{"id":8915,"date":"2009-10-09T16:53:44","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T23:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8915"},"modified":"2009-10-09T16:53:44","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T23:53:44","slug":"instict-review-dollhouse-203","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8915","title":{"rendered":"Instict Review: Dollhouse 2.02"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ratings aren\u2019t looking good for Dollhouse, which is making me sad. If you\u2019re not sold on the idea of the show this is a great fanmade site<\/a>. If you want it to stay on air then they\u2019ve got ideas of what you can here<\/a><\/p>\n

Sorry, for the advertorial in the beginning. I can\u2019t do anything myself you see (except write ridiculously long reviews), and I\u2019d be really annoyed in they didn\u2019t air episode four.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I seem to be having two completely contradictory reactions to Dollhouse at the moment. Half the time I think:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the best show and concept that ever has, or ever will be made. I can\u2019t believe how amazingly brilliant it is and want to watch it for ever and ever and ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then I also think:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis show is irrevocably, structurally flawed\u201d<\/p>\n

After watching Instinct, I decided they were probably both true.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a fan of stand-alones or procedurals. Television is a medium that is built for serialised storytelling (the most powerful narrative form ever invented), I don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d squander it by not telling a story. But I also think you can take things too far in the other direction. If you don\u2019t have stand alone plots that finish off each episode, you actually have reset TV of a different sort, as the plotlines come and go, and they\u2019re never given due weight. You get Gossip Girl, where killing someone can be fixed in half an episode, or BSG, where they\u2019d be these dramatic changes for a few episodes, but they\u2019d always be reset so the captain was still the captain the president was still the president and so on. If all your plot is on-going then that makes it very difficult.<\/p>\n

That was one of the many things that was so great about Buffy. There was a perfect balance between serial, and So even a relatively mediocre episode could still have interactions between our core characters ((My friend dissed Inca Mummy Girl the other day \u2013 and I reminded her that was the origin of the genius \u201cI didn\u2019t choose yet\u201d exchange)) and at the same time something like your boyfriend going evil could be given the emotional significance it needed<\/p>\n

Dollhouse\u2019s on-going story is so powerful, resonant and exciting, that I will be devastated if they cancel it. But they haven\u2019t figured out how to tell interesting short-term stories, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible (because the short term stories involve only new characters).<\/p>\n

So an episode of Dollhouse is either going to make everything right with the world for ever more, or not be that interesting. There is very little in between. Even Vows, which is I think the closest Dollhouse has come to middling, was actually just some scenes that would cure cancer, intermingled with some other scenes that there\u2019s no reason to re-watch.<\/p>\n

It think exacerbating these problems, is that Fox does not want to the best version of this show.<\/p>\n

This is all a long winded introduction to the fact that I wasn\u2019t particularly sold on this week\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n

Although having written all that, I\u2019m not as sure as I was that the problems are structural. I wonder if the problems with the execution with this episode were actually about the episode itself. There were so many clich\u00e9s. The most inexcusable was the father finally bonding with the child towards the end.<\/p>\n

But rewatching it, I think maybe the problem was more that they focused on the most boring aspects of what could have been an interested story. There was an inordinate amount of time wasted on \u2018what is going on\u2019 from Echo\u2019s point of view. I didn\u2019t find this particularly interesting, because we knew it was an engagement, so her point of view on her husband trying to kill her always felt ridiculous.<\/p>\n

And now is as good a time as any to say how annoyed I was with the portrayal of \u2018mother instinct\u2019. If you are going to spend the teaser talking about how amazing it is that you\u2019ve used the brain to trigger lactation and then you show the lactating woman being paranoid, and saying people threatened to kill her when they didn\u2019t. Then that\u2019s pretty offensive, and reinforcing derogatory harmful ideas about women and mothers.<\/p>\n

I think maybe I would have been more interested in the engagement if rather than focusing on the \u2018have baby: go crazy\u2019 angle they had told it from the husband\u2019s point of view. Because to me that was interesting \u2013 the dollhouse couldn\u2019t provide what he needed. It could have been a critical interrogation of the Patton Oswalt engagement in Man on the Street. If someone you loved died, would having them for one day a year or even longer really help? But rather than getting any of him we got boring scenes setting up false tension (and on the Sierra rating scale this episode fairs very poorly \u2013 she probably had more screen-time last week, but there was no purpose to her character. Come on people)<\/p>\n

I thought the central scene in the police scene was amazing. ((Although the police officers seemed deeply implausible to me \u2013 if only women who were scared were taken that seriously)) Eliza was fantastic, and the impact and horror of what they were doing was very clear. From there the episode definitely had more of a purpose.<\/p>\n

A purpose that was built on with the awesome [punch] \u201cCan I Go Now?\u201d That\u2019s just the sort of pay-off that the rituals around the dolls was made for.<\/p>\n

The final scene between a confused Echo and the boy\u2019s father had some great stuff (and again I was impressed with Eliza\u2019s acting). But then I there were the same tone and focus problems as earlier in the episode.<\/p>\n

The switching to horror felt completely unearned. Why did someone who thinks a car is driven by saying \u2018go\u2019 cut the lights and electricity? ((And it\u2019s even more unearned if that\u2019s supposed to be a coincidence)) Why does she have a knife? Why does Echo say \u201cMummy\u2019s home\u201d? None of these things make sense in the world they set up. They also didn\u2019t add anything to the scene. Why didn\u2019t the writers trust themselves to write a powerful scene between two people without the irrelevant pyrotechnics?<\/p>\n

So maybe, in the course of writing this review, I\u2019ve persuaded myself I\u2019m wrong. Maybe the structural problems with the dollhouse are not inherent. Maybe this could have been a very satisfying episode, and the problems were in the execution. If it\u2019s possible to do good engagements of the week, then they better learn fast.<\/p>\n

That all sounds as if I didn\u2019t like the episode at all, and it had some great moments. But it feels such a waste to go from Topher and Dr Saunders to something completely incoherent about motherhood instinct.<\/p>\n

In the dollhouse itself, I have a new rule: whichever character insults Ballard the most in any given episode is my favourite character of this week. ((And I know everyone disses on Eliza\u2019s acting, but Tahmoh Penikett has so little range it\u2019s embarrassing.)) This week Topher wins the prize – go Topher \u2013 like I said last week Fran Kranz is amazing and Epitaph One is adding so much depth to the character.<\/p>\n

Obviously the most exciting long-term development was the return of Madeline (and Miracle Laurie rocked in a very different role). I don\u2019t quite know what I think of it yet. I enjoyed the scene with them together, because it\u2019s all about what an asshole Ballad is (well it is in my head anyway). But from a narrative perspective it\u2019d be very annoying if she reappeared just to help Ballard learn about the Dollhouse.<\/p>\n

Although I strongly suspect they\u2019re going somewhere far more interesting with this. Because she\u2019s spent her time finding the perfect dress, and the perfect apartment, and now she\u2019s \u2018not sad\u2019. Her grief that was so strong in Needs has been taken away. The parallels between her and Echo, who chose feeling something over being asleep were obvious. But I wonder if there are also going to be, in the end, parallels with the father, if the Dollhouse won\u2019t be able to give her what she needs.<\/p>\n

The final scene, between Echo and Ballard was very powerful. She undercut the lies he\u2019s telling himself (and Madeline) about it not being real. I really love that they\u2019re exploring Echo\u2019s agency, and that she\u2019s making a choice to keep everything she\u2019s feeling. I think it even offered an alternative explanation to the \u2018mothers are crazy\u2019 idea that dominated the episode. I don\u2019t love that the only person she\u2019s bonding with is Paul, but he\u2019s at his least obnoxious when he\u2019s actually talking to Echo, since that\u2019s when he comes nearest to treating her like a human being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ratings aren\u2019t looking good for Dollhouse, which is making me sad. If you\u2019re not sold on the idea of the show this is a great fanmade site. If you want it to stay on air then they\u2019ve got ideas … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buffy-whedon-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}