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Dollhouse 1.01 "Ghost"
I wasn’t actually planning to do a Dollhouse review of any sort but then I had a bunch of flisters ask me if I was going to comment and I felt like my opinion matters. \o/
Here’s the non-spoilery bits.
There are problems. I think most of the problems came from the fact that Fox (of course) forced rewrites so a lot of things that would have normally been more subtle in a Joss-show were beaten about our heads (I honestly think they explained how the Actives work about six times). Though, that may help things further down the road because who could have missed the explanation for how the Actives work? Who’s not going to understand the concept of the mind-wipes? (Well, handwave some of the details, folks; I’ll get to that in the spoiler section.)
In addition to general pilot problems, I’m just going to say it:
This is not Buffy.
This is not Firefly.
This is not Angel.
This is Dollhouse. The tone, the metaphor, the actors—they’re different. I didn’t truly see the “Joss” in Friday’s episode, but what I saw still made me want to come back—and not just because of Joss, Eliza, and Tahmoh (though, I have to say right now, I think Tahmoh is the strongest actor of the bunch—damn, he’s amazing).
Memorable Characters
Echo I still have some reservations about whether or not Eliza Dushku can really pull this off. The differences between Echo and the imprints was good—I really liked the way she went from the in-love persona to the trance that took her back to the Dollhouse at the beginning of the episode—but I’m not entirely convinced that Eliza has enough breadth to be able to pull off the myriad of personalities she’ll need to pull out over the course of the series.
I will say that I’m relieved somewhat. When I’d heard that the Actives would be “child-like” I was scared of how the actors would play that, but so far so good. They’re walking around kind of dull and blank, but not like, sitting around and playing with coloring books (which, honestly, yes, I was worried about them going there).
Paul Ballard I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS CHARACTER. I don’t know, maybe it’s just Tahmoh and that I know the places he’s gone on Battlestar Galactica, but I know Paul is going to head into fucked up places and be an amazing character to follow. I liked the conversation with his superiors being inter-cut with the boxing match. That was the kind of Joss-thing I expect and it was nice to see. The dialogue was probably a little heavy-handed there, making the connection a little too strong, but as I mentioned earlier, I think the heavy-handness was requested to make sure Joss doesn’t lose his audience in the first couple weeks.
Topher I’m going to enjoy Topher a lot, too. I think he might be the closest character we have to someone who’s an actual Black Hat, and I’m going to like that a lot. I liked the moment when he was pissed that Echo barged in while Sierra was being wiped (I’m assuming that was her first wipe—eliminating her entire personality); it was this great barely restrained-rage. Oh yes, petulant boys with their toys; I’m in.
Mind-Wipes & Personalities
I know the thing people are questioning is where the personalities are coming from. Personally, I love the admission that Topher can’t just build a personality from scratch. I was wondering how Dark City this was going to be, and I like that it’s not. Since the Actives are being hired, it just doesn’t make sense to have a “programmer” like Topher just playing with elements of a past to create the necessary skill set.
But then, the question is where and how to they get these ready-made personalities? I’m sure we’ll find out some information down the road, but here’s my guesses:
1) Other Actives. I don’t think they’d want to program an Active with his or her own memories, but I imagine they may have a few Actives with useful skill sets. I think it’d be wasteful to just throw away those wipes.
2) You can sell yourself. Hey, why not? Maybe the Dollhouse approaches you, maybe you can approach them, but either way it makes sense that the Dollhouse could approach people who are at the top of their field and buy their personalities.
3) Theft, plain and simple. See above, add abduction, subtract out remuneration.
Season Storyline
The episode left us with two questions that we’ll of course cover during the season: Who is Caroline? Who is Alpha? Those seem like good questions to start and depending on how layered this gets, I think they’re questions that could carry us through a whole season. (Though at the moment I just felt this pang about Blue Sun and River’s story and how I really wish all of that could have been developed and I’m praying we get something as layered as that.)
Right now I’m not all that concerned about Caroline and how she became Echo, but I’m very interested in Alpha and how he knows Caroline. I mean, I’m assuming he knows Caroline and not just Echo.
In general, I’m intrigued and I still trust Joss.
Will it survive? I think this is the question a lot of people want answered—Joss on Fox, why bother getting attached? Well, the simple answer is that if we—people who are already fans of Joss and his storytelling don’t watch—NO ONE ELSE WILL. Just because you might have your heart broken is no reason to quit. I think in the past few years Joss has proven that series can live beyond their tv-shelf life. So don’t worry about falling in love with a show that might get cancelled. If it is, maybe there’ll be a movie, an internet series, a comic book, a musical. Don’t give up before it’s started.
Also: Fox stuck behind Terminator which frankly shocked the hell out of me. Since they’ve put Terminator as the Dollhouse lead in, I really think they’re doing right by Dollhouse. Also, Dollhouse ads during American Idol, you guys. I really think Fox is going to give Dollhouse a fair shot. And if Fox is giving it a fair shot, you should, too.
My rule of thumb? 4 episodes. If you can’t get into a show after 4 episodes, yeah, maybe you should give up, but on a series—especially something that will have a season arc (and you know this will)—you need to give the writers time to tell you part of the story. So give it 4 episodes, keep talking about it, and see how you feel in a month.
What do I think? I think Dollhouse is going to surprise us.
Here’s the non-spoilery bits.
There are problems. I think most of the problems came from the fact that Fox (of course) forced rewrites so a lot of things that would have normally been more subtle in a Joss-show were beaten about our heads (I honestly think they explained how the Actives work about six times). Though, that may help things further down the road because who could have missed the explanation for how the Actives work? Who’s not going to understand the concept of the mind-wipes? (Well, handwave some of the details, folks; I’ll get to that in the spoiler section.)
In addition to general pilot problems, I’m just going to say it:
This is not Buffy.
This is not Firefly.
This is not Angel.
This is Dollhouse. The tone, the metaphor, the actors—they’re different. I didn’t truly see the “Joss” in Friday’s episode, but what I saw still made me want to come back—and not just because of Joss, Eliza, and Tahmoh (though, I have to say right now, I think Tahmoh is the strongest actor of the bunch—damn, he’s amazing).
Memorable Characters
Echo I still have some reservations about whether or not Eliza Dushku can really pull this off. The differences between Echo and the imprints was good—I really liked the way she went from the in-love persona to the trance that took her back to the Dollhouse at the beginning of the episode—but I’m not entirely convinced that Eliza has enough breadth to be able to pull off the myriad of personalities she’ll need to pull out over the course of the series.
I will say that I’m relieved somewhat. When I’d heard that the Actives would be “child-like” I was scared of how the actors would play that, but so far so good. They’re walking around kind of dull and blank, but not like, sitting around and playing with coloring books (which, honestly, yes, I was worried about them going there).
Paul Ballard I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS CHARACTER. I don’t know, maybe it’s just Tahmoh and that I know the places he’s gone on Battlestar Galactica, but I know Paul is going to head into fucked up places and be an amazing character to follow. I liked the conversation with his superiors being inter-cut with the boxing match. That was the kind of Joss-thing I expect and it was nice to see. The dialogue was probably a little heavy-handed there, making the connection a little too strong, but as I mentioned earlier, I think the heavy-handness was requested to make sure Joss doesn’t lose his audience in the first couple weeks.
Topher I’m going to enjoy Topher a lot, too. I think he might be the closest character we have to someone who’s an actual Black Hat, and I’m going to like that a lot. I liked the moment when he was pissed that Echo barged in while Sierra was being wiped (I’m assuming that was her first wipe—eliminating her entire personality); it was this great barely restrained-rage. Oh yes, petulant boys with their toys; I’m in.
Mind-Wipes & Personalities
I know the thing people are questioning is where the personalities are coming from. Personally, I love the admission that Topher can’t just build a personality from scratch. I was wondering how Dark City this was going to be, and I like that it’s not. Since the Actives are being hired, it just doesn’t make sense to have a “programmer” like Topher just playing with elements of a past to create the necessary skill set.
But then, the question is where and how to they get these ready-made personalities? I’m sure we’ll find out some information down the road, but here’s my guesses:
1) Other Actives. I don’t think they’d want to program an Active with his or her own memories, but I imagine they may have a few Actives with useful skill sets. I think it’d be wasteful to just throw away those wipes.
2) You can sell yourself. Hey, why not? Maybe the Dollhouse approaches you, maybe you can approach them, but either way it makes sense that the Dollhouse could approach people who are at the top of their field and buy their personalities.
3) Theft, plain and simple. See above, add abduction, subtract out remuneration.
Season Storyline
The episode left us with two questions that we’ll of course cover during the season: Who is Caroline? Who is Alpha? Those seem like good questions to start and depending on how layered this gets, I think they’re questions that could carry us through a whole season. (Though at the moment I just felt this pang about Blue Sun and River’s story and how I really wish all of that could have been developed and I’m praying we get something as layered as that.)
Right now I’m not all that concerned about Caroline and how she became Echo, but I’m very interested in Alpha and how he knows Caroline. I mean, I’m assuming he knows Caroline and not just Echo.
In general, I’m intrigued and I still trust Joss.
Will it survive? I think this is the question a lot of people want answered—Joss on Fox, why bother getting attached? Well, the simple answer is that if we—people who are already fans of Joss and his storytelling don’t watch—NO ONE ELSE WILL. Just because you might have your heart broken is no reason to quit. I think in the past few years Joss has proven that series can live beyond their tv-shelf life. So don’t worry about falling in love with a show that might get cancelled. If it is, maybe there’ll be a movie, an internet series, a comic book, a musical. Don’t give up before it’s started.
Also: Fox stuck behind Terminator which frankly shocked the hell out of me. Since they’ve put Terminator as the Dollhouse lead in, I really think they’re doing right by Dollhouse. Also, Dollhouse ads during American Idol, you guys. I really think Fox is going to give Dollhouse a fair shot. And if Fox is giving it a fair shot, you should, too.
My rule of thumb? 4 episodes. If you can’t get into a show after 4 episodes, yeah, maybe you should give up, but on a series—especially something that will have a season arc (and you know this will)—you need to give the writers time to tell you part of the story. So give it 4 episodes, keep talking about it, and see how you feel in a month.
What do I think? I think Dollhouse is going to surprise us.