It’s still Winter?

It’s bitterly cold again and we got a light dusting of snow overnight. Thank goodness it’s almost February and the shortest month of the year. I know we have six more weeks of winter but by March, with the light at the end of the tunnel beginning to show, I have a much better attitude toward winter.

To remind myself that summer will come again, here’s a summer picture from a couple of years ago. This was the first time Truman met his “cousin” Max. Now Truman is as big, if not bigger, than Max. And he loves the snow.

It’s going to be a long couple of winter months without much on TV to watch. Glee doesn’t come back until April. Stargate Universe doesn’t come back until April. And now Dollhouse is over.

This & That: TV, Rooftop Bars, etc.

Some stuff:

Dollhouse News. Via Jen and Manuel I heard that Fox is going to renew Dollhouse for another 13 episode season.  So I headed over to Whedonesque where Joss himself posted a comment:

Any thread that contains both "Shpadoinkle" and "Yub Yub" is truly exciting. And anything that reunites me with my stunning cast and my crazy staff (or "room fulla Tophers", as I call them) is nothing short of a gift. Heady times, indeed. We're two weeks away from finishing "Cabin" and now it looks like no summer vacation after all. But oh, the terrible things my brain is brewing... Just wait. We'll make it worth it.
Thanks for hanging in.

Apparently all of us watching on Hulu counted!  Not to mention those who use DVRs.  ABC also renewed Castle which I've been watching on Monday nights.  I love Nathan Fillion so that's good news.  It's exactly the kind of mindless show that's perfect for a Monday night.  Now, if we could only have a sequel to Dr. Horrible ...

Some local news.  Last night I checked out the new Moonrise Hotel over on Delmar for the first time, starting with drinks on the Rooftop Terrace lounge and continuing into the inside bar at Eclipse (the restaurant there).  The hotel was packed, probably with folks in for the graduation at nearby Washington University.  The decor was pretty funky with stairs in the lobby that have each step lit up with a primary color light (I can't explain it better, check out the website).

It was not an easy location to get to, coming from Clayton on a Friday night with Highway 40 still closed.  But once I was there and over my commute-stress I enjoyed being on the rooftop.  And my mojito was excellent (although they don't have waiters and the bartender was slow as molasses).

It was an odd night to be at a rooftop bar because there was bad weather to the north and a tornado watch for the area.  But we figured there was no better place to watch for a tornado than on top of a building.  No, we never saw one.  Here's a photo:

When the weather did start turning rainy and windy we headed downstairs where we split some Salt & Pepper Fried Calamari with jalapeno garlic butter that was truly scrumptious.   It was so good we decided to stay for dinner (although we stayed in the bar and didn't move into the restaurant).  

I had Lobster Pot Pie, billed as brandied lobster cream, golden potatoes and english peas in a pastry.  Sounds yummy doesn't it?  But I thought it was a little disappointing - the pastry was a puff-type pastry shaped in the form of half-moons but the "stuff" wasn't inside the pastry, they just sat alongside.  That isn't pot pie, at least not my definition.  For dessert I wanted the Berry Shortcake Trifle (mixed berries layered with shortcake biscuits and creme chantilly) but they were out of it so, instead, I tried the Cointreau Cornmeal Pound Cake which looked like a wedge of my grandmother's corn bread (and tasted like it) with cointreau flavored cream on top and some cointreua soaked oranges.  I like cornbread ... but not for dessert. 

So, the food was a mixed experience.  But the late night menu looks good so maybe it would be a place to go after seeing a movie at the Tivoli or after an event at The Pageant next door (if I ever get to an event at The Pageant).  One big complaint from the folks who rode their bikes - there is no bike rack.  Unacceptable in an urban environment.  But the manager assured us that they were getting one and it would be some hip design.

Home Improvements.  I'm in the midst of home improvements and boy are those things expensive.  I just had the back steps leading up to my back door replaced.  They were old wooden steps that were painted white and were starting to rot away.  I had them replaced with steps made out of the composite material that you can just hose off and I think they look really nice.  I also had the area around my front door worked on.  I'm sure my neighbors are relieved to have a clean white sunburst over my door rather than the peeling one that was there for the last year.  Next we move on to the patio and finishing the backyard fence.  Then (finally) I can start doing something to the inside.  Then it will be time to move.  Kidding.  But isn't that what always happens?

Dollhouse: Omega

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end" is a phrase from the Book of Revelation and is meant to denote the one god.  It comes, of course, from the Greek alphabet in which Alpha is the beginning and Omega is the end.  Whedon played with those themes in tonight's season (and maybe series) finale of Dollhouse.

Spoilers over the fold.

Alpha of course is the Alan Tudyk character we met last week, the doll gone haywire who slashes people's faces and who has abducted Echo.  It turns out that Alpha was accidentally imprinted with 48 different personalities, the personality of every imprint he ever used when he was a doll. It also turns out that the "real" Alpha had the personality of a serial killer.  Alpha's plan is to imprint Echo with every personality she has ever assumed and turn her into someone just like him.  He is Alpha, she will be Omega, together they will be a god or gods.   But while Alpha is excited for their beginning, it turns out that Echo sees herself as the end of Alpha.  She tries to take him out, but she doesn't succeed.

I liked this episode but not as much as last week's episode. It was a good season finale but it was uneven, brilliant in places and with gaping holes in others.  I got the feeling that they ran out of time and had to cut some scenes.  I certainly could have used a scene in which Boyd convinces Ballard that they have to return Echo to the Dollhouse at the end.  Maybe they never wrote it but I could have used it.  Or at least some scene to set us up for Ballard going to work for the Dollhouse.  Maybe that was supposed to be a shocking moment, but I just found it confusing and thought I missed something.

Tim Minear wrote and directed this episode and I think it is interesting to compare this episode with Jane Espenson's episode from last week.   I liked last week's episode better, it seemed to flow better.  The violence in last week's episode was shocking; the violence in this week's episode seemed designed to shock but mostly didn't.  It just made me want to change the channel.  Perhaps the problem is that I don't like violence in film, I've never actually seen the movies Bonnie and Clyde or Natural Born Killers and you couldn't pay me money to sit through either of them.   And while the standards of network television limit the violence, Minear was certainly going for that effect.  At one point I just thought ... ugh, men.    And what I meant was that male writers and directors often rely too much on visuals including violence instead of tight storytelling.

But there were parts that I thought were brilliant. At one point Alpha imprints the personality of the original Caroline on an innocent bystander that they have abducted and Caroline is confronted with herself in the wrong body looking at her own body (Echo) inhabited by someone else.  It also introduced an interesting twist in the plot line about Caroline because when Echo decides that the Caroline personality needs to come back to its own body and be free, Caroline declines because she signed a contract and is going to live up to it.  There follows my favorite line when Echo says: "I have 38 brains and not one of them thinks you can sign a contract to be a slave, especially now that we have a black President."  And Caroline says "We have a black president?" 

There are so many things to talk about with this episode.  Mostly why on earth Ballard chose to go work for the Dollhouse at the end.  Perhaps its because I never liked Miracle Laurie's portrayal of the Mellie character and never really liked Penikett as Ballard, but their whole relationship never rang true to me so the idea that Ballard would go work for the Dollhouse (would sell his soul, so to speak) in return for freeing November and canceling her contract just didn't ring true to me.  Even the idea that he wanted to hunt down Alpha didn't work.  He could have done that on his own.  And the idea that he would want to keep an eye on Echo doesn't work.  He is appalled by her slavery; he shouldn't buy into any idea of assisting the slavedrivers.  This decision was so confusing and so out of character that it didn't even really shock me.  I just thought it was poor writing. 

Did anyone else like the Echo with 38 personalities the best of all the various Echo's we have seen this season?  Dushku handled it well.  I'm not a big Eliza Dushku fan but she hasn't annoyed me in this role. I think it is an enormously challenging role to change personalities within episodes and between episodes with very little repetition or chance to build a character.  Sure it would be nice to see an actress of the caliber of Meryl Streep do this role, but I'm ok with Dushku now that the rest of the ensemble is getting equal time.  I liked this composite personality and for the first time I felt sad when she was wiped.  I know all those personalities would probably have driven her literally insane but still ... I felt let down when she went back to being a wiped doll even if she did remember "Caroline."  

And did anyone else think that Ashley Johnson was a much more likeable Caroline than Eliza Dushku was?   I don't think it was the way the character was written, I think it was the softness of the actress.  Her voice, her visual image, the way she approached it.   I don't necessarily think this is a good thing or that they should have cast someone different, I just think its interesting that words coming out of the mouths of different looking and sounding people can have a different effect on the listener.  We are more than our thoughts, we are judged by how we look and sound and by our manner.  Unfair perhaps.

I also think Amy Acker was great in this episode in which she is officially disclosed to the audience as Whiskey (Jen you were right), an active who was "a bad influence" on Alpha but who is now imprinted with "Dr. Saunders."  Her portrayal of her slow realization that she is a doll was perfect.    

But despite the periodic brilliance in the episode, there were odd holes.  First, does it not seem odd that Dollhouse doesn't have offsite backup like most businesses do?   Why does DeWitt need Ballard to help find Echo when she could just imprint an FBI agent personality on an active?  How on earth could Alpha create a "chair" that works perfectly no matter how brilliant he is (I think this goes to prove that he was imprinted with Topher at one point but why don't they tell us)?  And didn't they tell us in one episode that putting someone in the chair who hadn't been wiped would kill them?   Or at least not work?   Why did DeWitt disclose to Ballard that The Rossum Corporation was behind Dollhouse? And why does the county not secure that power plant?  This is the third time it's been used as a lair.

From an ongoing plot point of view, there are lots of things to discuss. Why did Topher and DeWitt lie to Ballard about the progression of Alpha's disintegration?  Did the fact that the "crime spree'" client revealed to Alpha that he wasn't real, that the situation wasn't real and that Whiskey wasn't really his girlfriend result in the disintegration?  Or was it already starting?  And why do Topher and DeWitt lead Ballard to believe that it was the imprint of the multiple personalities (one of which is a multiple personality) onto Alpha that caused the problem?  There was already a problem.  Alpha slashed Whiskey's face before that happened.  Alpha became obsessed with Echo before that happened. Alpha was in the chair at the time of the incident because he was disintegrating. 

And when the dolls sign their contracts do they know what their bodies will be used for?  I wasn't clear if they did know or if they just thought they would be living in a spa like environment being pampered but a bit brain dead or if they knew what they would be used for.  Echo (who makes it clear she understands that spa life is better than lair life) doesn't get an answer out of Caroline on that issue (or any other issue).

And is Whiskey's contract up but they just won't release her because they DIDN'T take care of her and her face is slashed?  Or will she eventually be released?  I also felt like there was something missing in the explanation of why Alpha slashed Whiskey; or maybe it was a lack of understanding of why Alpha became obsessed with Echo.  (And by the way, how did Alpha get the college video yearbook of Caroline to send Ballard earlier in the season?)

If there is a season next year, it will be interesting to see how Whiskey's awareness of her doll status impacts her.  Another thing that would be interesting is for Whedon to explore the impact on Victor of the slashed face.   He can no longer be "his best" but why does your best require you to have a perfect face (a similar question as to why are words coming out of Ashley Johnson's mouth more likeable than when the character is played by Eliza Dushku.  How does physical image impact the effect of the words you say and actions you do.)   

Alan Tudyk again stole the show.  Amidst all of the mediocre actors that Whedon often surrounds himself with he will occasionally happen upon an incredible actor and Tudyk has turned out to be one of them.

On a macro level I feel like I finally got this show.  Finally.  And watching Alpha helped.  Whedon (not uniquely) likes to create a Big Bad for a show, but he likes to create the Big Bad on two levels:  the personal and the institutional.  Buffy never just fought individual Big Bads (even when she fought The First). Buffy fought the alternate demon dimension that was a Big Bad and we knew if she couldn't defeat its representatives then our world would be overcome by it.  Human beings as we know them would cease to exist and would just be shells inhabited by demons. The Hell Mouth was the specific structure by which the danger emerged, but closing the Hell Mouth at Sunnydale did not mean that the evil was entirely defeated.  It was still there, it had simply lost it biggest and best outlet.  So the end of Buffy was a victory but we knew it wasn't an ultimate victory.

In this series, the Dollhouse is the outlet for the underlying evil of what people will do to other people:  enslave them, prostitute them, use them as objects, feed their vanity for profit, etc.   But most importantly  the Dollhouse was created by people who think it is ok remove an individual personality so that the body alone remains as shell to be inhabited by others.  As Alpha said, it doesn't matter what body you are in. Until tonight's episode when Caroline confronted her own body (and Echo as the body confronted Caroline and asked how Caroline could have abandoned her), I never really got how the dangers of the Dollhouse are so similar to the dangers of the demons in Buffy.  (I felt like Echo when she arose from the chair in Bride of Frankenstein mode and announced that now she understood everything.)  It is such a similar concept, that humanity itself is threatened once this can be done on a large scale just as humanity was threatened if the Hell Mouth opened and the demons could take over bodies. And just as there were multiple Hell Mouths, there are multiple Dollhouses.  Defeating one Dollhouse won't defeat the ultimate evil, it will just arise somewhere else.  But you have to start somewhere and bringing down this Dollhouse is somewhere.

And, maybe its just me, but the danger Whedon envisions in Dollhouse seems so much more frightening than the danger of Buffy because I know demons are a myth but, as a fan of Star Trek (and Firefly), I often like to believe that the technology in science-fiction television could come true some day.

Whedon, however, knows that viewers need more than a conceptual evil, they need a character to be the Big Bad. That was a problem during the early hours of Dollhouse.  We all agreed that the concept behind the Dollhouse was bad but we had no individual who symbolized the evil behind the Dollhouse.  The people who work at the Dollhouse aren't particularly likeable but they also aren't Big Bads.  One gets the feeling that if an agency for good showed up who could use their talents to the utmost and pay them exorbitant sums of money, they would be just as willing to work for good.  They are cogs in the machine and the only question is which machine they are going to work for. 

So  we had no Big Bad to latch onto through most of the season. Whedon had Alpha lurking in the background during the season and we didn't know what to make of him because we never saw him and the only opinions we had on him came from characters we didn't trust.

Then he appeared and Alan Tudyk took what the writers gave him and created an outstanding Big Bad who (if the series is renewed) should be an amazing Big Bad all next season.  I think it was a stroke of brilliance for the writers to have created an Alpha who started out with a real personality that was a potential serial killer.  That takes away most of the sympathy we the audience would have with him.  There is no thought of "Oh, if he could only get back to his real personality everything will be fine."  No.  It won't.  Alpha is now "the one who needs to be destroyed."  

But in true Whedon fashion, Alpha is the red herring.  An amazingly fun red herring, but still a red herring. Because we still don't know who the real Big Bad behind the entire concept of the Dollhouse is.  

So when do we find out the answers to all our questions?  My guess is never.  I don't see Fox renewing this show.  Does it deserve renewal?  From an artistic point of view, yes.  I would not have said that at episode five of the season, but Whedon turned it around and created something compelling starting with episode six.  The last six episodes contained outstanding writing, directing and acting (mostly). I certainly hope it will be renewed, but shows don't get renewed on artistic merit alone and the ratings for Dollhouse are in the tank. 

Television is a business and the business model of network television just will not support carrying a show that few people are watching.  That's just reality.  I suspect that the only reason this show is not already canceled is because Fox thought it made financial marketing sense to wait.  Fox knows that Whedon is a talent with a big fan base and business acumen tells them not to burn bridges.  They already angered that fan base when they canceled Firefly (a much stronger show out of the gate) mid-season.  All Whedon fans went into this season of Dollhouse certain that Fox would pull the plug after only a few episodes without "giving it a chance".  By waiting until the end of the season they can say they gave it a chance.   And, truthfully, I would not hold it against them if they canceled this for pure financial reasons.  I'm a pragmatist. 

They can only renew if they have a plan for turning the ratings around.  And it is really hard to see how they turn the ratings around on this show.  Moving it to a night other than Friday would help but it is a show with inherent problems no matter what night it is on.  The concept is troubling, the changing personalities of the "dolls" make it hard for newcomers to attach to characters, and the plot is ... convoluted.   They could possibly overcome the last problem but it would take effort. Showing the show again over the summer wouldn't help because all the new viewers (and 'second chance' viewers) will get stuck in the weeds of the first five episodes just like the original viewers did.  Even many long time Whedon fans gave up on this show during the first five episodes.

But Fox has solved the convoluted plot problem before, for instance when it ran X-Files. I remember I got hooked on X-Files, which I didn't watch the first season, when I stumbled upon an hour long pre-season "summary show" and understood the story and the mythology enough that I checked out the series.  With the advent of hulu this might work for Dollhouse.  Might.  Fox could show the summary show a few times at the end of summer, put it on hulu and not take it down the entire season and then advertise it during those hulu commercials they show (by the way did anyone else think those commercials were a tad creepy in the context of the Dollhouse premise?  creepy in a good way I mean.)  That's the only idea I can come up with to try to save it, and even then they might only get back the hard core Whedon fans that abandoned the show.  Because the first two problems are still with us.  It would be a big risk for Fox to commit to another season even with that kind of plan.  I hope they will, but I just don't see them doing it.

Dollhouse: Briar Rose

The sole writing credit on this episode belonged to Jane Espenson and she deserves the highest compliments for an episode that was everything a penultimate episode should be and for pulling together a complicated story line.

I liked everything about this episode beginning and ending with the performance of Alan Tudyk who really showed his range, starting with a fully realized depiction of an agaraphobic environmental consultant and ending with a maniac genius. Quite a switch from the likeable Wash from Firefly. The part was written beautifully with lots of funny (but not inappropriate) whedonesque lines ("Carrots! Medicinal carrots!"); but it was Tudyk's portrayal of the character that was amazing. I watched the episode twice because there was so much going on in that performance. When he and Ballard break into the Dollhouse and start running into people, including Topher but also other dolls, Tudyk's performance is blindingly brilliant. Even though I suspected he was Alpha before the episode started I was taken in by his character as Kepler and all the reasons why Kepler might cower (and at the same time not show his face). And the fact that he could make the switch in personalities so seamlessly was brilliant. When he, as Alpha, slashed Victor's face, it was a total shock.

The episode played off the old fairy tale story Briar Rose. This is the story of Sleeping Beauty but Briar Rose was the name that the brothers Grimm gave to the story. I think it was appropriate to use the Grimm name because Sleeping Beauty has become associated with the Disneyfied version of the tale while the Grimm story retains the original grit that is appropriate to Dollhouse. I liked what Espenson did with it and the balance she struck. She managed to put enough surprises in the story that it balanced out the metaphorical nature of the plot; a lesser writer would have screwed it up.

One of the things I particularly liked about the way the episode was constructed was the voice-over of young Susan reading the portion of the fairy story about the prince while we are watching "Keplar" and Ballard break into the Dollhouse. And of course we are meant to associate the rescuing prince with Ballard but it is really Alpha who is going to do the "rescue" and be the prince. I continue to think about the line that the adult Susan says to young Susan about how Briar Rose dreamed the prince and she made him and she made him fight to get her out. I'm not completely sure where Espenson was going with that but I feel that it was important not just for this episode but for the next (and perhaps future) episodes.

So Alpha (the dangerous, deranged Alpha) rescues Echo. But not, apparently, Caroline. What personality did he imprint on Echo? From the small bits I saw and the previews from next week, she seems to be a Bonnie Parker type of character. Which should be interesting.

To me the best performance of the entire show by a regular cast member was by Enver Gjokaj who was imprinted with, and as an actor turned himself into, Reed Diamond's Dominic character. The moment when Dominic realizes he is in another body was an inspired bit of acting by Gjokaj. And I kept wondering if they were really using Reed Diamond's voice - but I think not. I think that really was Gjokaj doing Reed Diamond.

And with all that - I still think Penikett is miscast as Ballard and I still think Miracle Laurie can't act. But fortunately that didn't matter to me in this episode. The scene where Ballard leaves her takes place at the beginning and I could forget about it through the rest of the episode. But I can see the parallels that Espenson was trying to achieve between adult Susan's story ("every time someone calls me a victim I think it's a lie") and how Mellie feels when Paul leaves her.

Where does the story go? We can discuss. Let me just say that I found the conversation between Alpha and the Doctor interestingly ambiguous. I also found the dialog between DeWitt and Ballard equally interesting. Hopefully it will be cleared up in the next episode.

The one plot point I didn't understand is how Ballard knew that the dolls were so docile in their doll state that he could just stand there until one passed by and ask him to "come this way."

Special note to FamilyMan: They used "the phone is found in the freezer" bit.

Springtime, TV and Reading

In the comments to yesterday's post andif commented that Truman might like me to read him the last book in AS Byatt's Fredericka Potter series.  A Whistling Woman has been sitting on my shelf looking at me for a few months but I was determined to finish Anna Karenina before I started another long book. 

Late yesterday I also read an article about Byatt published in The Guardian and learned she has a new novel coming out called The Children's Book.  I consider this another nudge by the universe to get back to A Whistling Woman.   

But it's spring, all my windows are open and I'm in the midst of spring cleaning.  I need to get out into my yard and do some yard cleanup and I have two major home improvement projects that are supposed to start in a couple of weeks.  It just isn't the time of year for reading long books.  At least not for me.

Or really for watching TV.  The last two Friday nights have been beautiful.  It is the time of year to leave work and sit outside at one of the nice patio bars that open this time of year and listen to music until after dark.  Maybe that's why, when I got home last night, I really wasn't all that into watching the Dollhouse episode.

I think some interesting things were revealed about character - especially Adele (Addie?) but also Ballard.  I really disliked Ballard last night.   And his little moment of self-realization in the shower didn't mitigate it.    And I disliked Topher for creating a fake friend.   But I loved Victor as the horse dude.   And I actually enjoyed Eliza Dushku playing an older woman in a younger woman's body.  And, oddly, I liked the "Dynasty" aspect to the story in the clothing and the country house etc. 

Dollhouse: A Spy in the House of Love (Episode 9)

I've been convinced for some time that Dollhouse would not be renewed by Fox. And part of me couldn't blame them. It is an odd concept for a television show and would be hard to sell even if Fox hadn't screwed up by forcing the first five stand alone episodes. But if episode six had been the first episode the show might have had a chance to build an audience rather than lose audience share as the season progressed.

I was reconciled to the idea that this was going to be a one season show and I was just thankful that Fox committed to showing all the episodes that were made. And while the show had been getting more interesting I still wasn't attached to it. I wasn't going to miss it if it was taken off the air.

Until I saw tonight's episode.

Wow. A Spy in the House of Love was the best episode of the season so far and it was the first episode in which Whedon proved to me that I could love this show.

First, the structure and the writing of the episode were fantastic, not to mention the directing. The episode begins at (almost) the end of the story with something "bad" going on up in the "chair room" where Topher holds court. Lots of flashing lights as Echo and Sierra are calmly watching from below. Sierra wonders what is happening and Echo says "she made a mistake, now she's sad". It isn't clear who "she" is. Then we flash back to 12 hours earlier to see what leads up to that moment. But the episode keeps the audience off balance by overlapping the stories of the various dolls so that the time periods are constantly overlapping.

Off balance is the key to this episode. All audience expectations are destroyed. But of course the writers start the flashback portion with what the audience now expects - Echo as sex object this time in dominatrix garb. What better way to destroy expectations than to start with the usual expectations. Not to mention that the dominatrix garb may serve to distract some from paying too much attention to the fact that Victor is off for his ninth engagement with "Miss Lonely Hearts". Victor sports a British accent and is smarmily smooth in this persona. He heads off in the black van with his handler and the audience for a time assumes he simply isn't going to be a part of the drama of this episode.

The drama is that Topher discovers a chip in the imprinting system that lets someone access the imprinting process and alter the imprint. DeWitt is off at a meeting off premises and Dominic is in charge. So he has Topher imprint Sierra with a persona that can access the NSA and discover who the mole is. In the meantime Echo notices that everyone is unhappy and offers to help Topher. She, in fact, shocks Topher by telling him that he changes people and he can change her to help him. Then she climbs in the chair on he own volition. From that moment all expectations are out the window.

It turns out that DeWitt (DeWitt!!!) has been hiring out Victor under the guise of "Miss Lonely Hearts" and she is not at a meeting outside the office unless you count shacking up in a beach house with Victor in his "James Bond" persona as a meeting outside the office.

November is sent back as Mellie (I still can't stand her acting) and she is imprinted before the chip is found - turns out that her body is is secretly programmed to tell Ballard that Mellie is a doll. Much to Ballard's shock.

Dominic turns out to be the the mole; he is discovered by Echo In her Kung Fu Sherlock Holmes persona. But not until he tries to set up Topher's assistant Ivy as the mole. (Although Victor has the James Bond persona in the episode it is Sierra that gets the secret agent mission and the cool gadgets.) Once DeWitt finds out she sends him to the attic - which is the horrible "bad" thing that began the episode. I'm going to miss Reed Diamond - although we all know that Joss Whedon likes to have actors come back at unexpected times in his series.

It was, I thought, a fantastically written episode. The writing credit that is shown on screen in the opening credits went to Andrew Chambliss whose only other writing credits have been "staff writer" on two other Dollhouse episodes. This is his first full writing credit. If he really did do most of the writing of this episode then Whedon needs to keep him around. But ... although the title credits do not list them, IMDB also gives co-writing credit to Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen (who collaborated on Dr. Horrible) and, most importantly in my opinion, Jane Espenson. Espenson came on as consulting producer for the last few episodes and this is the first writing credit she has. The end of BSG may be the best thing to happen to Dollhouse because having Jane Espenson with a writing credit on Dollhouse could be the glue that holds the whole thing together.

In addition to all the action and all the surprises of the episode we got a lot of character development as Echo "interviewed" the various characters. The interview with Doctor Saunders was interesting. She never leaves the Dollhouse?

Of course there are still lots of questions. Most basically - how is Echo continuing to evolve? Is it natural or is it some subliminal imprint? The whole time Echo was watching what was going on it felt like she was a spy on a secret mission. The idea that she had access to the mainframe during the time she was investigating seems too good to be true to me. Somehow. At the beginning when she says to Sierra "she made a mistake" it wasn't clear who she was talking about. At the end I assumed it was DeWitt. But that means she remembers something about what happened. Of course she could also be talking about herself. If Dominic was the mole she ended her best shot at being saved. Despite the fact that he tried to kill her. Twice.

Although it seems unlikely that Dominic was the person sending messages to Ballard. He worked for the NSA. Why would he have sent messages to an FBI agent? But it is also unclear what his intentions were with respect to the Dollhouse. When he fights Echo he tells her that she is dangerous and is an Alpha waiting to happen. This is not someone who wants her to be found by Ballard. When confronted by DeWitt he said he was sent to make sure the Dollhouse didn't bring itself down. He says that the technology needs to be reigned in and controlled but he doesn't want it to be destroyed. On the other hand, in the van with Echo he smiles because, he says, one day she'll be erasing them and they won't see it coming?

Finally, let me say that Enver Gjokaj continues to be my favorite actor on this show. And yes we can talk all week about the whole DeWitt/Victor arrangement.

Dollhouse: Needs (Episode 8)

Fox was idiotic to demand five stand alone episodes up front. They should have started with Episode Six. But I said that last week. Spoilers over the jump.

Warning: this is all stream of conscious and not too thought out.

It started off with a bang with that dream sequence of Ballard's. I really liked that. Good psychology writing. Dealing with his hero issues vis-a-vis Echo and his attraction, his guilt perhaps over Mellie knowing that she expects him to dump her for Echo if he ever has the chance and probably being right AND (most importantly) working out in his mind the problem of how they knew to go after Mellie and knew he had talked to her about the case.

This episode did nothing to make me like the Mellie character more - her doll-like character is really not all that different from her real life character. Or maybe (as I keep thinking) it's a problem with the acting. And as far as plot goes, I wondered why Ballard didn't notice that she'd given birth when he saw her naked. (And I wondered who she was that she could afford such a HUGE headstone for a child. But of course I always wondered on Buffy how amazing it was that in Sunnydale they managed to have headstones carved and in place on the day of the funeral. But I digress ...) I'm more and more enamored by Victor though.

The episode had a lot of good psychology and insight into characters especially DeWitt's character and the Doctor's character. When I realized that although the Doctor had looked helpful to Echo early in the episode but wasn't really helping and had in fact designed the experiment to take away their "glitches", a thought crossed my mind. "Appearances are deceiving on this show." And I wondered if the fact that the doctor's face is scarred is supposed to tie into that thought. Because I've wondered the entire season why those scars are really necessary. They are a reminder of the damage that Alpha can do to Dollhouse but - she could have plastic surgery and she has chosen not to. For a while I thought it was a cover for her - always a reminder to the people who run Dollhouse that she's on their side and has literally taken one for the team. Which gives her cover for being the mole. But the end of this episode makes me doubt that. She is one of them. In any case Amy Acker has so far been my favorite in the mgmt position actors on this show.

On the other hand, did the Doctor come up with the whole plan? Topher was backing up everything at the beginning of the episode - so Echo's attack on the equipment did nothing. They lost nothing. Was that just a happy coincidence? Or did he and DeWitt know what the "better idea" was going to be?

And ... "I'm not your friend in here Echo" ... did that mean the Doctor was her friend somewhere else? I had a sense when Echo first saw the doctor and asked her what happened to her face that she might have known her before the scars.

Finally, I feel like I'm supposed to be rooting for Caroline but I don't really like her. Going back in was stupid. I have a hard time rooting for people who do stupid things. I also didn't like Sierra that much as a real person. This is going to come out sounding worse than I mean, but I thought that her character was a perfect candidate for abuse. In the sense that abusers abuse people who allow it. And look at how Whedon has created this character - she is the victim of rape by her handler but she also was put into the Dollhouse by a man she turned down who now hires her out. I should feel outraged. I am outraged. On the other hand - I still don't like her that much and I want her to be more assertive. The most assertive she was, was her instinct to run. She was passive when confronting Nolan and it was Victor who punched him. And I realize that this was a truly creative way to write this because so many women who are abused get no real sympathy (people are outraged but not necessarily sympathetic) because the women ARE passively annoying. I worked with a woman who was murdered by her husband (who then shot himself). She was very nice. She was also a total doormat. She didn't deserve death. Her death was outrageous. But I would be deceiving myself if I thought that if time were reversed I would feel differently about her and not think to myself - why the hell did you let yourself get involved with this manipulative bastard? Knowing that someone was treated wrongly and that the perpetrator should be brought to justice does not mean you will necessarily have sympathy for the victim. It's one reason why it's hard to convict for rape. Most people aren't able to separate justice from sympathy.

The whole "appearances are deceiving" thing also made me think about Ibsen's play "A Doll's House" in which appearances are deceiving. Ibsen also ponders the meaning of "freedom" in that play and Whedon seems to be doing that also. Especially with this episode where we are told that some of the dolls have chosen to do this to be free of memories they can't handle. For the first time I wondered if there is any link in Whedon's mind with Ibsen and what he is trying to do here.

I have to admit, though, when the episode was over I felt let down. If the dolls really are now "clean" and are starting over blank next week - what was the point of watching all these episodes.

Dollhouse - Echoes (Episode 7)

First, according to the Dollverse, FOX has confirmed that all 13 episodes will run. If that's true, that's good news, although it isn't clear that the last episode will air, which seems strange. But I assume that if they get that far they will figure out how to air the season finale. This news is a relief. After watching the Man on the Street episode I started to worry that they would take it off the air at the exact moment that it started to get good.

I also decided to go back and see which episodes had actually been written by Whedon and it turns out that only Episode 1 (Ghost) and last weeks' Episode 6 (Man on the Street) were actual Whedon-written episodes. On all other episodes he was listed as creator but no writer.

I went back to look because tonight's episode finally had some humor, it was Whedonesque humor but the whole episode didn't quite seem like Joss himself. It wasn't tight enough. I was right, according to IMDB it was written by Elizabeth Craft (who wrote a number of Angel episodes). (The Whedonesque website says it was written by Craft and by Sarah Fain.)

On the one hand, I liked this episode because we got a lot of new information and a great deal of character development. On the other hand, last week's episode was a hard act to follow and this episode didn't quite rise to that level. But I did think that I need to watch it again because with all the flashbacks I want to make sure that I have the whole thing straight.

Tonight they proved that DeWitt, Topher, Mr. Dominic, and Langton aren't secretly actives. They were all affected by the drug/secret sauce. Amy Acker wasn't in this episode so nothing is proved about her character. Nor was Topher's assistant.

One of the best moments was when Langton asked Echo if she wanted a treatment and she said "no". Second favorite moment is Dominic apologizing to Echo for trying to burn her alive. (Although it isn't clear the drug is a truth serum so I still don't trust him.) I just truly love Reed Diamond so I'm happy whenever he's on and I'm glad they are giving his character some layers.

I liked what they did with DeWitt in this episode, and for once I didn't find Topher completely annoying. In fact ... I think he is growing on me. I was a little confused about the last scene between DeWitt and Dominic. Neither of them saw the other drugged so I'm not sure why they would be embarrassed in front of each other. I would think DeWitt and Topher would be more embarrassed about their experience. (I loved the scene where DeWitt is jumping up and down in the background while Topher is on the phone.)

From a storyline perspective I thought it was really effective to go back in time and show us more of Caroline's original meeting with DeWitt and then a portion of the meeting DeWitt has with Sam, the new Doll. This idea that the Dolls are volunteers has been hard for me to swallow, but it might be possible that some of them signed on the dotted line willingly. Sam didn't have any real reason to sign up except for money. Unless of course Rossum Corporation is going to hunt him down for interfering with their experiments.

The back story on what happened to Caroline was helpful. And the parallel between the animal testing and the Dolls was well done. Although at the meeting between DeWitt and Caroline, DeWitt made some reference about their interaction going on for two years. Caroline disappeared from the hospital bed before DeWitt could get to her, so presumably even more happened to her during the ensuing two years.

I hope Mellie has left permanently.

There are a lot of big themes developing. Jen and andif had some excellent comments to my last post. I need to think about it some more before trying to talk about them.

Dollhouse: Man on the Street

The most Whedonesque episode yet. It's a shame it took so long to get to this point but it is what it is.

One of the problems that Whedon has to solve is to explain why someone would bother paying big money for an active when they could just go out and get the real thing - you can buy sex, you can hire a midwife, you can hire a high powered negotiator. The combination of the man-on-the-street interviews and the software mogul's fantasy was a good attempt to work through this problem, although I don't think it is really solved. But it was effective that the first women interviewed compared the dolls to slaves and the last man interviewed talked about the effect of the technology on the human race, Whedon attacking it from the point of view of the human race and the individual human. I agreed with the woman who said it was human trafficking.

The same idea came out in the conversation between the software mogul, Joel Mynor, and Ballard when Joel points out that Ballard's discovery of Caroline makes it personal to him - he now has an individual to focus on rather than one big conspiracy. And the question as to whether Ballard has his own fantasy.

No big surprise that weird girl across the hall (I can't remember her name) is an Active but I found her interactions with Ballard completely unbelievable. As I always do. I don't know if it is her acting (I've never been sure if she's a bad actress or if she's doing a good job with a character I don't like -- a stepford wife sort of character) or if it is Penmikett who is the problem. I continue to think he is completely miscast. I think it in every scene but especially the scenes with her. The bedroom dialog was so Whedon and they just ... didn't do it. It didn't sound natural. I didn't even like him in the Buffy-esque fight scene toward the end ( I wonder if they use the same stunt double for Eliza.)

The guy who played Mynor, though, was great, a natural with the Whedon dialog (was he ever on another Whedon show? He looked or sounded familiar) and I predict that he will be back in another episode if this show lasts.

The subplot with Sierra was also agood because it addressed the exploitation factor directly. Hearne was set up to be the bad guy a few episodes ago so it wasn't a surprise that he ended up the villain. I was kind of disappointed that he didn't kill weirdo girl across the hall, and that disappointment was only mitigated slightly by the confirmation that she was an Active. But even Hearne points out the exploitation factor of the whole enterprise - why is it worse for him to sexually exploit an active than for the paid client.

I'd like to see Victor out in another assignment. One moment I really liked was the moment when Victor told Echo he had done something bad and when she asked what he had done he said "no one will tell me."

And who is the mole inside? The Asian-American assistant of Topher? Topher himself? DeWitt? (Does DeWitt have the necessary knowledge to do it?) The doctor?

So, all in all, a good week. Lots of Whedon. Moral spankitude. lol.

As an aside, when I went to check it out on hulu I discovered that Stargate SG-1, season 1, is now up. Yet another series that I came in on in the middle, only occasionally watched but really liked. I remember describing it to someone as the most creative laughably low-budget show on television. So now I have something to watch when I'm bored.

Dollhouse Episode 5

It has been a busy weekend and I finally got around to watching the last Dollhouse episode on hulu this morning. I liked it. It was the first episode that I really liked. I liked that Reed Diamond has changed from ambiguous to a clear enemy, although I still think DeWitt is ambiguous. I liked that Agent Ballard saw Echo live and in person (well on teevee). I liked the mission Echo was on and thought it was clever to combine that with the "dislike factor" of the risk to her eyesight. (I especially liked that this episode didn't involve gratuitous sex for FOX audiences - that cult thing could have gone either way.) I thought the "Victor having an erection" crisis was very Whedon-esque (although part of me was picturing Xander in that scene and it working better with Xander saying the lines rather than the annoying Topher). All in all I liked it and I feel like it's going to finally start moving forward. Finally.

After I watched the episode, thanks to Jen's linky goodness, I read the original script for the original pilot and thought that we might have gotten to this point a lot faster if they would have allowed Joss to use that script. But it didn't, apparently, have enough gratuitous sexy scenes in it. And FOX must have thought all viewers were too dumb to "get it" with just small vignettes of her "missions". Noooooo. We have to spend 5 weeks showing full missions for us to understand the concept of a mission. I just hope they leave him alone and let him do his thing from now on.

Dollhouse Episode 4

Via sometime commenter Maureen, according to ask ausiello in this week's EW:

Question: Do you have any Dollhouse tidbits? --Jenni
Ausiello: The show's mythology will really start to unfold on April 3 when, through a series of flashbacks, we learn who Echo was and the underlying "why" and "how" she ended up being lured into the Dollhouse.

I think they should have scheduled it sooner.  

And no, I have no idea who Ausiello is or why we should believe him.

There's more.

These are totally random thoughts.

It was a nice switch to have Echo start out as just a plain person acting like a midwife instead of some sex object.  But why on earth wouldn't that couple have just gotten a real midwife?  At first I wondered, "Why a midwife?  What makes Whedon choose certain roles."  But it soon became apparent that we are, like last week, supposed to juxtapose a client who says she wants to forget something (in this case the pain of childbirth) with the reality of forgetting.

Topher is really annoying.  I assume the writers created an assistant for him because they knew it would be completely unbelievable that he could have been that annoying in front of any of his other colleagues for so long.  His colleagues would have walked away from him  or told him to leave.  Hence the necessity for an assistant who is stuck with him. 

I detected more Whedonisms in this script than in the last three:  Echo/Taffy calling the art expert "old guy expert" and the exchange between Victor and Ballard about Georgia: 

Victor: Russia Georgia not sweet home Georgia.

Ballard: Alabama

I assume that we're going to now see Victor in other characters.  I also assume Victor is his "dollhouse" name too?  DeWitt referred to him as Victor.

The idea of Echo getting remotely wiped in the middle of a gig was a good idea. I think I might have liked the concept of this show the best of the four that I've seen.   The story arc is developing so slowly that I felt that this was a good step forward.  On the other hand I'm not sure that we learned much, except that the wiped Echo was still able to get the nicer of the two accomplices out with her at the end. 

On the other hand, I found it completely unrealistic that those two guys would be as patient with Echo as they were.  It seemed more likely that the one would have beaten her senseless or at least thrown her in a corner and told her to shut up.   And it made no sense that Sierra would give the wiped Echo instructions on how to break out and not insist that one of the professional burglars who owned the drill do the actual drilling.

Hopefully next week we'll get some of that information about Alpha from Dewitt that she was giving to Topher at the end.

Dollhouse Episode 3

If you don't want spoilers, don't click for more.

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.

Dollhouse

Steve Benen says that Fox has it slotted into the 9:00 (eastern) spot on Friday nights beginning February 13 which, he correctly notes, is a black hole where shows go to die. Sigh.

If Joss Whedon would do a new show on cable, I'd break down and get cable. I don't know why he insists on going with networks. They never understand his stuff.