{"id":9299,"date":"2009-12-14T01:43:31","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T08:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=9299"},"modified":"2009-12-14T01:43:31","modified_gmt":"2009-12-14T08:43:31","slug":"dollhouse-review-121409","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=9299","title":{"rendered":"Dollhouse Review 12\/14\/09"},"content":{"rendered":"

So after a month off Dollhouse has returned with double episodes. This means my reviews will probably be even later, and a little shorter than usual. This week\u2019s episodes were a two parter, so I\u2019m reviewing them together. I\u2019ll be reviewing the episodes that aired on the 11th separately (and they\u2019ll be long reviews, even for me)
\nAs you probably know the show has already been cancelled. For anyone who is interested in its history I recommend this interview<\/a> with Mo Ryan. This quote is particularly telling:<\/p>\n

The problems that the show encountered weren\u2019t standalone versus mythology. Basically the show didn\u2019t really get off the ground because the network pretty much wanted to back away from the concept five minutes after they bought it and then ultimately, the show itself is also kind of odd and difficult to market. [\u2026]But there was\u2026 We always found ourselves sort of moving away from what had been part of the original spark of the show and that ultimately just makes it really hard to write these stories. It makes it twice as hard as usual. [Normally] you have that sort of kernel that you\u2019re building on that\u2019s completely solid. You know, “She is a little girl with super powers.” “He is a cranky doctor who always gets it right.” Whatever it is you sort of can build off that. When you\u2019re trying to back away from your central premise at the same time as you\u2019re making that [show,] it gets complicated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

So Wesley\u2019s a doll. Who saw that coming? The reveal was masterful. Although the nauseating \u2018Beautiful damsel\u2019 was a clear sign that something was up.
\nOne of the questions that I\u2019ve kind of wondered about is why they\u2019re only selling the ability to hire dolls. Why weren\u2019t they selling upgrades? Lots of people would want ninja skills. It appears to be that they\u2019re harder \u2013 to maintain an original personality but add to it, is harder than making the perfect person from composites (which actually fits with the asthma idea from the first episode). When Rossum does it, they do it to further their own agenda \u2013 to give them the ideal senator (and while Bush jokes are pretty dated, they\u2019re still hard not to enjoy).<\/p>\n

Although Cindy\u2019s rant about how much she hated having sex with him made no sense to me. Surely they could have either programmed him to be sexually compatible with her \u2013 or if that wasn\u2019t what she wanted, to have no sex drive. In theory it was an interesting example of the messed up power dynamic between them, but as it was I was just \u201cWhere\u2019s Bennett\u2019s programming skills if she can\u2019t nuke the senator\u2019s sex drive?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was pretty exciting to see another Dollhouse \u2013 they clearly have a lot of freedom in how they operate and they\u2019re not all spas. I wasn\u2019t all that interested in the new higher up, but the inner workings fascinated me (I\u2019m sad we haven\u2019t seen the wardrobe guy again). Greek Gods seems a much more sensible naming system than the phonetic alphabet; you don\u2019t run out of names. (Although you also wouldn\u2019t get as much fun when watching army movies \u2013 I get so distracted now \u2013 when I was watching Generation Kill whenever they said \u201cAll Victors on the road\u201d I wouldn\u2019t be thinking about the vehicles).<\/p>\n

And we met Bennett. Oh Bennett with your pretty hair clips and dead arm. I was hoping that Summer Glau would be less type cast – maybe she wouldn\u2019t speak in sentence fragments that reveal her state of mind. But I enjoyed the performance and the character.<\/p>\n

Her history with Caroline is tantalising, although I strongly suspect they\u2019re playing with memory here. What we saw didn\u2019t look like Caroline, or sound like Caroline. Although it\u2019ll be interesting to see how Caroline\u2019s abandonment of Bennett, and her determination not to abandon people in Needs fit together.<\/p>\n

Her scenes with Topher were charming \u2013 they were equally socially awkward, equally star-struck, equally playing an agenda. I really enjoyed the non-gendered nature of the roles they were playing. The idea that Bennett and Topher were such a match for each other really underscores their isolation.<\/p>\n

While we\u2019re on Topher it goes without saying that Enver Gjokaj was ridiculously brilliant as Topher. Everything about the two Topher\u2019s was pure genius. I particularly loved at the end, Topher\u2019s struggle for survival, and attempt to argue as he is put in the chair (and Topher\u2019s relief that he no longer has to deal with himself). It was a simple note in the on-going theme about people\u2019s will to survive \u2013 when we build one experience on another we want to keep what that makes us. By the end of the episode the Topher who had stayed in the Dollhouse was a different person from the Topher who had gone to Washington, and Dollhouse Topher wanted to keep what he had.<\/p>\n

Also for an extreme, Topher related tangent, this episode we met \u2018kilo\u2019 a random doll whose sole job it was to fall down. This doll was played Maurissa Tancharoen \u2013 one of the writers of dollhouse (and if you don\u2019t know the writers of dollhouse by sight what have you been doing with your time?). It felt jarring to me \u2013 I think both the writing and the acting were a little off, and this was underscored because my brain was thinking \u2018Hey it\u2019s Maurissa\u2019 rather than \u2018I wonder what Topher is doing with his wonderflonium?\u2019<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what I want to randomly tangent about. I want to randomly tangent about Topher\u2019s dialogue about the teeny-tininess of Kilo. Maurissa has indicated on twitter that kilo (and her playing kilo) were Andrew Chambliss\u2019s (the writer of this episode) idea. It strikes me as deeply creepy that Andrew Chambliss wrote completely unnecessary, tangential, and nonsensical dialogue commenting on the body of his co-worker. I think it\u2019s a pretty creepy thing to do if it serves a purpose, but the randomness just made it worse. First, compared to whom is Kilo tiny? The vast majority of female dolls we\u2019ve seen are extremely petite. It makes no sense that Topher, is surrounded by dolls all day would think that Kilo was particularly small for a woman. Second, the dialogue served no purpose than fulfilling Topher\u2019s desire to talk at all times, which is an important character trait, but there\u2019s no need to feel it with nonsensical, unintentionally creepy comments about women\u2019s bodies (I\u2019m all for Topher being creepy about women\u2019s bodies; Topher is creepy about women\u2019s bodies. But that\u2019s no excuse for the writer to be creepy about women\u2019s bodies)<\/p>\n

I really appreciated Madeline\u2019s plotline. I thought it was a really nice touch that it was killing Herne, a moment that was so satisfying to watch, which changed her mind about the Dollhouse (and it\u2019s interesting that unlike Priya or Perrin, she decided to find a way to live with this knowledge rather than run from it).<\/p>\n

But the most awesome thing about this episode was a Madeline view of Ballard. To her, he was a digusting predator. He was, for all his disingenuous denials to Madeline carefully ignore. It was really satisfying to see her anger, to see her name his behaviour for what it was.<\/p>\n

And he made it clear that he saw her as someone from him to control. He went to her space and tried to kidnap her. I love that her response to his question the idea that she should trust him by lying and screaming.<\/p>\n

I would have liked it if Paul hadn\u2019t turned out to be somewhat right, even though his rightness was, in fact, entirely coincidental (his post-it note which says \u2018mind control?\u2019 is about as close to right Ballard can be before I get grumpy). He had no way of knowing what the consequences for Mellie would be of her testifying. He was trying persuade her not to testify because of his own agenda, not because he cared what happened to her. In fact there\u2019s no reason to believe that Madeline wouldn\u2019t have ended up in exactly the same position if she hadn\u2019t gone to the hearing (she never did get to testify). Perrin would still have sold her out, and the Washington Dollhouse would probably have been able to find her. So I\u2019ve managed to convince myself, over the course of this paragraph, that Ballard wasn\u2019t right, and now I feel a lot better (and the Left Hand, like Belonging, had the perfect amount of Paul Ballard).<\/p>\n

The reason Madeline got screwed over wasn\u2019t because of her \u2018mistakes\u2019, but her isolation. She (like Caroline in her rescue attempts) isn\u2019t organising with others like her. Echo wants to show solidarity with November, but they never meet (and that would have been awesome \u2013 Echo and Madeline on the outside taking on the dollhouse \u2013 now I\u2019m sad it didn\u2019t happen).<\/p>\n

I hope we see more of her. I\u2019m haunted by the line from Epitaph One \u201cYou don\u2019t want to end up like November\u201d \u201cWhich One?\u201d<\/p>\n

I had a problem with the plans for this episode \u2013 as so often happens on TV there\u2019s a plan and it goes wrong. But it does raise questions about whether the plan was a good plan in the first place, or whether the writers just made up a bad plan so it could go wrong in the way they wanted it to go wrong. This was obviously the case with the \u2018imprint Echo as a hooker plan.\u2019 (and that was super-duper creepy. Did drug him, did she know he was drugged? There was a real lack of clarity about whether she was aware that she was raping him that trivialised sexual violence for me) There is no way that was a good plan, and there was no way he wouldn\u2019t guess what was going on.<\/p>\n

What was Rossum\u2019s plan? Was Adelle being paranoid, or might they have targeted her. Because if what happened the episode was their plan all along, then Adelle made a very, very costly mistake, by interfering.<\/p>\n

Despite the plausibility concerns, I really enjoyed these episodes of Dollhouse, they had a lot going for them. But, mostly, it wasn\u2019t what I love about the show. It was twisty-turny, bad guys vs. possibly more bad guys, inevitable progression towards a not very interesting post-apocalyptic world. More rocket launchers than emotional resonance. ((This is a reference to Joss\u2019s commentary on Innocence where he says the two most important things to him in the work that he does are emotional resonance and rocket launchers. I think this is a great point about what great TV needs (as long as you take the rocket launchers as slightly metaphorical, but I am aware that the fact that I quote Joss Whedon\u2019s commentaries is pretty geeky.))<\/p>\n

What I love about this show is the relationship with the dolls to each other and the dollhouse. I love the deep resonance this has with resistance and survival in our world. (Yeah this is partly a complaint about the complete lack of Victor and Sierra).<\/p>\n

We did see aspects of the dolls resistance this episode. In particular, we saw the feeble strength of one, how easily individual dolls were used and destroyed.<\/p>\n

I really liked Caroline and Perrin\u2019s relationship (minus the strangely sexualised cutting into each other\u2019s neck). For a moment, they were figuring something out together. I think it was telling that Perrin decided to go back, decided to have his mind wiped. He chose to continue to believe that he was rescuing people, than working with people. That\u2019s a sad choice, but in the circumstances an understandable one. This is a show about resistance, but also about acquiescence.<\/p>\n

I wonder if we saw even more than that. Bennett\u2019s suggestion that the brain can hold multiple imprints \u2013 maybe this integration will be the solution for the dolls we know and the other people who were devastated by the tech that\u2019s still to come. Perhaps there\u2019s more hope for the world in Epitaph One than a ladder that goes upwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So after a month off Dollhouse has returned with double episodes. This means my reviews will probably be even later, and a little shorter than usual. This week\u2019s episodes were a two parter, so I\u2019m reviewing them together. I\u2019ll be … 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-9299","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\/9299","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=9299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}