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).
( Spoilers for Dollhouse 1.01 Ghost )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.
