dollhouse – Only Mostly Dead

You may have noticed I haven’t blogged about Dollhouse since the disappointing opening episode. That’s mostly because I lacked the enthusiasm to even watch the episodes never mind write about them. However I finally got around to it and the good news is the show is definitely improving.

So without further a do:

1.02 “Target”

Target is a variation on the old idea of someone hunting a human being. From other reviews and comments I’ve heard that this references something called “The Most Dangerous Game” which may well be the first but is certainly not the only use of this idea.

It’s a bad habit but I found myself second-guessing the plot twists and wondered if this client had paid for the hunt (but was expected to avoid an outright kill). Instead the twist was that the hunter didn’t exist, he was an assumed identity. That fits with the overall Dollhouse theme but wasn’t quite as satisfying.

Target had a bit more of the Whedon-style dialogue – as expressed through Stephen DeKnight.

Overall it was a better episode that the first, and a decent-ish version of a well-worn idea, but nothing new or radical – 6/10.

1.03 Stage Fright

OK now it starts to get a bit more interesting. This time Echo is being a back-up singer (and closet bodyguard) for a pop diva who has a crazy fan out to get her. Not a scenario that attracts me on paper but it was well done. In particular I liked the feisty-ness of Eliza’s character in this one.

It also had a couple of plot twists I didn’t see coming. I liked the idea the Echo sees deeper into the assignment than her handlers had expected – that she need to protect Rayna from herself. This singles out Echo as something special.

The writers continue to have fun with the themes of the show with the dialogue about being “grown in a lab”. They also have a gentle dig at the fans with this:

Are you a fan Mr Dominic?

I’m sorry?

Rayna, do you like her music?

I’m not sure being a fan has very much to do with that

Whedon has teased the fans about this kind of thing before – notably in Angel’s third season “Waiting in the Wings” or, I suppose, the whole of Buffy season six with the nerd trio. But it’s always affectionately done.

The reveal of Victor as an active was a surprise and I guess that’s going to be an ongoing issue with this show – who’s an active?

After watching this my thought was, it’s a very good episode of a certain kind of show – but is it the kind of show I like? Anyway still enjoyed it, Eliza can sing – 7/10.

1.04 Gray Hour

"...and there's absolutely no chance of bring back Tru Calling?" — "...and there's absolutely no chance of bringing back Tru Calling?"

With the frankly ridiculous opening of Echo as a midwife half-way up a mountain, the show neatly identifies a problem with the show’s core concept – why not just hire the best expert in a field you can find? The super-rich certainly have the money to do that and it’ll be cheaper, easier and probably safer than relying on what is fast turning out to be some fairly unreliable tech.

Anyway, best to leave that aside for now. If I can live with the stupid idea that the best approach to fighting a global vampire threat is a single girl in one small town then I can certainly live with this.

Plus, I’m never one to harp on these technical details if the story’s good and here it is.

Well it is for me anyway because I have a weakness for heist stories. I loved “The Shroud of Rahmon” which many will tell you is an awful Angel episode.

A different character, different story, but again we have a feisty Eliza – at least for the first half of the story.

The thing that I found myself thinking during this episode is that I wanted to know what happens next. That’s gotta be good right?

More good dialogue

This one is broken.

Look who’s talking

I liked the use of Sierra and seeing the same “imprint” being used with her as the active.

It seems that, like Lost did for a while, they’re developing a habit of using a music-over-montage at the end of the episode.

Anyway, love a good heist story and this was one – 8/10.

General Comments

There’s been a lot of discussion of how Echo being a different character every week causes a problem because you’re not following the same character every week. I don’t think this is such a problem because we get that from the other characters and the ongoing story.

The format reminds me a little of Quantum Leap and that was very successful, ran for years and years.

I wonder whether it’s partly a reaction to the criticism Whedon has had about his shows being too “arc-y” that this one has a “story-of-the-week” written into the very format of the show?

Maybe the problem, if there is one, is that the metaphor – which is basically about what being an actress is like – is not universal enough.

Anyway – the show’s picking up – getting better with each episode according to my personal scale. Just in time to get really good before it gets cancelled no doubt.

Dollhouse is the new TV show from Joss Whedon, starring Eliza Dushku. You may not have heard much about it, you certainly haven’t from this blog because I’ve been keeping a low profile. I’ve been deliberately ignoring hype and information for two reasons:

I think I’ll enjoy it more with less pre-conceptions
I think I’ll be less invested in it if it gets cancelled.

However it’s Joss Whedon and it’s the first new TV from him in a long time, virtually the first new anything. So I’d lying if I said I hadn’t been looking forward to it.

Unfortunately it’s not great. I mean it’s not great, not insanely fun and re-defining what you can do with the genre, it’s merely OK. At least that’s true of episode 1 – Ghost. I hope and pray (almost truthfully) that it will get better. All three of Joss’ previous TV series had merely ok eps, Angel and Buffy at least had some not good at all ones. So I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’s ok, that it can have a mediocre start and get better. I’m having a little trouble though because all his previous shows were better than this from ep 1. Even Firefly‘s “The Train Job” which was a re-tooled, and significantly less-good, pilot from the original two-hour Serenity – even that was better.

By now you’re probably thinking I hated it. I didn’t but let me put it this way. If you’d shown me this and I didn’t know it was from Joss I would never have thought he’d been involved. It had none of his humour or flair for dialogue. It pretty much just played it straight all the way through.

Unlike some other fans/reviewers I don’t see the concept – agents or ‘actives’ are programmed with personalities/skills, hired out and then have their minds wiped on return – as inherently a problem. I can see that it could mean there’s no chance for character development, that we’re watching Eliza play a different role each week and so it’s hard to care – but someone as smart as Joss will have thought of that.

I’m more worried that take away the Joss humour and edge and what you’re left with, on the evidence of Ghost, could be a ep of pretty much any lawyer/cop procedural – albeit with a scifi twist.

I’m writing this now, over a week after I watched it because I’m about to watch ep 2, “The Target“. I’ll report back soon as to whether it got any better.

Eliza wakes up

Almost forgot the most important part – 5/10