Dollhouse Episode 3

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Victor is a doll? 

Now there was a twist I didn't see coming. And was he an active inserted into the Russian mob without their knowledge or does this mean that the Russian mob is behind Dollhouse?   (Who were the suits who were talking with Sierra's handler at the end of the show? ) Does that make it more likely or less likely that the strange chick who lives across the hall from Ballard is a doll?

Early in this episode I was watching Tahmoh Penmikett's performance as Agent Ballard and thinking that it just wasn't doing anything for me.  He doesn't do anything for me.  And I was thinking that most Joss Whedon shows have an appealing male actor with real charisma.  David Boreanaz. Nathan Fillion.  James Marsters.  

I was idly thinking that the only male actor in this show that might have "it" is Enver Gjokaj whose portrayal of Victor I've found appealing.  And I was inwardly lamenting that he had the smaller role.  And I was wondering if I'd get tired of his Russian accent. This plot twist gives me hope.

Other than that, I wasn't particularly enamored with the stand alone plot of this episode.  Another week with lots of skin on display.  At least they didn't hire her out for sex again this week, that was starting to annoy me.  But the plot seemed like something they found in the vault originally intended for Charlie's Angels.

I give Eliza Dushku credit for singing.  I've never been a big fan of Dushku but I think she's done a good job on these three episodes and I don't fault her for the fact that I haven't connected with the Echo character.  It's a problem with the writing.  Having her switch personalities every week makes it really hard to connect with her and her blank character is uninteresting (at least, it was until the final moments of this episode).  I really want to get past these first stand alone introductory episodes and get to the point where Joss can be Joss. 

On the other hand, the few times I first saw Buffy I wasn't hooked on it either.  I didn't get hooked until I started watching it regularly (which was unintentional).  I never did get hooked on Angel even though I enjoyed it when I did watch it.  And they took Firefly off the air before I even got a chance to see more than one episode.  So maybe I shouldn't complain.

I found the end intriguing with the little signal exchange that happened between Echo and Sierra.  I think the development of Langdon's character is coming along.   I feel like more of the back story is developing.  All of which are positives.

But I don't really care about this show.  Not yet.

I'll keep watching until they take it off the air because I can't help myself, but I'd rather feel really sad when they take it off than indifferent.

And in the meantime I'll hope that I like Nathan Fillion's new show.

Dollhouse (Episode 2)

hmmm.

Ok, let me get something out of the way right up front. In two back-to-back episodes, Echo gets hired out as the "dream date" and it turns out a "dream date" is ... a woman who is highly competitive in physical activities. In Episode 1 she raced motorcycles; in this one she white water rafted. She's one of the guys except she's a girl and she'll have sex with you. Yeah, in this episode the "date" was a sham. But maybe the writers (Joss?) could come up with something new next week for Echo to do on her "dates"? Because right now it just seems like a Fox TV thing to me.

Interesting use of cliches tonight. In fact at first I was annoyed by them. The guy helping the girl learn to shoot a bow - an excuse to get physical. I thought ... oh puleeze. And then the death of the deer (hart?) and orgasm (the little death?). Again. Oh puleeze. Was I the only one thinking, I'm just not buying this? And part of me thought, well of course you aren't buying it, he bought her, it isn't real. But then, of course, I found that I shouldn't have bought it because the whole thing was a setup; a little little bit of manipulation of me leading up to a Whedon "trust your gut" lesson?

I also found the childlike nature of the blank slate Echo a bit annoying tonight - but it was great when they had blank Echo slap her shoulder at the end.

I did like that they started developing the back story, especially the relationship between Langton and Echo. And explained the scars on Dr. Saunders' face. And I love every minute that Reed Diamond's dislikable character is on, whatever his name is. I loved him when he was on Judging Amy even though I didn't want Amy to end up with his character.

This is an odd show. It is an absolute showcase for Eliza Dushku who I thought did a phenomenal job in the character she played tonight. There was good tension and even though I knew that the star of a show will never be killed , I still wanted to know how they wrote her out of the situation. But I kept thinking that if this show is going to hold together it's going to need big character development for the secondary characters. And that's an interesting creative problem because I assume that we aren't supposed to like them too much. After all, wiping people's memories isn't very nice.

Dollhouse

Tonight was the premier of Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse. Stuck in the dreaded 8:00 central, Friday night time slot on Fox, nobody expects it to last. But maybe we'll all be surprised.

The concept of the show is that Echo, a character played by Eliza Dushku, is a an operative whose memory is wiped clean after every job. She is a blank slate. Her handlers can program her to be whatever someone pays for her to be: friend, assassin, negotiator, lover. As the season progresses, she begins to become aware of a unique identity.

According to Joss Whedon,

The arc of the show is really her not remembering so much as becoming self-aware, knowing things in a more complex way than she should, knowing that she exists and eventually knowing that she used to be different than she is now. We as an audience are searching for her identity, but she is more searching for the concept of identity, at first.

So, how was the first episode? Well, it kept my interest. I'm not a huge fan of Eliza Dushku, there's something about her voice that grates on me. But she did a good job with the various personalities she had to play.

The original Echo (the real Echo, who I think was named Caroline) is not really tough but she is assertive and obviously not used to being intimidated. She is distraught and being pushed into doing something she doesn't want to do.

The next time we see Echo she is an operative who is a fantasy figure. A beautiful woman who can race a motorcycle like a man and then step into her sequined mini-dress and dance the night away. We don't see the rough sex she previously had with the "client" except in a brief flashback. She seems to be very happy. But, like Cinderella at the ball, the "date" ends at a set time and she leaves for her "treatment".

After "treatment" we see the wiped Echo who is almost childlike. Dushku makes the wiped Echo very trusting - you can see where she's going to go with the characterization as the season progresses and she, perhaps, stops trusting.

The main "character" of the episode emerges next and is involved with most of the episode. Dushku becomes "Eleanor Penn" a trained profiler and negotiator who is to help negotiate the release of a kidnapped child for a desperate millionaire father. But part of the personality that she is imprinted with is that of a woman who had been abused as a child and in the midst of the plot she encounters that the child abuser - older but clearly the same man. This throws the Echo character into an extreme state as that character has to work through these personal issues. Choosing this type of character who operates under extreme psychological conditions and manages to complete the mission was a good way to explain to the audience exactly how the personality imprinting process is supposed to work, and how it can go wrong.

Finally we see an unidentified man watching a video yearbook entry of Echo as her real self in college. Dushku plays her as a typical college student, fun, babbling and excited about life.

The rest of the cast was fine, but there wasn't much to judge. There is a side plot with an FBI agent named Paul Ballard who is tasked with finding out if the rumored "Dollhouse" really exists. He has a theory that it might somehow be related to a crime family that runs a prostitution ring. He also has the dialog that explains why Dollhouse has customers, why a millionaire who can have anything he wants would pay for this. He says, nobody has everything they want, because if you get everything you want you'll just want something else. It’s a survival pattern.

On the whole, I liked it. I was a little bothered by the fine line they ran between making this a thoughtful show and a typical Fox TV sexploitation show - the commercials with Dushku and Summer Glau were a little much I thought. But I tend to trust Whedon so we'll see how it goes.

Whedon has set up mysteries for us. Who was Echo before she was Echo? Who was Mrs. Dundee, who told the younger Echo she should take her place in the world? What went wrong? How did whatever went wrong cause Echo to be forced into agreeing to "volunteer" for this project. Will she really be let out after five years? (What if the series is a hit and runs longer than five years?)Who is running the Dollhouse? What is the deal with Dr. Saunders and the scar across her face? Will Mr. Langton, Echo's protector, protect her from Dollhouse?

Seeing how it goes, though, depends on how long Fox lets the series run. Whedon has tried to make light of the bad time slot:

It’s a tough time slot if your expectations are to take over the world. If your expectations are to hold your own in a tough time slot, then it’s not a tough time slot. Knowing that genre shows have a life outside of their airing and that so many people are watching TV at a different time than it airs anyway, it’s certainly not the same as it used to be.

I hope he's right.