Which isn't to say that Dev isn't right and that it isn't probably also a case of Whedon using people he's familiar and comfortable with, because that's been his MO.
Maybe recently with how he's casted Dr. Horrible and some of Dollhouse, but you look at Firefly and the only one of the main cast who appeared in something of his before hand was Glau as a ballerina in Angel, and when he reused his actors from that he's at least did something different with them.
In the end Whedon has a large library but a relatively small one in terms of different projects. Buffy ran for 8(?) years and Angel 5 but they were the same world so reusing prominent actors wasn't an option without reusing the character. Then its 1 shortened season of Firefly, 1 short season of Dollhouse, and a half hour internet joke. Whedon's got a limited if notable resume. And if I wanted to argue your point about Firefly being fresh faces I'd point out that Firefly ran when both Angel and Buffy were not only on the air but at their peak of casts so there wasn't a ton of options. And he DID immediately use at least 3 Firefly actors in major roles in Buffy/Angel once the show got axed. It was clear from the moment that nearly every new major recurring role in the Buffy Universe was cast with a Firefly alum that he was loyal to his actors... or wanted to work with guys and used his casting freedom to do so... or whatever. And the Dr. Horrible casting (which was clearly just a fun past time during the strike) and a few notable bits of stunt casting on Dollhouse kind of solidified the early rep. I'm not saying he had the rep much before "Dr. Fred" popped up on Dollhouse or spoilers started spreading about the show, but it did sort of set in with those. So these rumors/casting news are either further support of that behavior or stunt casting. And like I said, I think its probably a bit of both.
Or don't do either. If you can't find an image you like at either than don't force it. Just give me something you like and which will look good on the board.
I think his rep really started when Firefly got cancelled and Fillion, Baldwin, and Torres all got roles rather quickly on Buffy and Angel respectively. And besides the actors, he uses a lot of the same writers and backstage staff. And I prefer him using the same personnel because I've liked the majority of actors and actresses on the shows and he normally finds a different way to use them. Fillion's a great example as he was a great leader on Firefly, an awesome villain on Buffy, and a comedic non-hero on Dr. Horrible.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how he uses the guest stars we know are coming on Dollhouse and who else he could get. I know he wants Marsters which could go either way for me. The timing might be hard to get Baldwin or Fillion or Hannigan right now, but give me a Carpenter or Gellar guest role and I'm def. watching. And if he ever gets a Anthony Stewart Head or Nicholas Brendon recurring role, well that'd just be magnificent to me.
It has. They're already filming the second season. I'm curious as to whether we'll be seeing Marsters in Smallville again as Brainiac 5 or in Torchwood as Captain John.
I thought that was a good opening episode, though not really for anyone new to the show. It really could have come right after the last episode of season 1.
I thought that was a good opening episode, though not really for anyone new to the show. It really could have come right after the last episode of season 1.
I actually thought it was a really good episode; carried by Whiskey and Topher. Amy Acker just crushed that episode.
Yeah, I just mean if that was the first episode I'd ever saw, I'd have no clue what the deal was with a lot of the characters. A lot more fun too in the episode than we usually got in season one, with Whiskey's prank on Topher, and Sierra's imprint and the line about the Jonas brothers.
I totally loved this week's episode. I liked the fact that Ballard was able to take advantage of Echo's glitch to get Super Echo to come out and kick a little ass. I hope that doesn't become a weekly gimmick, but I did appreciate the cleverness behind that. I was also amused that Echo's assignment was actually an undercover sting.
Amy Acker was fantastic this week, and she's really a highlight to look forward to this season.
Last night was good, but had many gaping plotholes that made no sense to me. Like, for example, how did Echo get back to this guy's house, if her memory had just been completely wiped? And how did she 'suddenly' remember how to drive?
I liked the little bits of humor that Joss has tried to infuse into the series. It seems like it's coming off as forced, but I still appreciate it nonetheless.
Really really loved this latest episode. So much development, both in plot and character. I loved seeing a different Active get hightlighted for a change, and I assume we'll be seeing one for Victor soon enough. Also great to see Topher get a conscience and Boyd's come back(he'd seemed to get a bit too comfortable with the way things are recently), not to mention a hint at his unexplained backstory with him contacting the body disposal friend who he's apparently used before. Also it seems Adele may believe in the Dollhouse's supposed vision more than the Rossum corporation actually does.
Just watched the latest ep on Hulu last night and... I don't know.
I guess we're supposed to believe that the majority of the "dolls" knew what they were getting into before they arrived at the Dollhouse. The distinction with Priya/Sierra being she was a paranoid schizo so it was okay to commit her?
I suppose we are expected to believe the moral highground is that the dollhouse tech "cured" her of her mental illness? At least that's where we're lead to believe Adele's indignation stems from.
I guess what I'm getting at is I don't get Adele.
I don't see the distinction in morality between bringing Priya in under the conditions she was lead to believe existed, and the reality of how/why Priya was brought in. Especially considering the fact that she knows Sierra was raped by her handler and yet she continues to use her as a doll afterward... I mean Jesus... Priya's dynamic with the Dollhouse is especially tragic.
Watching this show I could suspend "moral principal" for lack of a better term, in the name of going along with the story as it unfolds, but I'm having a hard time reconciling Priya's situation with any entertainment value I get from viewing the show. The irony of that last statement is not lost on me.
I don't want to say, yet, it's gratuitous - "it" being Priya's story- but... damn... seriously.
I do agree however this episode was well acted and there was some character development to be found especially with Topher.
Last Edit: Oct 28, 2009 8:58:55 GMT -5 by blownspot
So I'm a weirdo who decided to pick the show back up when it got cancelled. What can I say? I like closure. And I only had like 7 episodes to watch to catch up, so no biggie. Here's where I stand on Dollhouse.
- Things DO pick up at the end of Season 1. Unfortunately its still very uneven and feels like a first draft rather than a fully finished TV show. That's been the problem with the whole series as far as a I'm concerned. An interesting premise and a talented writer but its never once felt like a show that he was prepared to write. The entire series has just felt like one long pilot feelings its way around for what it is, and with a premise as heavy and complicated as this you're not going to have a lot of rope.
- Season 2 picks right up with the uneven show with all the plot holes and flaws that existed in S1. And that's a bad thing. Lots of shows struggle in S1 to find themselves. If you're still doing it in S2 you're probably never going to do it.
- Every single character on the show is more interesting than Echo and every single actor is more talented and capable of handling their role than Dushku. Sierra and Victor actually manage to sell "different person" from time to time, and Victor especially gets the chance to play existing characters and does a good job with it. And Sierra's character and back story feels way more engaging and important than Caroline/Echo's has any chance of being. Or Victor's vaguely hinted at "damaged soldier" cliche. The Whiskey/Saunders thing, the nerd's struggle with morality, black cop's story, and even British bitch's fucked up sense of morality are all more interesting than anything involving Echo or Eliza Dushku. That's a problem when the show is very clearly NOT an ensemble show.
- I still can't remember anyone's name.
- Its still very, very creepy. I understand that Dollhouse fans feel this is just something people harp on (or at least they did a year ago when I was harping on it) but it really is a big problem and a big reason why I'm sure the show was canceled. USA has perfected the art of simple weekly TV shows that do a case a week and leave you walking away feeling satisfied and happy. Dollhouse is trying to do the "case a week" thing but instead of making you feel happy it makes you feel dirty and sleazy. These feelings were only hammered home this season by fully addressing Sierra's backstory and bringing bad FBI Agent into the fold with his really creepy obsession with "Caroline", someone he doesn't actually know anything about. Mentally unstable Whiskey seducing nerd because she thought she might be programmed to didn't help.
- This show was missing the very elements I associate with Whedon. And I don't know if he was trying to break out of his mold or what, but Whedon's shows at their heart is about likable characters who you WANT to see and care about. Dollhouse is about morally ambivalent people, completely personality-less dolls, or outright sociopaths. I can understand why Buffy, Angel, and Firefly get intense cult devotion. Dollhouse loses me.
- I'd totally watch the show they did at the end of Season 1. I don't know what show that was. It wasn't Dollhouse. But I'd watch that show. That show seems like it has a decent idea what it is and has an involved backstory that I want to see more of. I'd feel bad if that show got canceled.
Or don't do either. If you can't find an image you like at either than don't force it. Just give me something you like and which will look good on the board.
If Dollhouse the show currently airing was the one that first aired, these 5 pages would have been a lot different. From the start, I didn't want to complain about Eliza because I kinda love her and think she's awesome. But she totally couldn't handle the Doll-A-Week role. And some of them were just downright stupid (the blind chick and the rock star bodyguard) but if you give Eliza the current role as Echo, the kick-ass hero with all these different personalities it works.
Also, the show as a whole works better. And I think it would have been good from the start this way too. Jump into the show with the major story already being Echo vs. Rossum and while you lose a bit of character development in Topher, Sierra, Victor, and Boyd that could all be handled with good storytelling. And I don't know what Whedon is doing with Dollhouse, but he is a good storyteller normally. It was just really missing for a good majority of season 1.
On another note, this show has found some very good actors. Victor and Topher are both really strong, and Sierra has really done some good work in a few episodes this season.
Seriously, Dollhouse of Season 2 is an actual good show that I'm not feeling forced to watch because of a love of Whedon shows and Eliza roles. It's just an honest-to-god good show with very good episodes.
If Dollhouse the show currently airing was the one that first aired, these 5 pages would have been a lot different.
The problem is that the only reason the show currently airing exists is because Dollhouse got canceled. I think its clear as day that Whedon is just sprinting through his entire outline of the series. In the course of 6 episodes what happens? Alpha returns and leaves in one episode. Echo becomes self aware and a complete person who can access any past identity in one episode. Fed dude gets brain dead and then revived in back-to-back episodes. British chick acts against Rossum, gets demoted because of it, gets power back when she turns evil, has a revolution creep up under her nose, and then turns back good to be the leader of the revolution. Senator finds out about the Dollhouse, reveals it publicly, gets November to talk, gets targeted, is revealed to be a doll, kills his wife/handler, goes on the run, and then gets wiped again and becomes a relative non-factor. This show is on FF.
Whedon seems to clearly be just trying to burn through as much of his story so he can finish telling it in the few episodes he has left. That means there's a lot of sloppy storytelling and a complete lack of setup but it also means that every episode is exciting because there's a million things happening. But Dollhouse is a network TV show that only exists with 22 episode seasons. And the biggest problem with Dollhouse was (and remained in the early S2 episodes) that the episodic stand alone episodes were terrible, completely unbelievable, and that Dushku lacked the acting ability to pull off the incredibly difficult task asked of her to personify a new role every episode. The main plot moved too slow, until the 2nd half of S1 when they pushed into it at super speed. Then S2 started bad, until they pushed into the plot at super speed.
The stuff that blew about Dollhouse don't exist or aren't as big of problems in these episodes but they're stuff Dollhouse would have had to ride on if they had run out normal network seasons. Dollhouse as a 12 episode cable series might have been an entirely different beast. Not because Fox is a meddling network or any of that other trash, but because its clear that regardless of how interesting the overall Dollhouse plot may or may not be the idea isn't viable as episodic TV. At least not with the existing cast and writers. But as a mini series as we're basically watching now? That's a different story.
If nothing else what I think I've learned from this is Whedon should give up on writing network TV. Not because networks are evil, but because I don't think he's very good at it. He should refocus on writing short run seasons/series that can tell a full story in 10-15 episodes on cable. The story he wants to tell in the detail he wants to tell it without any need to flesh it out to "MOTW" TV needed to maintain a network schedule. Because he's not very good at that.
For what its worth I don't think THIS Dollhouse is terribly "good" either. But its definitely worlds better than THAT Dollhouse and much, MUCH more engaging. And I wouldn't mind having seen a much more focused story from Whedon.
Or don't do either. If you can't find an image you like at either than don't force it. Just give me something you like and which will look good on the board.
Also Victor is a fucking talented mimic. The only thing keeping me from calling him a damn good actor is that he's boring as fuck when he's playing HIS character. But I suspect that's just because his character sucks and is boring like most every other character on the show.
Or don't do either. If you can't find an image you like at either than don't force it. Just give me something you like and which will look good on the board.
That's got to be a new record for time between Whedon romance beginning and ending in a horribly tragic way. Kinda weird though how everyone just instantly accepted the "sleeper agent" theory straight away and didn't even consider Saunders just did it to get back at Topher. Glad they've made Caroline less sympathetic and more manipulative, as without it I can't see much difference between her personality and Echo's. I dunno about Boyd being revealed as the other founder. They're going to need to explain why he went about his plans that way really, really well for it not to look like an asspull.
It's over now. I will gladly view this as an extended mini-series, and would happily watch it again (potentially skipping about 1/3rd of the first season episodes. While I can't say I loved every minute of the show, I find it a shame that no one at Fox seems to understand Joss Whedon's MO of sucking some TV executive cock for the first season or two (typically resulting in some sub-par storytelling) to get them to trust him, and then from that point on, breaking out of his chains and doing what he does best. I think if this show had somehow made it past the halfway point of this season (of a full 20+ episode season), that ratings would have started gradually increasing from word of mouth, and maybe Dollhouse would have been given new life on another night of the week.
What I didn't love about the Finale: Obviously, it seemed rushed. It seemed like there was a lot more story to tell about these characters, and it felt like a lot of what went unsaid was completely necessary to the plot. Why did Tony go back to being Victor? What led up to Paul loving Echo again, and why did she reject him? How did Topher get involved with the bad guys in the first place? It seemed almost like if Joss had been able to finagle one more hour out of this finale, it would have felt less 'incomplete'.
They obviously brought on some late-comers to the mythology, in Victor's tech-head buddies, and the rich fat guy from the beginning of the episode. And although they were already part of the story in Epitaph, Part One, I felt that Felicia Day, the guy who played Zone and 'little Caroline' were equally flat, and this is coming from someone who's become an increasingly bigger fan of Day with everything she does. These people didn't feel like they fit in. I'm guessing that this was somewhat intentional, but it threw off the vibe of the show, and really, kinda fell flat.
What I did like about the Finale: I liked that Joss went against his usual grain, and finally had a happy couple survive the show. I half-expected Priya to take a bullet to the brain in the closing seconds of the show, just because that's how Joss rolls. I think that Priya and Victor have very promising careers in much bigger shows than this one (and I agree with Lucky in the fact that Victor should be an impersonator, seriously).
But in my opinion, the breakout star of this series (and the Finale) by far is Fran Kranz (Topher). In the first few episodes, I saw him as a minor-league version of Adam Busch (Warren, primarily from Season 6 of Buffy), who himself was just a minor-league actor... but since the beginning, Topher has grown on me BIG time. And in this final episode, he really shows his chops, especially during his final scene. While subtle, his death seemed to catch me off-guard on how much I'd actually come to care for his character. Not many actors can take a throwaway part like Topher Brink and bring it to a significant role the way Kranz did.
While cheesy and over the top, I really appreciated Echo's final dialogue with Paul. It didn't dawn on me until the scene was over, what was really going on there, but once it hit me, it hit me. I thought it was one of the sweetest gestures I've ever seen in regards to a romantic connection between two people. I mean, who among you would even CONSIDER having a significant other in your head ALL THE TIME? That's commitment, baby.
I loved Alpha's twist, and how they explained his exit. It seemed like they really did keep a logical flow to the story, and I thought it was a cool gesture of the truly-reformed (I'm sorry, 'lapsed') psychotic for him to leave the Dollhouse before the pulse went off.
OK, I've talked enough. I'd like to think that this run of Dollhouse will be looked back on fondly (maybe even enough to get the Serenity treatment, to explain some of the 10 years that happened between the penultimate episode and the finale), and I really hope the DVD sales show those Fox execs what they were missing out on.
First, what I agree with: If someone can put this in a mini-series format and completely eliminate a ton of the really horrible 1st season episodes, it will be better but still not a good show. Also, I do think Topher was a standout, but Victor/Tony was the real breakout. I'd take him serious as a lead in any action type show out there and be able to handle comedy and drama really easily. Priya/Sierra was also great in the bits they gave her. I do think there was some rushing done to get the show complete and I don't think they planned on having Boyd be the enemy, but when push came to shove it was going to be a nothing role and Fox probably wouldn't shell out for anyone of note to play that role. Knowing Whedon he probably wanted someone like Marsters or Anthony Stewart Head to play that, but based on a time/money crunch, the shoe horned Boyd/Saunders into those roles for the finale.
Now the disagreements: Paul/Echo SUCKED. Joss Whedon's MO is not to have horrible first seasons as the first half-season of Buffy and the entire season of Firefly was solid storytelling. The concept of this show just didn't work. As much as I fought it early, Eliza was ill equipped for this show. And even beyond that, the storytelling was just inconsistent and bad. I thought Day did what she could given that she had NOTHING to do in this and I blame that on Fox. Epitaph: The Return was a HORRIBLE idea for a finale, given that a large number of people probably never saw Epitaph. The fat guy at the beginning wasn't a new character or anything, he was the other founder of Rossum. The one who Echo found in the attic and who Whiskey/Saunders was playing in last week's episode. Just with a new fat body. The Tony story was told. He was fighting to keep Priya safe. Nothing mattered more to him than doing everything he could to make sure their "safe haven" was never found out/attacked. Even if it meant becoming more of a "tech." And Priya finally understood that when Echo went nuts after Paul died. And it wasn't really a happy ending. The world is in chaos. Instead of a female getting shot/killed at the end, it was Paul. Priya/Tony may have gotten to survive, but living underground with just them, their kid, and Echo is probably not exactly ideal. And Paul/Echo as I said first, just flat-out sucked. They never had chemistry and him living inside her was just stupid/hacky storytelling.
As I watched it with a friend, I think I put it simply enough. An unsatisfying ending to an unsatisfying show.
MTA: To compare this show to Firefly and think Fox was the one who fucked up this time is just wrong. Firefly was a brilliant concept with great characters and interesting mythology. Dollhouse was a show. Nothing special. Some good stuff, more bad. But nothing I'd ever hope Whedon does more with. I'd much rather see him do another Firefly based movie, do something in the Buffyverse, or even adapt his Sugar Shock comic into something. Dollhouse is dead, and it should stay there.