Thursday, February 26, 2009

On Dollhouse


Meh. Let it develop.

Eliza Dushku's future may not contain Emmy awards, but she's hardly the worst actress on television. As Echo, her job is mainly to change clothes a lot and look pretty. No problem there. The role so far calls mainly for vulnerability. She has no problem with vulnerable either.

Topher (Fran Kranz) is the archetypal witty boy genius who always turns up on Whedon shows. His job is mainly to manipulate imaginary technology and deliver all the best lines. He seems stamped from the template of the Trio in Buffy's Season 6. Since Whedonspeak has been rampant in popular culture for the past decade or so, Topher's dialogue doesn't have the shock of the new in the same way as Xander's dialogue, or Andrew's dialogue, or even Mr. Universe's dialogue.

Bennett (Tamoh Penikett) is supposed to be the badass agent on a maybe phantom quest. His job is mainly to channel Mulder only angry. And without humor. He's the nerdy version of Elliot Stabler.

Langton (Harry Lennix) is the father figure full of weighty angst. He is the story's emotional grounding wire. He must make us believe. Lennix's presence in this kind of role of a good open for the future of the show. He is a fine actor. I have seen him in theatre.

While it is true the pilot episode was homogenized and explainy, it served its expository purpose quite well. I have heard complaints that the nature of the Dollhouse was revealed too early. But the show was never marketed as a big mystery like The Matrix (“What is the Matrix?”) or Lost (What the hell is the Island?). Mysteries are well and good, but Dollhouse is not about the mystery of the Dollhouse. The premise has been a selling point from the beginning. It has been a way to capture eyeballs. The question, “What is the Dollhouse,” may haunt characters within the show (i.e. Bennett), but it was answered for the audience in the promos.

The argument could be made that maybe Fox should have marketed Dollhouse as a mystery all along. Maybe they should have kept it under wraps for the past year and taken draconian measures to prevent leaks and so on. Maybe that would be the best way to simultaneously engage Joss's existing fanbase while intriguing new viewers. It's hard to know, seeing as two episodes into the series, we still don't exactly know what it's going to be about. Is that a bad sign? Maybe. We'll see. We don't know enough yet.

For now, we only have a few clues. The Alpha seems like our first Big Bad. Or is he a misunderstood white hat? Time will tell. As the plot unfolds, it seems necessary for Echo to become more and more self-aware. At some point, she will probably escape the Dollhouse, probably with the help of Ballard. Then the show will be Whedonized Dark Angel, which sounds pretty good to me.

The first two episodes have not tenderized my brain with awesome, but I am reminded that Buffy and Firefly took a few episodes to win me over. I will give Dollhouse the same chance. Will anyone else? Answer that question and you know the future of the show.

4 comments:

  1. Is this who I think it is? If so, you'll know where I was when the Giants won the superbowl!

    So far I saw one ep of Dollhouse, it left me rattled, deeply. I can see Joss all over it, but the prospect of sitting in a chair and being erased, well that scares me deeply. The only thing that scares me more is the prospect of finding out, over time, that I'm just some kind of organic hard drive, a machine to be programmed and erased as needed, the betrayal and violation I already feel... Well finding out later, I'd have to pull a Gina from BSG. I'd love the bomb and pray to God that I didn't wake up in a resurrection ship somewhere... I'm having enough trouble living with the pain I've already got, let alone borrowing more so to speak.

    Sometimes, being an empath really sucks.

    Anyway, good to see you here!

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  2. "Stop thinking and throw the ball, Manning! You're terrible when you think! Use the goddamn force!"

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  3. ROTFLMAO!!!! Woot! I love that you have a blog now, and love what you've been writing!

    Eli, Eli, has our man! If he can't snack vickory from the jaws of defeat no-one can!

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  4. Oops, that was supposed to be He's our man... My bad!

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