Anticipating DOLLHOUSE

Yes. and with only five minutes of commercials!

They were filming this in my neighborhood a couple weeks ago. Am curious.

I'm not sure that the premise is enough to carry a show. I'm also not sure that Eliza can carry a show (I'm pretty sure she can't, actually).

It's also got Olivia Williams! Then again, it has that generic IT hipster-geek character archetype which has been showing up on too many shows, too.

I'm almost positive this show will fail (ratings-wise), but even with my reservations as to the premise, I think Joss Whedon has done enough in his time to deserve the benefit of the doubt.

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20200712,00.html

"A typical episode will see Dushku cycle through three to four personas, making for a wild mix of moods and genres. ''The other day I shot scenes for a 1940s musical dance number and a Mexican spaghetti Western — just for the pilot episode,'' says Whedon, kicking back on a plush couch under the stairwell of Dollhouse's set. Says Dushku: ''It's really perfect for my personality, which is kind of ADD. "

Joe Haldeman should sue the fuck out of Whedon for stealing All My Sins Remembered.

Anyone who enjoys the work of Joss Whedon should be shot.

Although I look forward to the usual delusional stans coming up with "THE STUDIO KILLED THIS MASTERPIECE" gurblings when this is cancelled after three weeks.

I hear that it turns out that Dushku is actually Dazzler.

Dom's ass-stick RIP ;_;

much as i love buffy this looks terrible

So what do you guys think?

im willing to give this show half a season to make up for its stupid-ass premise.

wow this is dire. i don't even particularly like Whedon but i kind of assumed it'd be at least watchable.

as a serious buffy stan i have to say i have practically no desire to this thing. looks terrible.

what did YOU think mordy

I was pretty disappointed. I think it's a step back from Firefly in terms of characterization, and about as 'cute' as Buffy, without any of the interesting mythos/relationships as that show. I'm willing to give it time to develop, just cause I'm such a huge Whedon fan (particularly after his run on Astonishing X-Men), but I wasn't particularly thrilled by the pilot.

a problem with this show is that eliza dushku can't act. i will keep watching, though.

Apparently, Dollhouse's crapulence is all the fault of the network. They just couldn't keep from fucking it up, according to the Whedon interview in the new Rolling Stone.

(in short, midway through production they stuck their nose in it, he shut down production, they apologized, he returned, and they kept sticking their nose in it)

Have you guys seen the first episodes of Buffy and Firefly? Whedon does not start strong. His projects depend so much on character development and relationships, and you're just not going to get that in the first 60 minutes.

That's what I worry about with this project. How can you develop relationships when the main character is basically in a perpetual state of amnesia?

ya exactly

im sure he has some big plan for her "real" personality to emerge tho

this was more watchable than i thought it wd be

You must have not been expecting much.

i really really wasn't!

It was about as watch-able at the average Heroes episode.

I thought the episode was okay, though the motorcycle chase/yay prostitution! intro was really obviously shoehorned in by the network compared to the rather creepy/human trafficking vibe most of the show put off. But yeah, it's Whedon - I'm sticking this through until it dies, and don't expect it to get good until several episodes in, anyway. He mentioned that for the first 5-7 episodes he's keeping them accessible so new viewers aren't deluged with backstory, so the good stuff probably won't start coming in until then.

I saw DOLLHOUSE as Joss in post-Goddard mode--as relentlessly, quietly cold and insular and hopeless as "Objects in Space" without that FIREFLY ep's final assurance.

I mean, successful TV is almost always about literal or metaphorical families. Joss has made a cottage industry doing alt-families and hence the cult following. DOLLHOUSE, as it sets itself up, is like a cool-surfaced explosion of any familial assurances or connection. It's pretty much the opposite of TV narrative.

The FBI guy is a lonely obsessive. The Dollhouse queenpin is an icy enigma. The enforcer is alone in his self-delusion. Amy Acker is a scarred ghost-person in the shadows. Programmer dude is a moral-free monster-boy. Echo is cut off from her own ID and any human connections that may have had. Every week she'll be cut off from her self. Every imprinted persona will 'die.' We'll keep hearing from and maybe seeing the people her IDs are stolen from--more de-familiarized ghosts.

Style-wise, this is *radically* different from anything Joss has done. No elegant one-shots or old cinematic style. Lots of glistening surfaces, purposefully jarring editing, characters wandering in and out of shadows, no reassuringly designed tempo changes. When we first saw Echo as the negotiation character, it was in anti-TV poetic long shot. And when she recalled her abuse memory, Joss again went for the artistically motivated long shot--Echo is very far from Echo and Joss is shooting her that way. And while her name may seem too on-the-money genre-wise, it's a wonderful choice when you think music-wise: an echo is the repeat of an original sound except more faint, slightly distorted, in every way less than the original.

One assumes the show will be about these elements in some way connecting with something, but I'm thinking it'll be relentlessly grim with everyone as alone, deluded, disassociated as DR HORRIBLE except without the songs and funny.

For real? I give FOX huge props for going for what's basically art house TV. I hope their bean counters can keep in mind how much money this will make over the years on all the different platforms and media.

That reading is much more interesting than the episode I saw.

fr reals

tried to watch this but couldn't be bothered after 15 minutes of it. will prob try again when rly bored.

That reading of it seems like what the pitch could be, but the real episode was really disjoint and poorly edited/acted.

yeah...it really just felt like yet another hollow, unengaging FOX sci fi pilot, like Fringe with a much smaller budget. i never woulda guessed a writer/creator with a good reputation was attached to the project had i not known already.

my main question is why would someone engage this agency's services for anything except hookering? like if your daughter is kidnapped WHY would you hire these guys and NOT an actual professional??

Because they're better than real professionals because they cram all the knowledge of multiple people into one! But they're also disposable because you can just program someone new if they get shot, right?

a problem with this show is that eliza dushku can't act

^^ most wonderfully loaded use of the indefinite vs. definite article

This whole thing is in a genre I don't think Whedon's good and should stay away from -- I feel like there were times when Angel would vaguely start bordering into this kind of high-tech "sexy" intrigue stuff, and it was never much good. I'm kind of afraid this whole thing will be like watching a string of She Spies episodes written by an undergrad who just declared in philosophy. On the other hand, so much of the stuff he's setting up with mutable personalities and designed personalities is stuff he's been great with in the past (I mean, it's so recurring throughout his stuff that I stopped typing a parenthetical list of examples, since it'd take forever), so ... I think I can afford to save this for low-pressure Saturday-morning viewings.

But yeah, if I had to cast someone to believably take on vastly different personas within the space of one episode, Dushku is pretty much the last person I'd think of. I'm also consistently fascinated by the way that Whedon stuff always winds up casting specific types who run through everything, to the point where they even look similar: River and Faith standing next to each other presenting this show, with Amy Acker in it ... you start wondering what Nathan Fillion's doing that he's not playing the FBI guy in this.

But yeah, if I had to cast someone to believably take on vastly different personas within the space of one episode, Dushku is pretty much the last person I'd think of

i heard a tiny snippet of whedon's recent fresh air interview and it happened to be the snippet where he said, "part of the reason i wanted to do this show was to show people what a versatile actress Eliza is, which i don't think enough people know" and i was like, maybe people don't know that because it is entirely false. i have residual fondness for her because of Buffy, and she is v v pretty btw, but really.

are you saying that Whedon has stock characters, and a revolving repertory of actors he likes to use, and that that is fascinating to you?

xpost

of course i will watch this show until it dies and that helo from battlestar is also very beautiful and can't act so this show is pretty to look at at least.

whedon definitely has actor TYPES he goes for

the angel - riley - filion - helo bo-hunk type

one of those men is not like the others

you start wondering what Nathan Fillion's doing that he's not playing the FBI guy in this.

Some banter-y bullcrap, crime writer on permanent ride-along with sexxxy cop, starts March 9.

I watched it while working on a sewing project so it seemed okay. If I was giving it my full attention, I might have more of a problem with it.

are the words "banter-y bullcrap" supposed to differentiate a non-Whedon project from a Whedon project?

^^ skeptical of joss whedon!!

i like banter-y bull crap, i'm just saying

is all the best tv banter-y bullcrap?

It's just that from the commercials, this new Fillion thing looks bullcrappier than most. "Hey, take your top off!" "You know I've got a gun, right?" *SMIRK*

how now browncoats

It looked like a smirkier version of Moonlighting.

I think a smirkier version of a Bruce Willis vehicle would have to involve someone whose lips were permanently warped all the way to one side of their face.

Rumer Willis, then.

I'm willing to look past the fact that it's a pilot and that it'll take a while to get going, but it's not promising at all.

Someone convince me that this isn't just Alias as written by Chris Claremont...

S1ocki I am totally hoping you intend "bo-hunk" as a mis-use of "hunk," and not as a slur against the alleged Slavicness of these people!

stock characters, and a revolving repertory of actors he likes to use

Yeah, like s1ocki says, the fascinating part is that he has different actors who look generally similar and play the same stock types in various of his shows. There's probably a way-too-long list of these, too, from major things like Faith/River/Fred to, like, Forrest from Buffy and Gunn from Angel

(Faith/River/Fred is definitely not one stock type, but point being you could line up a bunch of actors and actresses in a room and I feel like we could probably guess exactly which ones he'd be likely to cast as a lead)

yeah, that's why i asked, i didn't really understand if that's what you were saying, because i didn't recognize most of the other actors but i haven't seen enough of his other shows to know if they'd familiar or not.

Surely it would be Willow/Fred/Kayleigh and Faith/River/umm... evil Cordy?

I hope this isn't too terrible

this was far from terrible and I am convinced that a few episodes in it will become great

I fell asleep about halfway through - wasn't too excited, although my wife is the real Joss Wheadon fan in the house. She watched the whole thing but wasn't too enthused either. She always hated Faith, so casting her as the lead didn't really register as positive.

I liked it, mainly in anticipation for what is to come. i loved Faith, so I'm kind of jonesing for this to turn into a really good 'girls kick ass' show, at least as far as stunts & fight scenes go...and hopefully, god fingers crossed, Whedon isn't going to let me down on storyline. That's the thing...he hasn't let me down yet (except for the last 2 seasons of buffy but I'll forgive him for being busy)...so knowing what he's done with Angel, Buffy, Firefly & Dr Horrible, hopefully he can shine this puppy up & not let Fox take a giant dump all over it.

Oh and: enough with the faux-sexy promos. Is this Spike TV? Don't make Summer & Eliza work THAT hard for their money. Seriously.

he hasn't let me down yet (except for the last 2 seasons of buffy

arg

god i hate this blog why do i read it

I don’t really like Joss Whedon.

Phew, there I said it. Sure I admire Whedon’s gender politics, but I find his dialogue and characters glib and unbelievable.

But my real problem with Whedon is much more superficial.

While most people were enjoying the full use of their patella, I spent last July lying in front of the TV after having the anterior cruciate ligament in my left knee repaired. To cheer me up my loving roommates bought me the boxset of Firefly. I loved the movie Serenity and I will always have a soft spot for Buffy (well, seasons 1 & 2) so I was pretty thrilled. But after the first episode opened with a coupla blonde actors speaking some sort of mangled hybrid of Mandarin and Cantonese, I wasn’t so sure.

After screening several episodes where - apart from being space cowboys and quasi-anarchists - the cast of the show wear kimonos, carry paper parasols, and talk about making pau, I started to get more and more annoyed. But was I just being a jerk? What was so wrong with the array of East Asian symbols and decor on the set of Firefly? Was I preventing myself from enjoying a perfectly good TV show by being some sort of yellow fever watchdog?

So I got my Movie Watching Companion (who actually speaks some Mandarin and Cantonese) to watch it with me and help me figure out if I was just being cranky. And that was when any hope of entertainment really went out the window. We played back (and back) the parts of the show where the characters break into Chinese. After the fourth or fifth time that he confirmed for me that the actors were just speaking gibberish with some kind of Chinese inflection (either that or that was their attempt to speak Mandarin and the show just couldn’t afford a dialogue coach) we shelved Firefly in favour of Veronica Mars. Bedridden or no, I’d lost all desire to watch the whole series.

I get that there’s all sorts of chinoiserie in Firefly because the idea is that in the Future where Firefly is set, China will be a great superpower and so will have cultural dominance. But if that’s the case, then why are there absolutely zero actors of East Asian descent on the show? If China has such a hold on culture, shouldn’t there be at least a few Chinese or East Asian characters in the central cast? Sure the Tams look a little Asian, but as far as I can tell both Summer Glau and Sean Maher who play River and Simon are not East Asian. And though I never got to the end of the series, I’m pretty sure I noticed no more than a handful of actors on set who looked East Asian, and none of them belonged to the main cast.

When Whedon uses the dressings of East Asian or Chinese culture, but has few or no actual East Asian people working on the show, I start to get irritated. If “Asian” clothes, music, swear words and parasols are so great, why don’t actual Asian human beings get to be in the show too?

Here’s a quote from Firefly’s Wikipedia page, describing the show’s music:

The musical score expressed the cultural fusion depicted in the show. Cowboy guitar blended with Asian influence produced the atmospheric background for the series. As one reviewer stated:

Old music from the future — the music of roaring campfires and racous cowboys mixed with the warm, pensive sounds of Asian culture and, occasionally, a cold imperial trumpet, heralding the ominous structural presence of a domineering government. Completely thrilling.

There are approximately 47 countries in Asia. From which of these are we drawing the “warm, pensive sounds”? Granted, this quote comes from a fan and not from the show, but still. Vomit.

So when I heard that Whedon had a new series out starting in February, I didn’t rush to the nearest TV set.

And then last weekend I got the flu and most of my friends were away at a conference. The flicker of Buffy love never really went out of my cold heart, so I watched the premiere of Dollhouse.

Now, if I had never watched and despised Firefly with its Chinese take-out mania, I might never have noticed Dollhouse’s opening motorcycle race through Chinatown, the decorative Buddha heads and bonsai plants in the Dollhouse’s head office, the “midcentury modern motif with a Japanese aesthetic” that informs entire freakin’ set. Or maybe I would’ve, but it wouldn’t have irritated me as much, I don’t think. You know, I could get over the glib and unbelievable characters, because Whedon has an amazing imagination and always interesting concepts. But now that the curtain’s been pulled back on Whedon’s cultural mining, I can’t put it out of my head, and I don’t really feel like watching episode two of Dollhouse.

I know Joss Whedon is a revered character to lots of folks. And listening again to his Equality Now speech and how articulately he is able to explain why gender equity matters to men, women and everyone, I feel kinda sad that he can’t lend some of that great analysis to the way he approaches race. If you think I’m wrong and shallow and missing out on great art, please convince me that I am. Because it would be nice to be able to admire Whedon again.

But before you mount your counter-argument, just do one thing. Take a good look at the picture of Eliza Dushku as Echo on the set of Dollhouse at the top of this post. See behind her? It looks like there might just be an East Asian person in the photo, maybe doing Tai Chi. Hey, maybe that guy in beige will become one of the main characters on the show.

Or maybe he’ll just stay firmly in the background.

btw I'm sharing that because i feel like, uncharacteristically for racialicious, it's actually saying something thought-provoking instead of rehashing "intro to social stratification"

I don't know, H00S. I don't see it. It sounds to me like the author is conflating Whedon's personal politics with a cultural argument Firefly might've been trying to make. I understand it's tempting to do -- we see it all the time, especially with Whedon, since he's such an outspoken Feminist and simultaneously has very strong female characters. But making the argument that China will become a cultural hegemony in the future in a fictional show doesn't mean anything about the author's racial politics. And not casting an East Asian cast member on Firefly doesn't undermine the fictional argument. Maybe it means Whedon isn't as racially progressive as he is gender progressive (though honestly, who knows?), but I don't see why it would undermine the fiction. And, I don't know about how Mandarin the Mandarin in Firefly was, but I've spoken to people who also "speak some Mandarin" and claim that it is real dialogue, not just "Asian-inflected tone."

Seems to me that there are much, much, much worse offenders than Whedon when it comes to gender/racial considerations in television. And this reads a lot like a nitpicking.

So anyway...is it true the episode that Joss intended to be the pilot won't be aired by the network?? This is becoming a habit with him...and could go a long way toward explaining why this first ep maybe felt cold or off or w/e.

I'm sympathetic to Joss's troubles with FOX, but I feel like someone needs to point out: The job of a show creator is to fight with a Network to have his vision prevail. It's not like he's the only person who struggles with Network oversight.

Should we read the pilot script and find out what Fox didn't like about it? Apparently it's already online...I dare you.

I can't find it.

The PDF is here, apparently. Warning: link leads directly to PDF.

...is there a reason I don't want to read this?

not casting an East Asian cast member on Firefly doesn't undermine the fictional argument

I dunno I remember it occurring to me at the time "where the hell are all the Asians in this future?"

It seems to me that if you're making the suggestion that East Asian culture has achieved dominance it might help your point to include an East Asian among your cast of characters. I guess you could argue that by omitting them from the cast it underlines the fact that cultural hegemony is so complete: look at all this Chinese stuff, and there aren't even any Chinese people up in this bitch!

Mordy: Is there? I dunno, I started it already? It's just considered polite to warn people when clicking a link is going to make them download something, although maybe I didn't phrase it correctly.

I'm sympathetic to Joss's troubles with FOX,

I don't follow Whedon minutiae at all, but is there a reason why he didn't go to HBO (or some other network that doesn't interfere as much) for this?

he probably did, they probably said no

^

I'm not sure a Whedon show would've worked on a cable network, mostly due to the budget issues for CGI, action scenes and a relatively large veteran cast. There are some basic cable shows that kind of do this but skimp on various aspects - one that does this well is Burn Notice - but I doubt Whedon would want to scale down.

That Racialicious post might be taking a bit farther than I would have, but you've got to admit the point is there - for a show that used a lot of Asian and Chinese cultural elements (a good thing) that there really weren't any Asian main characters in the show is kind of.. well... weak. All I can remember were basically nameless, lineless extras as background poor in the pilot.

One of the things that site talks about a lot is how the feminism and anti-racist circles are not nearly as united as one might think. That said, dropping Firefly after one episode because of this is pretty hasty.

I'm not sure a Whedon show would've worked on a cable network, mostly due to the budget issues for CGI, action scenes and a relatively large veteran cast.

Does Whedon have an automatic fan base that will watch anything he does? It seems like that would be a selling point.

So far this episode is better than the last one.

Does Whedon have an automatic fan base that will watch anything he does? It seems like that would be a selling point.

― Chris Barrus (Elvis Telecom), Tuesday, February 17, 2009 8:44 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not big enough i think

i gave up on this ep halfway through

TERRIBLE episode. It's only the second episode in and they're already riffing on The Most Dangerous Game? Bah...

Watching this after tonight's BSG and Terminator: TSCC episodes I'm shocked at just how amateur the acting and action editing is.

wow, completely dissenting opinion here. 'The Target' was SO MUCH BETTER than the episode they chose to run first, 'Ghost'.

Even after reading the explanations given by Whedon and Walden - basically, the FOX Co-Chair thought it was such an engaging and exciting script that the series should have a chance to build up to it. huh?! Whedon agrees and says that the idea for 'Ghost' just came to him first, so it ran first - i can't fathom why they didn't make this episode our intro to the world of 'Dollhouse.' this episode was violent, compelling, breathlessly paced, crammed with essential series elements and Whedon-esque wit, successfully sets up the Alpha story, introduces Boyd and the bonding process and (unlike the first episode) leaves you in extreme anticipation of what will happen next week.

even Dushku's acting seemed better. maybe that's because it was more demanding of extreme physicality than of emotional range. though i thought she did pretty well in the scenes with Boyd. more convincing than the hair-up/glasses-on now-play-smart gimimck of 'Ghost'.

i can forgive the MDG riff because the character was named Richard O'Connell. close enough.

-1 nerd point to s1ocki and HOOS - it got set up at FOX b/c ED had a deal at FOX and talked Whedon into doing something because she is his Bob DeNiro

I thought Target was much better than Ghost too. Definitely helped that for most of the episode Dushku was doing her typical, well-honed bad girl archetype, but I thought it highlighted Harry Lennix pretty well, too. It wasn't a perfect episode by any means, and not that original, but more than passable, I thought.

The weird thing is I'm pretty sure it was supposed to run as episode #5, but the network liked it so much they asked it to be bumped up.

I'm sure I'm the only one here, but I'm really starting to dig this show.

It's fun and interesting. Running pretty much as I'd expected - Job of the Week stuff is just okay or cheesy, when the show gets good it's those greater conspiracy/universe ideas (everyone's a robot!), deep back story character development, and those moments when characters actually get to act wacky or quip (like this week's when Sierra basically does a very amusing, generic Eliza Dushku impression) that's where this show is shining. In any case it probably won't get really good until the early "pilots" are out of the way.

I think it's getting better and better, and apparently next week Joss Whedon's vision for the show begins to show.

Dollhouse needs more Sierra.

Well, it looks like the show's actually started for real now. The audience-unfriendly, disturbing undertones of the show are finally coming to the forefront. (Also, damn the internet for spoiling the neighbor twist for me weeks ago.) I like the development, which was only slightly hinted at in earlier episodes, that this technology even existing has a major effect on the world, that this has become an Alias-level conspiracy and it looks like next week's episode and future episodes are going to deal with the ramifications of that and the effects on the Actives themselves.

My new girl has been pestering me about this thing, and I finally made it to the allegedly 'game changing' ep. 6.

I am so fucking totally done with crappy show now. I mean, the 'game changer' is that the conspiracy is bigger and deeper than we had previously been led to believe? Not, say, the regulars actually learned to act or the dialog suddenly started being worth acting well? Or the concept turned out to be more than just 'doe eyed cuties who kick ass and wear skimpy clingy outfits'?

I guess Patton Oswald wasn't totally intolerable, though.

haha glad to hear i didn't miss anything by quickly giving up on this

Caroline's backstory is majorly disappointing. Now that we know she was the naive sort of animal-rights activist who thinks videotaping critters in cages will bring about some kind of change, I think she's better off stripped of her personality. Or is this a deliberate character flaw, in the same vein as the ol' "lol buffy is dumb" jokes?

Meal Plans = Racism

I'm not really feeling this show like I'd hoped but I do enjoy how blatantly Whedon-y the characters are (esp Langdon & Topher & the scar-face doctor).

xpost no moseby to ruin this show

I think it did finally start to get better at episode 8 due to actually building up some kind of plot (so yeah, two good episodes out of nine). It's still not as much fun as I'd been hoping though.

It's good enough that I'll stick with it, but if it did disappear I wouldn't miss it too much, unlike Firefly.

the last three episodes have been so good that i'm hooked. i even think that taking the characters so far out of the estabilished formula had a greater 'game-changing' element thanks to the previous 5 or 6. shame it's gonna get cancelled...

i've been enjoying this, vaguely. the major disconnect for me is the way it repeatedly hammers home the patent atrocity of the dollhouse -- which is populated with quirky, fallible, though generally likable characters (dolls excluded) who banter as whedon characters do. okay, space smugglers have a certain underdog charm about them but a technocratic human trafficking conspiracy does not. a bit strange, anyway, though not nevessarily bad thing at that. i really liked the premise of the show, and i don't really care about a dushku, but the overarching episode-to-episode plot has been REALLY slow to develop and i may lose interest unless shit goes down.

tho i've heard the finale will not air, so i guess my expectations have ultimately been set for me.

so is it definitely getting canceled?

i <3 whedon but fuck man... what a stupid idea for a show

i felt like it was doomed from the jump, it always sounded like a van damme actioner given a whedon rewrite.

FOX: Won’t air the final episode of "Dolhouse," ending the season run at ep. #12 on May 8. #13: 'Epitaph One' will be on the Dollhouse DVD.

srsly pick up fringe instead dudes

I am hanging on mainly because my husband is so excited about this show. We're both big Whedon fans, but I fear my husband is a bigger fan than I am. PRetty sure if he wouldn't be around, I'd have given up a few eps ago. But it's engaging. Only not enough to hang on for a long time. :-(

I haven't read every post on this thread (as I'm behind a few eps). So they are cancelling the show or what?

I love the idea of the show a lot but the way it's handled is actually pretty majorly dud.

This show is deeply flawed and not worthy of pickup but I'd still watch this over boring old Fringe.

no way! this show is booooooooooooooring, fringe is right goofy and at least entertaining

whedon's burning through his accmulated goodwill pretty rapidly w/this one

The scientist dude and his son are vaguely interesting, but the rest of the show is so quasi-X Files/Alias that I can't really care. And the lead actress is in some sort of waking coma.

yeah she is dull

I dunno, fringe I'll happily watch two or three in a row; sure it's a bit mindless and silly but it's fun. goofy is the right word I think

dollhouse is just a dirge to me; yet, I've watched them all so... go figure : /

Hold on, you talking about Dollhouse cause she's s'posed to be "sleepwalking". She's just an empty shell. Truth be told, I think the acting is majorly dud.

No, I'm talking about Fringe.

i thought the last couple of dollhouses were good. like maybe if they had started with this stuff instead of six weeks of fox-mandated timewasting this show could've been better.

I totally agree, if the last few solid episodes has been in the first six instead of the back, there'd be far more good will. Dollhouse isn't amazing right now, but it's still quite good and getting better with each episode. Buffy and Angel had pretty mediocre/weak first seasons.

I wish more people would skip Dollhouse and Fringe and watch Burn Notice instead.

I tried. It sucked.

I wish the X-Files was back :/

Buffy had a fantastic first season! I think because of it, I was expecting Dollhouse to be a little funnier, it seems to take itself really seriously.

Eliza Dushku wears the most ridiculous fucking clothes in this show.

first xander, now topher. soon: jamin, cholas, and thaniel.

http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Imported/BioPix/Ri/2007/WhyWaitCampaign/zander-berkeley.jpg

"Cholas? That's just a stupid name!"

http://eur.i1.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com/xp/premiere_photo/20050906/03/2900708854.jpg

"I agree!"

Okay, that was pretty awesome. Yay, Wash!

stupid internet spoils everything

but yeah, tight ep

This series is frustrating, episodes of awesome surrounded by the most tedious sub-Charmed drivel. That said, tonight's episode was good, the kind of payoff I've been waiting for. It's too bad that the first half of the season was ass and because of that most of the audience has disappeared.

I hadn't seen the spoilers. Honestly, I can't think of the last time I was genuinely surprised by a plot twist on TV. Refreshing!

"I went to grade school with Jenna Elfman."

Bah. I really wish hadn't been spoiled on the ***** thing. As soon as Alan Tudyk's name appeared in the credits I was like, "Ahh, that'll be that then."

Really good episode apart from that. Just wish it wasn't 99.9999% likely that this series won't be getting renewed.

It's been renewed. I think I'm actually kind of happy about that.

The last few episodes were markedly better than the rest of the season.

It'll be interesting to see how Fox handles the 13th episode that is apparently going direct to DVD. Either it's a one-off and they'll show it eventually, or they'll have to graft it on to the beginning of next season. Supposedly the background bits of the unaired pilot were already stuck into the rest of the series, so they're going to never acknowledge it existed.

i believe the 13th was supposed to be a standalone/one-off episode.

I more or less gave up on Dollhouse. :-(

Oh, it's good stuff. Not sure if I buy the whole Dollhouse as meta-fiction angle, but I think Whedon is at least getting more into the interesting questions about identity, etc.

It fits, if anything I thought they were hitting us over the head with the whole "Hollywood = prostitution" allegory (perhaps on another level too, given how far they pimped out Dushku's body to sell the show in a misleading way). But I do find the more Alias-esque spy stuff and hard sci-fi bent about the implications of the technology to be far more interesting than that, as well as the soupy identity issues.

Definitely glad they decided to give this show another chance, most of Whedon's shows took time to develop into something good.

I hope the detective guy disappears partway into the new season, his "WHERE IS THE DOLLHOUSE" quest was really one-note and doesn't advance anything in individual episodes or the plot at large. The Alpha stuff is more entertaining and better scripted/acted, imo.

just read somewhere that Fox is going to air the 13th episode, to avoid it being pirated once it airs in the UK and europe in the next couple months. the article said this summer sometime, probably June.

well Epitaph One is remarkably different from anything I expected

after watching the pilot followed by Epitaph One, this is my new favorite tv show. if FOX had aired it like they were supposed to - pilot first, running plot interspersed with "mission" episodes, Epitaph One at the end, critics would be hailing this show as the best sci fi tv since BSG.

The original pilot is definitely interesting, and in a lot of ways is better than the pilot they aired (esp. in terms of showing the different possible plots and showcasing Dushku's acting - probably some of her best in the series). But it's also weirdly clumsy in direction (compare the Adele/client scene to the way they used it in Epitaph One, much better edited) like early Buffy/Angel episodes, a kind of muddy tone. Also there's a ton of plot twists that often worked better spread out over 6-8 episodes, once the characters has been invested.

Epitaph One though, fucking great! I can't believe they didn't air it. Really ballsy and expressing the show's potential, though I wonder how/if they're possibly going to follow through with its revelations in the coming season(s), or if this will simply be a fantasy What If? scenario.

I read a report from the comic-con panel that they will be following up on epitaph one in the next season, even keeping up with felicia day et al.

I was wondering about that - Felicia Day was clearly shown in an earlier episode as a Doll, though she didn't get any lines - but the 13th episode only subtly references this.

this show is deck fuiud

v v excited for season 2. itunesing ep 1 now.

Definitely dug it. Felt like every character got depth upgrades, largely reflective of Epitaph One. Dushku's performance was one of her better ones, too - hopefully she can keep it up (and just as well, the scripts for her character) for the whole season.

I was kind of hoping the whole show would be set in the future now!

So, I really liked the season premiere but... I'm totally confused? Didn't the season finale last season end with Wash liberating Echo from the Dollhouse? I feel like I missed a season in between or something?

Love this show but the credits are like reading the Jumble puzzle or something:

ELIZA DUSHKU
TAHMOH PENIKETT
DICHEN LACHMAN
FRAN KRANZ
ENVER GJOKAJ

It's unusually hard to match up names with faces!

Ira Glass interviewing Joss Whedon: "Does Dollhouse feel like a Joss Whedon show to you?"

mordy: Did you miss episode 12? it ended with her having this merge of 37 or so personalities and being rescued by Boyd and Ballard. The effects of the supermerge are still taking their toll apparently. Ballard made a deal to work with the Dollhouse to free Mellie/November from her contract.

If you get a chance you really gotta try to see the unaired episode 13, it's fantastic.

I liked seeing Lee Adama get his ass kicked by Echo. And I enjoyed seeing him play a mean character, that was kind of fun. They've set up a lot of interesting plot points in this one episode, I'm really excited for this season.

Oh. Hmm. I guess 12 is the last one I saw. Did they air 13 way after 12? Or did I just miss it?

13 wasn't aired, it was just on the dvd I think. It is easily located at all of the torrent sites.

still haven't seen any of s02. but s01 was excellent. only one or two 'mission' strands was dud. most of them tied in with the bigger plot nicely.

surprised at the hateration upthread. maybe it works better on dvd. i never got into buffy and folk seem to have expectations of joss whedon (campness + comedy banter?) im unaware of.

i will say it has the worst theme music in history.

The theme music sets it up to be some kind of episodic soft porn cable series, and tbh I am sometimes disappointed that this is not the case.

On the bright side even the worst episode of Dollhouse has never featured Matt LeBlanc.

Okay the most recent episode was pretty awesome. Except it wasn't supposed to be on, according to my local schedule. And now Fox is taking it off for a month, beginning the slow but inevitable process of killing a show that's just reaching it's stride.

True, last week's was pretty excellent. I can't blame Fox all that much though - the ratings have really been abysmal. (In other words, blame America first!) OTOH, at least for us fans the show is really picking up, we're getting Summer Glau, and when it comes back in December we're gonna get two a night.

i am disappointed that november is going to be a dud tv month and this is the sign of impending cancellation when the show is getting better every week.

I can't blame Fox all that much though - the ratings have really been abysmal.

Well, yeah, but they also stuck it on Friday night, which is apparently a death sentence. But credit due for actually giving them a second season, hopefully the on-demand/online viewership will be high enough to keep it on... for maybe one more season? Please?

If you want to depress yourself, take a look at these numbers -- Ghost Whisperer does over double the numbers for Dollhouse, which comes in waaaaay down the list for the night. It's also beaten regularly by Smallville, even the original Law and Order... Basically I'm having flashbacks of Terminator, which also had a really excellent climb in quality during the second season but it was too late.

This show really was not worth the chances I gave it. It's like Whedon figured it'd be cancelled, so he wrote something super shitty. I have no interest in any of the characters, the plot, the setting, anything. Anything at all.

Cancelled

Inevitable. I'm really crossing my fingers, now, though - maybe they'll go all out and do the final episodes with the same vigor as "Epitaph One".

Hey, this two part thing was pretty good. This is the first Summer Glau thing I've seen in a while where she doesn't act like a weird automaton.

she was acting like a weird automaton until she met topher, i didn't know whether to be more annoyed at her or joss for replicating exactly the mannerisms that annoyed me on firefly.

victor was a fantastic topher though. that was great.

Yeah, Victor/Topher was the single best piece of showoffy-acting-stemming-from-central-conceit-of-show in the show's entire run.

The episode was bad when it was all Mission Impossible get into the safehouse but pretty excellent otherwise! Happy that they're going back and complicating Caroline's backstory.

almost makes you believe they planned to have Caroline be an annoying personality from the start... but probably not.

have to admit i still <3 summer glau, this role was total nerd bait as well (as topher pointed out to himself)

I had to actually start paying attention because I thought they were using the guy who plays Topher to do "his" voice as Victor. But no, the impersonation was just that good.

YES!!! The Topher/Victor paring got nonstop giggles from me; I guess if it was done repeatedly it could get old, but in those two episodes I laughed every time.

girls in this show are weird - is this "acting"? - bring it on chick and mad scientist chick both act like deaf ppl who can hear again.

latest episode "the attic" was p rad tho basically all shows ever in one show - sad to read its been canceled already

yeah that was a great episode, you sure can tell it's been canceled because it's picking up speed like crazy all of a sudden. i lol'd at the "2010 i think, depends on how long we've been off the air" line.

omfg!

X1000000

Man, this show is so awesome now that it's almost over.

Sad thing is that this season was scripted before it was really cancelled. Maybe they knew and it's burning through all its potential fast, but maybe this actually had some legs.

Loving this. But yeah, it's hard to imagine they meant for the plot to roll out this fast. It's kind of like when somebody accidentally drops a match on the fireworks boat and the whole show goes off in a minute.

Typical Joss, disappoint people early on to keep expectations low and make it a slow build, alienating everyone who expected something good and keeping only the die-hard hopers. He's like the difficult kid who doesn't want you to know that he wants you to like him.

That is a good turn of phrase, Laurel.

Man, Whedon really loves his surprise out-of-nowhere deaths, doesn't he? Surprisingly upbeat ending, bittersweet. Everybody did a good job. I'm guessing they cut the budget from "The Hollow Men" so the money could go to this episode, which was probably the right decision. Ah well, I'll miss this show.

Loved the ending...pretty good episode all round. I was wondering, did they actually air that unaired pilot? I was surprised to see them work Felicia Day/Scott Farkas (forget his real name, I just know red hair, yellow eyes) characters now into the story. Carolyn & Topher in this ep were great too.

And yeah, Joss = always with the killing. smh...

Also someone tell me if I'm crazy but I'm pretty sure Felicia Day did appear (without lines) in one or two S1 episodes as a Doll in miscellaneous shots, and they somewhat sidestepped that in Epitaph One. Conveniently, she's also stuck in the Dollhouse at the end of this episode. If I'm connecting the dots accurately, it's pretty clever and amusing, a strange way to play it.

Enjoyed the finale but can't honestly say it made a lick of sense. E.G. if Echo is free in the future then Harding, etc. presumably don't have access to her spinal fluid so what's their source for the vaccine? Why would Rossum imprint killzombie programs onto so many people, instead of, like, "obey Rossum" programs? Or if it wasn't Rossum (and several things said suggest it wasn't) then who was it, and why wouldn't they just reimprint people after the great unwipe? Also, if the kid was imprinted with Caroline, why did she have the medical skills that Echo, not Caroline had?

I don't think it was Rossum, it was some form of global warfare - pretty sure they said China launched an attack on the US which caused it, which happened after who knows what sort of Active warfare had been going on. It would make sense if Rossum had something to do with the dumbshow (lol Day of the Dead) imprinting, since it looks like it's what they wanted to do with Topher in the end. Plus we don't know what kind of remote imprinting technology they had a hold of in 2020 - nothing quite as good as the wipe gun that Topher made, I'm guessing, but we know the sound/phone tech existed at least.

Rossum execs had already been backing themselves up into multiple bodies - too bad they didn't redo the scene from Epitaph One with Victor taken over by an exec explaining the plan, but according to an interview with one of the writers they couldn't fit it in due to Olivia Williams' hair being different lol, it should take place sometime around or after the Attic episode. So they already had the tech for that. I'm surprised Whiskey wasn't in the last episode - maybe she died at the end of Epitaph One. (Btw, seeing a glimpse of chilled out future Alpha was pretty cool.)

The kid wasn't imprinted w/Caroline, it was a more recent backup of Echo since she had all the post-zombie holocaust memories. But this was one of those sticky naming issues they had since they changed around certain details since the end of season 1, how "Caroline" was the savior and all that. I suspect they had the same idea they had back then to have super-Echo be the hero and not the original Caroline, since they were already kinda moving towards that at the end of S1.

Loved how the "previously on 'Dollhouse'" stuff was from an episode that never actually aired. If that's not fanservice, I don't know what is.

Okay wait is there a way to watch that previously unaired ep on teh internets??? It's got to be somewhere...

It's on torrent sites that have the first season dvds... I think that's it.

That's where I got it from. Try here.

It's on iTunes for $2.99, throw a Joss some cash!

It is! You used to only get it if you bought the full season.

just saw the episode last night and did a countdown of characters in joss shows who have died and left major characters bereft and feeling guilty for their inadequacies and faults. we came up with nine - 4 from dollhouse, 2 from buffy, 1 from firefly, 1 from dr. horrible, and...can't remember the other one, but probably from buffy as well, 2 seems awfully small.

Doyle / Angel
Cordeila / Angel
Darla /Angel

Though I don't know if all 3 fit the qualifiers.

yeah, i think we determined darla from angel but not the other two, that must be it. i haven't actually been able to sit through angel though, so this was based on another friend's judgment.

don't forget
Fred /Angel

I think I liked this better than any of the other JW finales, I am surprised at how much I ended up loving this show because so many parts of the first season really annoyed me.

Really enjoyed the last half of S2. Shame this show couldn't get away from the trick-of-the-week formula.RIP

Always hated the opening credits. HAI AND WELCOME TO THE HOOKER SHOW.

i was actually pretty disappointed by the ending - thought it was sort of an easy way out, would've preferred a less hopeful building-up-from-dystopia type finish. not sure if there are any other jw finales i prefer though....

Yeah, I actually thought it was totally clear that the end would come down to Tophercide but I imagined this would take place in 2010 w Topher recognizing that, even if Rossum is destroyed, the tech means it will inevitably get out as long as someone's alive who knows how to make it. I think this version of "Topher sacrifices himself to save the world" is less of an easy way out because he saves the world PROPHYLACTICALLY.

BTW: Would totally watch spinoff series set in mostly-depopulated 2021 US in which Adele & Zone, aided by the surviving slayers, try to rebuild society, in competition with an interim government set up by Wolfram and Hart. Matters complicated by the fact that Angel was reverted to Angelus by the action of Topher's imprint-eraser, and has his own ideas about the shape of society to come. Not to mention the Chinese dissident faction that spent the wipe years protected by its own in-house vaccine and now has troops occupying part of California. In case you wondered why the crew of Firefly speaks Chinese in the future.

Would watch that spinoff if you took out the "Angel" part, he is the worst part of any show. (Also, I think Dollhouse's focus on the mind + brain would not quite map onto Buffy's even less sophisticated vampires with vs. without souls dichotomy...which is probably for the best anyway, that was pretty stupid.)

i don't know guys, this thing pretty much fell to pieces over the course of the 2nd season. the **spoiler** boyd-as-head-of-rossum reversal was such a transparently desperate attempt to wrap up the plot -- i realize there weren't a lot of options but ugh.

Oh yeah, I didn't really get this either. Why would Boyd have had the same body he had when Caroline was first captured? Are we supposed to think he was backed up or not? If not, why would he be using his only body to be a handler in the LA Dollhouse? Wouldn't he need to, you know, run Rossum during the day?

Yeah, there are probably too many holes with the Boyd thing to fanwank away - they really didn't decide this twist until writing the beginning of S2. Even shoehorning scenes from Epitaph One into the last few episodes, trying to make sense. My only plausible explanation is that Boyd was insane, and so dedicated to the vaccine plan that he never considered putting himself in multiple bodies (and was not necessarily down with the body switching of other execs). But yeah it's still totally possible he did back himself up at some point. Though I will posit he didn't need to run Rossum during the day since Clyde version X could do that.

not even looking at it from a continuity angle, but just seeing so many characters jumping back & forth over the "good guy" / "bad guy" divide -- adele, boyd, bennett, whiskey, and "caroline". i dunno, it's like the delicately shaded ethical grayness of the first season was pushed into sharp contrast in the second and all of sudden everyone is a double agent? man, fuck that.

also, the way they totally dissolved the paul / echo storyline ("i wiped away his feelings for you to save his brane lol") was laaaame.

i actually preferred dewitt as the evil corporate queen she turned into for a couple episodes tbh. when they revealed that "our secret plan is working and i was just pretending to be an fabulously ruthless bitch " i just had to roll my goddamn eyes.

in closing i just want to say that the adele character had the best costumes possibly ever, and that if i were a slight, prim, mature woman i would rock every single outfit she wore.

ok, shutting up now.

btw, while I have given Fox credit for giving Dollhouse even this many episodes and airing all but one despite the terrible ratings, fuck them for pushing the final episode back an hour early so they could air a kitchen reality show at 9 instead

had no idea there were people watching this not on hulu

in closing i just want to say that the adele character had the best costumes possibly ever, and that if i were a slight, prim, mature woman i would rock every single outfit she wore.

^^^ this

had no idea there were people watching this not on hulu

hulu's not hd, nor is it my dvr

this ended up awesome. enjoyed it less than i would have, knowing it was going to end, though.

ok i gave this another shot and was disappointed, again

The best parts of the series are spread out over way too many episodes and they really only get into the meat of it at the end.

i enjoyed this enough iirc but would not rescreen

olivia williams and the funny guy are p funny

"we call it the tabula rasa, the ... blank slate"

patton oswalt

so you're into that phase, huh

i avoided watching this at the time but i'm actually quite surprised, impressed by it

it's kind of perfect that Obsessed Lawman looks like the exact mean of the same character in heroes and boardwalk empire

who, Helo? he always looks like that

does the wherever follow the network airing order or is it rejiggered?

well i didn't think they'd made him look like a character from a show that wouldn't air for two years deliberately, you know

the whatever is the regular order, i think, with the addition of the unaired pilot and 'epitaph'. weird how in two goes they couldn't come up with a good introduction episode.

the unaired pilot felt really rushed in comparison to the the official one. the victor reveal, for instance

the show didn't really pick up until Epitaph One in my memory... also damn, this thread started four years ago

was not surprised to see the cut opening for the avengers on the other thread - 'so there was a disaster, you want me to explain it to you' - you would think whedon would be wincing now every time he feels like using it.

firefly has a pretty crappy first five minutes too. and the movie is worse! i mean, you can see what he was going for, but i have seen people who haven't watched the show first try and watch that and just go 'fuck this' around the second 'this isn't the narrative we're doing yet' reveal. before you even get to the main cast.

epitaph is a pretty bravura leap in a lot of ways but seems somewhat irrelevant to the 'moral' 'issue' the show addresses itself to somehow

can't decide if the show is really smart or really dumb, like when dominic tells dewitt "you're a piece of work" is that a cliché chosen because it marvellously encapsulates one line of what the show is about or is it a cliché chosen because the writers couldn't think of much better

actually i think he works the post-dated-open-which-prompts-a-narrative-retrogression well, it's just not so great to lean on it. maybe it has something to do with the mode of characterization or dramatization he works, i dunno.

i haven't been able to return to this yet despite having 0 problem at all rewatching the same tv shows over and over. it was such a disappointment that i've been afraid of really confirming it.

can't decide if the show is really smart or really dumb

I really enjoyed this show while it was on, but I still can't decide whether it was any good or not.

also in dramatic fallbacks there was a point in the last episode where i found myself going 'unsentimental surprise death definitely happens in the next minute'

this show is good and also not-good

the second season (from like episode five anyway) is way more compelling in terms of week by week drama (i.e. i spent most of today watching it) (go funemployment) but kind of less fun to think about

also while the last few episodes' train-of-revelations stuff was pretty fun it made absolutely no fucking sense, i don't think it's possible to assemble any coherent set of motives for boyd at all, the chronology of what happens before the epitaph episodes is v weird, i don't know how much this is just an artifact of jury-rigging though, apparently it was meant to be five series (!)

"it was meant to be five series/seasons" makes perfect sense, every show gets at least five seasons, might as well make your plot last that long

they didn't always succeed at consistently writing good plots and arcs throughout the two seasons, but I definitely believe they had more than enough interesting ideas to go on for five seasons

frankly thought Dollhouse was one of the best tv shows I've ever seen, within the top 20 maybe. perhaps due to the strong female lead characters, not enough of that in film/TV. great character development.

all in all though i'd say my opinion is mostly formed on the basis of the show's interestingness (i balk at the word "originality" however). that and i thought Alpha was hot. not enough of that either (not really a fan of the common lead-man archetype).

shame the show was cancelled before it had a chance to flesh out.

if it took two seasons and didn't "flesh out" maybe that's a problem, yeh?

name 5 sci-fi shows since 2009 that are even remotely close to Dollhouse in entertainment value or quality. Doctor Who is about the only one I can think of and anyway Doctor Who is good but not great.

also keep in mind that when i say "one of the best tv shows i've seen" that i have a somewhat low opinion of most television shows, and i have a preference for sci-fi over regurgitated drama/law/police/doctor/everyday-lives-of-20-something's/family-dramedy type shows.

Battlestar Galactica was a great show. bordering on excellent.

Dollhouse is two notches down from BSG and a tiny smidgen of a notch up from Doctor Who.

Firefly is somewhere between Dollhouse and BSG.

etc.

terra nova, cut short in its prime. and poor V. that show where people lost their memories? that show where people were in some town with science or something? oh right and that show with some island that people were on and then they left and had to go back. those were all p. good.

and flash gordon.

i'll give you Lost, but that's about it.

Terra Nova was dumb. V was alright but not that good.

by "lost their memories" do you mean FlashForward? If so, yeah, it was decent.

Stargate Universe had some potential too.

guilty/cheesy pleasure: Primeval. Total cheese, for sure, but I like it.

V was terrible, I wanted to love it so much. At least Laura Vandervoort was pretty.

Five sci-fi shows in the last four years? Hell, tell me five shows total that have begun within that time period that are great.

which time period?

the thing with Laura Vandervoort is, yes, she's very pretty and comes off as very sweet, but i'm constantly worried she's going to collapse, vomit, or disintegrate into nothingness on screen. girl's either got a serious illness, harsh anorexia, or a bad drug habit (or all three).

the idea of watching five sf tv shows over a four year period is somewhat dispiriting

i've been watching this on netflix, just started season 2.

it's just the right balance of ridiculous and intriguing. there are a number of good sci-fi-ish concepts going on that keep me watching. though, ultimately, it's been making me want to watch BSG all over again.

it also makes me really want to visit LA again and stay for longer than a few days.

Terra Nova could've been really good if they eliminated all the stupid family-friendly disney crap from it and focused on time travel/psychotic elements/man-vs-man-vs nature. maybe some aliens.
Confession: i watched all of Terra Nova o_O i blame winter.

the other thing that works for Dollhouse is the vaguely Twin Peaks-like music that comes on in certain 'mysterious'/emotional scenes. i suspect that was on purpose.

I'm watching BSG all over again and frankly I can't get through Season 5, it's so fukkin cheerless.

Wasn't Terra Nova based on the premise that earth was not so great so they were colonizing the past? The new season of Fringe is kind of like that (MINOR SPOILERS) in that this last season is all about fighting off these asshole future people who decided to colonize 2012.

wow i totally forgot that there were five whole seasons of BSG. i mean, i watched them all, but, that's a lot...

yeah Terra Nova was all about colonization but with ~respect~ to the environment
that was the main plot point issue, that the defectors were helping industrialists from the future come back in time to exploit the oil and gas reserves! as far as i remember it anyway.

the other plot points were oooh dinosaurs! and i wuv you nuclear-family values

i have some issues around sexist tenants in Dollhouse but because this show's premise is so ridic in the first place and because it's so network-tv, my energy around articulating these issues is kind of low

I thought oil was made of dinosaurs, come on, industrialists

tenets? I just did a triple-take at "sexist tenants" though, thought we were talking about a certain onion web series :D

i always write tenants for tenets. brain issues.

I can't even read, I came away with 'sexy tenant' WHAT

if i were a 22nd-century fictional industrialist, i would a) extract all the resources (ALL of them) from ancient earth, and b) capture some dinosaurs and bring them back to the future to star in a highly successful reality tv show called Dinosaur House

Sexy DOLLHOUSE tenants:

http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Shows/A_F/Di_Dp/Dollhouse/season2/dollhouse87.jpg

that's waht i meant

can I get an amen

woops I mean yes it's terrible

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3648/3419215280_39bc3818c1.jpg

Sierra's in Last Resort. I love her

olivia williams ftw

Is she? I have been on the fence about watching that because I love Andre Braugher but the concept seemed ludicrous.

I know that seems a really hypocritical thing to write on the Dollhouse thread. xp

Olivia Williams' clothes in that show always fascinated me

xpost - it is completely ridiculous but thoroughly enjoyable

haha yeah i mean communal showers lollll warped tv version of garden of eden right
meanwhile there's something mega violent in this idyllic common area in like every episode
one of the reasons i like this show though is because of all the major holes, like that's just part of the show/joke anyway

xp
olivia williams is the best

I loved her whole wardrobe on this show, too.

olivia williams' characters' clothes are awesome
and her hair and makeup
like i think i subconsciously flattened out my hair like hers today
xp

those crazy high-waisted skirts and amazing silk blouses

she was fascinating

omg i pulled out a high-waisted skirt to wear to a dinner party earlier this week! i am so easily hypnotized!

what other oliva accoutrements haven't you told us about, rrobyn lol :D

beneath my cold, no-nonsense exterior is a compassionate heart; it just takes several episodes to uncover

i quite liked it when they went with 'and beneath that compassionate shell is a cold, no-nonsense interior'

btw everyone should watch Cabin in the Woods, it recycles two of the actors and has some Dollhouse-esque moments

Actually, according to what I just read, Cabin in the Woods was filmed in 2009 between the two seasons of Dollhouse o_O

Topher's collapsible bong/travel mug is A+

they should patent that thing

i will have to watch Cabin in the Woods

also, srsly, olivia williams, you so pretty

there are very few people esp celebs who i wish i looked more like, but she's one of them

the other thing that works for Dollhouse is the vaguely Twin Peaks-like music that comes on in certain 'mysterious'/emotional scenes. i suspect that was on purpose.

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Monday, October 1, 2012 3:20 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i was wondering if anyone else noticed this, it's pretty subtle, this little rising melody, always makes me think of TP.

not sure if the dollhouse underground hq qualifies as a good place for a noize colony

noize on ludes hq

I finished watching this

I liked the attic bits and the twist of who the company founder was

For sure. Attic was good & warped, I mean, for tv anyway

attic was scary

Tho the plastic wrap was lol

'we're pimps and killers... but in a philanthropic way. can i go now?'

this is better than i thought. when it first aired i was sort of disappointed, for some of the reasons floating around at the time. the second time around some of the annoyances seem less important, like helo's where-is-the-dollhouse plot, or the mooning from millie. maybe it helps if you shotgun it.

but eliza dushku actually does a pretty good job, especially if you look past the engagement-of-the-week parts of the plots in the first season. she's capable of more subtleties than she's given credit for.

enver gjokaj is great. whenever he has a different persona to play it's always very precise and distinct from other things he does.

i didn’t want to continue cluttering the buffy thread talking about how good this show is but yo this show is so good, it really does hold up

it’s also been eight years since i first watched it, yet my ears pricked up during season 1 episode 11 when dominic (in victor’s body) calls dr. saunders “whiskey” and it’s played off as him wanting a drink!!!!!!! wow!!!!!!!

i love this show very much, i should rewatch

'we're pimps and killers... but in a philanthropic way. can i go now?'

― j., Saturday, October 27, 2012 10:59 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is such a great line

In addition to everything else, the cast is so, so good. Fran Kranz, Dichen Lachmann, Enver Gjokaj, Olivia Williams - all great actors, and I don't know if Reed Diamond is a great actor, exactly, but I love him.

It's weird to me that people (like for instance my housemate) reflexively assume Dollhouse is sexist and exploitative but will happily watch Westworld, which is much worse imo.

dichen lachmann is INCREDIBLE

It's shocking to me that she and Enver Gjokaj haven't been cast in everything; like, what is Dollhouse if not a series of audition tapes for every role under the sun?

otm!

Enver Gokaj was in Agent Carter too, i love him - he is so fucking great in everything he does

he’s really funny in the episode where he has to play a federal agent on the college campus, sometimes the verisimilitude with which they enact their performances is like... lightly parodic, in a good way? especially when they get implanted with badass mercenary personalities lol

i am nearing the end of season one and i am so excited to relive “epitaph one”. ugh..... cinema (actually television)

i think the single worst thing that happens in the first season is the "black president" line in episode 12

epitaph one is a masterpiece though. topher :(((((

"that's so brilliant. why didn't i think of that. .... did i think of that? .... did i? ... oh god... oh my god"

i'm kiki

does this show feel grosser now that all the stuff about Whedon came out? it was creepy enough during its run, i'm afraid it might just make it worse if i rewatched the series today

i am watching this despite wishing joss whedon would explode and it's fine

victor/sierra 4ever

completely forgot about summer glau's character and how much i loved her

shes so great in this

one of the things i also forgot (and one of the few things i dislike about the show) is the tendency toward Slow Motion Pop Song Montage after anything climactic happens. this may be my own private war against television idk. but also iirc the later seasons of buffy were heavily afflicted with the SMPSM as well

No love for Lizzie's "Everywhere I Go"? ;)

that's one of the best ones for sure, i do love her

enver gjokaj imitating fran kranz is probably my favorite instance of acting in this show lol

the attic episode rips

it's like basically the season four finale of buffy but in the dollhouse world and that's my jam

Also Reed Diamond is back in that episode and I love him.

amazingly, i had forgotten the big twist

"you're here 'cause you're my family. i love you guys"

this is the best show ever

they sure did not have the budget to blow up a building in the penultimate episode tho lol

topher :((((((