Anticipating DOLLHOUSE

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

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 :((((((