’t agree with her that Victor was in the army – anymore than Echo was an animal rights activist. Hmmmm with my confusion about Mellie I think I may have to write more about this. Why is it that no-one complains that Alas focuses too much on the Whedon issues at the expense of more important blogging? Does everyone really think that all Whedon all the time is the way to go?)) We saw some character humour with Adelle, but nothing like we could have seen from all the characters in the third or fourth season. ((I thought that they were going to do something with the Actives being the only together people while those who usually control them lose control, which might have been interesting. But that ended up going nowhere.))
I felt the active’s reaction to the drug had a little bit more of a purpose, both on a character level, and on a philosophical level. On a character level it was really important to show the effects of rape and attempted rape on Mellie and Sierra. ((and that was the only use of sexual violence, or the threat of sexual violence in this episode. So that’s two episodes of not using sexual violence to tell stories, and instead telling stories about sexual violence. Congratulations.)) On a philosophical level I love that brains, that people, don’t work the way Topher thinks they’re going to. I think the continual message that the Actives will resist their total colonisation, their total commodification (the metaphors are complicated I think) is very important.
I am really excited (and sad, and apprehensive) about Victor’s backstory. While the comparison between the dolls and prostitutes has been explicit throughout the story, the parallels between the dollhouse and an army have been largely ignored. I’m glad they’re expanding their metaphors, and entirely positive that Enver Gjokaj can do everything they ask of him.
I was disappointed that we didn’t get anything about Victor, Sierra and Echo’s relationships with other. It would have been really easy to have, for example, the way Echo and murderer-dude escaped the frat house to have been a moment of recognition between Echo and Sierra (friends help each other). Particularly as the stupidity and success of ‘run when their backs are turned’ strategy undermined the idea that the actives had been created to do this job.
And then there’s Mellie. I think I covered my conversion to all things Mellie last week. Mellie’s scenes with Paul this week ran very true to me, emotionally (and Miracle Laurie was brilliant again). ((I loved November’s very slow high five. I kind of want to see more of her, but not at the expense of Mellie (clearly I’m having some issues accepting the concept of this show).)) I didn’t think, while I was watching it, she’s emotionally manipulating Paul, because that’s what the dollhouse wants her to do. I still don’t know if that was what was happening. Had they pre-loaded this parameter into her personality? Do they think that this will stop him investigating (because I think they’re probably wrong). Or were we just seeing her emotional reaction, and was the dollhouse going to use that?
So at this stage half my brain is wondering exactly how much the dollhouse finely tuned her reaction, and the other half is “see now he’s waiting at his door for her to come out.” I like that tension
Then there’s Caroline; I have so many thoughts about Caroline.
It’s strange seeing activists on TV. They very rarely share my politics, and sometimes I resent this – that activists are shown as such flakes. But then there isn’t necessarily a shortage of Caroline’s around. ((Which makes me wonder if that’s like John Cleese’s accountant telling him he wasn’t offended by Monty Python’s accountants sketch because that was about chartered accountant, and he wasn’t a chartered accountant))
I do like that her plan failed. There’s a lot to admire about her as a person – I thought the difference between the Caroline that planned the break-in and the Caroline that talked to Adelle showed her strength in how much she had lost. But unlike Caroline I don’t think a small band of people following “this is where I am” changes the world. And I’m glad Joss showed this, I think it was an important antidote to Serenity (great as that movie is). ((I know some people resent the constant comparisons to Joss’s previous work. They think that it’s not allowing what he does now to stand by itself. I think that analysing a writer’s body of work is interesting and useful. Joss has themes, and I think it’s interesting to explore them))
Despite the animal rights flakiness ((And, because I have friend’s who are animal rights activists – just because I think Caroline’s animal rights flakiness is realistic doesn’t mean that I think all animal rights activists are flaky.)) (“What you say they’re experimenting on humans?” But there’s a cute dog over here”), I am interested Caroline, I want to know more about her. I want her to be free.
If I was going to articulate what this episode was about I would say: showing us how people become actives. I loved the ending; I love that we will now know one of the actives as a person. I am glad that they’ve made clear exactly that the dollhouse does not look for meaningful consent – they use coercion.
But most of the episode was superfluous to that story, and those scenes, for example the drug scenes, generally had no other character or thematic point. I wonder how much of the drug plot-line was constructed the way it was to justify the non-attic-ing of Echo. If the writer’s thought so many other things were going wrong, then the viewer might forgive the fact that the dollhouse is keeping Echo around even though she walked off an engagement.
I don’t know if that was the writers’ logic. But whatever their logic was, this episode didn’t work to me. And I think exploring how people become actives could have been an episode in and of itself.
You’ve once again echoed (tee hee) everything I was thinking.
Way too early for the “everyone acts wacky” (a sci-fi tradition that, mind you, I generally enjoy, and think transcends cliche) episode… I wasn’t ready yet for Adelle DeWitt to be humorously commenting on her own Britishness (I did like the info about her own career aspirations though — I think she’s the most fascinating character to me right now, maybe just because I’m fascinated by complicity).
At first I thought it was a logic flaw that the drug had consistent effects in one-way (with the flashbacks, which I thought were generally well-handled) and randomized wacky effects in another… but then it occurred to me that Topher’s diatribe about the unpredictable side-effects of drugs (which I kind-of loved) was perhaps meant to cover this issue.
Seeing Mellie inside the Dollhouse, in the chair, really got to me, disturbed me in a visceral way the other dolls haven’t, not having really known them any other way. I thought this was well-handled and made me productively examine why the other dolls to not provoke the same reaction of physical disgust when they really should.
I thought the scene between Victor and Sierra was somewhat similar to the scene in the alternative universe episode of Buffy where none of the paired up couples (Buffy and Angel, Xander and Cordie, Willow and Oz) recognized their love for each other. While it had its intended effect in Buffy, I think some recognition and compassion from Victor and Sierra would have gone even farther than friendship recognition between Echo and Sierra.
They’re not all flaky, but if this character is one you won’t like her anymore? Granted, you could argue you that the media portrayal of a character who is one is in all likelihood going to be annoying (I hated that movie Year of the Dog), but it really didn’t come off like that so I think I’ll just feel totally alienated anyway!
This review is the closest you’ve come to my opinion of an episode. I’m somewhat surprised since I’ve felt very differently than you about the series thus far.
Rather than incoherent, I felt that it was rushed and had a lot of holes in it. I feel like the writers were trying to shove too much of the story arc into an action/adventure episode and, as a result, there were far too many flaws in the episode itself. The most important of those holes being, “Who was in any condition to bring in Sam after he was knocked out?” This is something that I just don’t understand. Why the rush? Why not let the story unfold in its own time? I don’t need everything all at once. Especially since it’s obvious that they intend to have stand alone episodes within the series.
I felt that it went beyond coercion. I thought that there was the implicit threat of murder. But I may very well be alone on that.
The whole concept is a very difficult task that is, I think, beyond Eliza Dushku’s range. There are certain things that she is very, very good at, but that doesn’t mean that she has tremendous range. She uses the exact same facial expressions for “confused” or “angry” or “scared” or “turned on” for every character that she does (as well as that one single sexy dance move that we know from the Buffy credits) and, while those details can be very effective, without changing them all her characters become the same.
I was wondering if anybody here would agree with me on that. It cracked me up through the entire episode.
Here’s where we have a huge disagreement. While I love Mellie as a character, and an important one to the story, she scares the shit out of me. Mellie strikes me as cruel and almost without a sense of other people. I’ll be interested to see if my early impression of her turns out to be accurate or not.
Over all, I felt that there were a ton of good lines, increasingly good acting from the cast and some good character development. On the down side, the script was extremely flawed and rushed the story arc too much for my taste.
Maia,
Could you put these behind cuts? I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers. ;)
Question: Is the Mellie personality an imprint? Something about the way DeWitt referred to her as a sleeper made me think that Mellie is actually who Mellie is, and that they’ve just added in extra stuff, like the badassninjaflowervase program.
Eh, I’m probably wrong, but it would be an interesting blurring of the line between active and everyone else.
–Myca
I felt that it went beyond coercion. I thought that there was the implicit threat of murder. But I may very well be alone on that.
Perhaps not murder but at least somehow setting them up to get arrested and punished for their crimes. Sam and Caroline were taken in after commiting a crime (he stole from the labs and she broke in with the intent of gathering). I feel a sense of “join us or go to prison” and would not be surprised if even some of the other employees (like Tohper and Dr. Saunders) came in under simlar circumstances.
While I love Mellie as a character, and an important one to the story, she scares the shit out of me. Mellie strikes me as cruel and almost without a sense of other people. I’ll be interested to see if my early impression of her turns out to be accurate or not.
So I’m not the only one thinking this. I would not be surprised to see her snap big time and possibly kill a main character somewhere down the line.
I think it was far too early in the run of the show to do an effective “everyone acts wacky” episode. We’re not familiar enough with how people act normally for this to be much more than generic wacky humour. We saw some character humour with Adelle, but nothing like we could have seen from all the characters in the third or fourth season.
A good example of this would be the Angel season four episode “Spin the Bottle”. The characters are established we know who and what they are and have gotten bits and pieces of what they were like in the past but then that episode gave a front row seat to their younger days (well except Cordy because she reverted to a teen which we got a good look at in Buffy seasons 1-3). (and I think the long wait to do that episode really helped prevent younger Gunn from being portryed as an “angry black man”.)
I was disappointed that we didn’t get anything about Victor, Sierra and Echo’s relationships with other.
From the preview of this coming episode I think such a moment is coming up soon. I just hope they don’t do a “it turns out the three of them knew each other at some point in the past” story on them (although I think a Victor/Sierra past relationship may be possible).
Okay thats enough from me
I actually really liked the scenes with DeWitt and Topher, for reasons that are more plot-related than character-related. I feel like the standard “everyone acts wacky” plot makes the impairment extreme enough that the affected characters are useless or actively harmful to what’s going on, and I liked watching a plot that required them to keep working through the wackiness.
(Also, it’s led to my pet theory that DeWitt isn’t actually British. I’m not sure if Olivia Williams has the Jamie-Bamber-like accent ability that would be required to pull it off convincingly, but I think it’d be a neat twist.)
I definitely agree about the rushed nature of the backstory, though.
Great review. I agree – there were some great individual scenes, but what they added up to was confusing and unsatisfying.
One quick thing. This paragraph:
expresses the same ideas as this passage from my post from Sunday:
Could you cite it? Thanks!
I agree with this 100%.
Thanks for all the comments everyone.
Tim – Yes, things do seem different for Mellie. And there’s a lot of power in that difference. I think for us to get to know a personality as a person was a very good idea (and part of the retooling, so the Fox ruined everything meme is probably all true, but there are parts of dollhouse that came out of the process stronger).
Wendy – If you want the full version of my thought process it was. “I’ve always thought Caroline was an activist who got in legal/other trouble because of the linea bout taking her place in the world. That’d be really cool. But animal rights activism (particularly against testing) is the least threatening activism to show on TV – it’s a way you can be super militant, without in anyway challenging capitalism. That’d be a really disappointing way to be right.”
Jake – I agree about the rushedness – there was just too much story in this episode (and it wasn’t helped by spending all that time with Adelle and Topher staring at their own hands).
Mandolin – Done – I can’t believe it took me this long to learn cuts
Myca – I’m really interested in seeing more of November and whoever Mellie was pre-November. There are so many ways they could go with that story. I kind of hope that November is Mellie, because that way Mellie doesn’t have to die for whoever November was to be free. But that’s kind of why I think Joss won’t do it.
As for Eliza Dushku’s work – last week, with Rebecca, I thought she was getting better. I think she has made distinct people of some of her characters. But she’s not 100%. It’s a specific skill and it’s not her natural home in acting (unlike Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj)
Danny – I hope Victor and Sierra dont’ have a past relationship. I fidn the idea of them finding each other and loving each other as an act of rebellion and humanity in a place that tries to deny that more beautiful than it being based on something before.
Auguste/Micah – but there was very little point to the work any of the people were doing except Boyd coming in time to punch someone wasn’t it? Most of what Topher and DeWitt did was exposition to the audience – presumably the fact that they figured out that it was spread by touch was useful, but it wasn’t part of the plot.
Julie – sorry I thought I’d linked to your post, that’s what you get from 1am blogging. I’d written that section of my review before I read yours, otherwise I probablyw ould have just quoted you.
Danny – I hope Victor and Sierra dont’ have a past relationship. I fidn the idea of them finding each other and loving each other as an act of rebellion and humanity in a place that tries to deny that more beautiful than it being based on something before.
Agreed. Just saying that I think such a pairing would be possible. My guess is the writer would use the rekindling of a past relationship (or “something before” as you say) as an act of rebellion by way of showing that a place that stripped them of their humanity was not able fully stip their humanity away. Kind of like a sappy “love conquers all” type thing.
You go ahead! For some reason I can barely fathom, Alas’s is the only Dollhouse response I like reading. Perhaps it has the perfect mix of Jossmania and critical analysis for me? Anyway, I love it. Keep it coming.
P.S. This: “But animal rights activism (particularly against testing) is the least threatening activism to show on TV – it’s a way you can be super militant, without in anyway challenging capitalism.” is very true. Thanks for bringing that out.
Who they really, really need to get is Grace Park, aka Ms I Am So Fucking Fantastic I’ll Just Play Four Different Characters Over Four Seasons and You Wil Never Ben Confused About It Unless I want You To Be. She’s AMAZING at this kind of thing – Good Boomer, Bad Boomer, Nice Boomer, Sweet Psychopathic Boomer…. Man, I know it won’t happen because I’m sure she’s sick of this kind of show, but if Grace Park came on I would absolutely weep for joy. Love her.