At this point, I think the character I feel most engaged with is Mellie. She doesn’t know what’s going on, she doesn’t know that she’s a doll that was programmed not to understand the word left-over. I want her to be happy and free, and she could never be either, let alone both at the same time.
I think they needed to show Paul raping November, and they definitely needed to make it that ugly. I’m glad that they showed that he had a choice, that he made a choice, but I think the story needed to turn him into what he hated, and I think it was that hatred for himself, not the dollhouse, that drove him.
What I found most powerful, about those scenes, was the speech Mellie gave
I like being with you, I love it actually. And you say everything is fine and so I’m going to stop asking if it is. If that means lying next to you while everything is not fine, then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you what you need, and let you take it from me. If you want to give back, give back, but it doesn’t have to mean anything.
I doubt Topher had to work hard when constructing that imprint. To find a woman who believes that love is one way, and her only role is to give. We’ve all been imprinted, after all.
The first time I watched the scenes with Topher/Sierra1 I was filled with anxiety about where they were going to go. To me having sex with Sierra, knowing that she was forced into the Dollhouse, is a whole level of vileness. I didn’t necessarily mind the show going there; I like hating Topher, but until I knew what they were doing I was anxious.
But instead the story was infinitely more pathetic. Topher wasn’t looking for someone to have sex with, he was looking for someone to play Laser-force and eat cake with (some people never got enough 9 year old birthday parties). All the employees of the dollhouse seem so atomised, some to the point of complete derangement. The abuse they’re carrying out doesn’t make the happy, or fulfilled, or whole, it just gives them power. And power won’t eat birthday cake with you.
The parallels between Topher and Paul were emphasised by the way the scenes were paired together throughout the episode (in the beginning of the episode scenes with Paul directly followed scenes with Topher). By the end of the episode the white night has chosen to rescue. Whereas it becomes clear that the amoral dick doesn’t want to rape and active. Which doesn’t make him virtuous or even sympathetic, but it does make him interesting.
I do have theory I want to share with the world, so I can say ‘I told you so’ if I’m right. I think there are many signs that Topher didn’t just construct a friend, he imprinted Sierra with himself (which just ups the pathetic level). I’ve wondered why Alpha would have been imprinted with the skills to construct imprints, in order to use them in a composite. I think that Alpha was Sierra last year, or the year before, and had been imprinted as Topher to help Topher celebrate his birthday. That’s why he can do remote wipes.
You may notice that I haven’t yet talked about the main plot of this story. There’s a reason for that. The idea of Dollhouse having the capacity to provide eternal life was a fascinating one. But in this episode I felt that they squandered it on un-engaging characters and incredibly cliched jokes (‘she was nothing like mother’). While I appreciated the thematic unity around connection and isolation, it didn’t make the story of the very rich dead woman interesting to watch.
I remain uninterested in the problems of rich people. Particularly as clichéd problems as ‘I’m not sure if my much younger and poorer boyfriend married me for love’ and ‘I never showed any love to my children and now they resent me for it’ (clearly not just a rich person’s problem, but I find the story much less interesting when the origin of the distance is an abundance of money).
I could maintain interest in monsters of the week stories on Buffy (sometimes I’m not going to stand up and defend ‘go fish’), because they always involved with or related to to the characters that I knew. I think actual procedurals, the stories that make an episode of House, or the interminable cop shows, require a different sort of story-telling, one that the people of Mutant Enemy aren’t necessarily very good at. The episodes where we dealt with the woes of a one off character, were never the strongest episodes of Buffy, Angel or Firefly (Inca Mummy Girl, She, or The Message, for examples). How to introduce, make us care about, and resolve a person’s story in 25 minutes or so, is a really big challenge. The Dollhouse one shots I’ve enjoyed so far, I’ve enjoyed because there’s been some glitch in the imprint and we’ve seen Echo or Caroline underneath (The Target, Stage Fright and the Grey Hour). If they can’t do that each week (and they probably can’t) they need to work on making the stories great.
- Dichen Lachman was, again, fantastic (although she could do with a little more to do). I particularly loved the way she talked about the ‘sleepies’, and the whole sequence was hilarious. [↩]
Maia,
I just wanted to say how thoroughly I enjoy your critiques of each episode. I don’t feel as if my viewing is complete until I’ve read your essay.
Great stuff. Thanks!
Total agreement*. The bit that I thought was really insightful was:
I think that there’s something here about folks who are so caught up in their own selfish pain that they use that pain to justify being horrible and abusive to the people around them. It’s like the Nice Guy phenomenon writ large … I mean, I think Nice Guys actually are lonely and unhappy, it’s just that being lonely and unhappy doesn’t entitle you to love, affection, or sex from anyone.
It’s all about justification. DeWitt is (or was) so in need of human contact that it justified raping Victor. Topher was so in need of human contact that it justified brainwashing Sierra. Paul is so in need of ‘beating’ the Dollhouse that it justifies raping Mellie. Patton Oswalt’s character was so in need of his dead wife that it justified raping Echo. It’s about being so hurt and alienated that you think your hurt and alienation is more important than other people being people.
Also, if I haven’t said it before, I just want to say that I love these reviews, Maia. Even when I don’t comment, I find myself reading bits of them to my fiancée in excitement, and good discussion usually happens.
—Myca
*Except: HEY! I liked Inca Mummy Girl! What have you got against poor Ampata?
Geeks have more fun!
I wondered about that too. On the other hand, Topher was extremely uncomfortable discussing Victor’s erection with Dr. Saunders, which makes me wonder whether he would place himself in a female active.
It seems to me that extreme discomfort with sex could be combined with being okay putting your own personality into a female body. You just compartmentalize. Sex isn’t something Topher likes thinking about, so he doesn’t think about it.
Also, I think he didn’t get a choice about which doll to use. He just asked the chief of security to select a doll for him.
I assumed that the “yay” in the letter was intended to be this kind of glitch. Even if it was, though, it’s pretty insignificant, as well as not actually feeling that much like Echo/Caroline as we’ve seen her.
The last Dollhouse (not the one you’re reviewing, but the next one Briar Rose) was so disturbing, it inspired me to look back at every other episode I had on DVR.
I won’t discuss the episode, since you haven’t yet reviewed it, but looking at the show as a whole, I can’t for the life of me understand the position that this is all “gray” area, justified by the “voluntary” agreement their victims enter into.
That so many people are trying to interpret the show this way (not here, but apparently on other sites, like Wheanoneque) is proof positive that we live in a rape culture.
In a rape culture, everything can be justified.
Thanks everyone – I really enjoy writign dollhouse reviews and nice feedback makes it even better.
About Topher – I don’t think his discomfort about erections would stop him putting himself in a female doll. I thought that discomfort was partly about the factt hat he has a crush on Dr Saunders, and partly about how immature he is. He certainly didn’t terat Sierra in a gendered way.
Micah – interesting idea – I think if that was what was going on they should have done moer with it
Rose – I do find it very disturbing the level of apologism for the Dollhouse out there. Ken Tucker of EW said that Sierra had been raped “or at least had sex that frightened her”. The fact that people still arguethat Caroline consented when she said very clearly in the first episode “I don’t have a choice” is a sign of just how much we have to go.
RI always thought Topher was embarassed saying erection around Dr Saunders, because he found
Oh god, yes. Mellie reminded me of me at age 21 being dumped so badly that it gave me flashbacks. It kills me to watch someone like that…but at least we know she got forced to act that way. Too many women act like this on their own recognizance…sigh.