Let's Fold Scarves

You’re in a lair! An evil lair!

Dollhouse – “Omega” (Tim Minear)

Whatever you say about Dollhouse (and I did) it was certainly different from the average TV show. I think it failed for approximately half the time. Some episodes were terrible. Others were amazing and “A Spy in the House of Love” was one of the best episodes that Joss Whedon has ever produced.

This was an episode chock full of exciting incidents and yet it still managed to be unsatisfactory.

(Poor Dollhouse. No other show I watch is burdened with such scrutiny because even my notes on Buffy, Angel and Mad Men are just reactions rather than criticism. Admittedly that is my style. I’m not analytic enough to get into the substance of a show. That’s what other people are for.)

I liked:

• The performances which, as usual, were on the nose from my favourite cast members. The others were even okay. I think Eliza is perfectly serviceable as Echo. She wasn’t outstanding but she was watchable enough which is fine when you aren’t carrying the whole show on your shoulders. I think that is one of the reasons why Bionic Woman failed, as much as I like Michelle Ryan, she wasn’t strong enough to carry the show (despite being the Bionic Woman, ha ha) and the supporting cast weren’t strong or interesting enough either (maybe they should have promoted Molly Price to joint lead).
• The asking of the question of whether good and evil is innate or, if evolved, then indelible once it’s in your personality (or soul or whatever).
• The Topher and Whisky interactions near the end were mysterious and intriguing.

I didn’t like (and this list is longer):

• The abrupt escape of Alpha and the lack of November and Sierra as bounty hunters (*these important scenes were cut for time).
• The freedom granted to Madeleine. If she has been given back her original personality surely she is still grieving for her child? What was that closure she had back in “Needs”?  Why was she dressed as a frump? I’ll miss Miracle Laurie. I do wonder what she will get cast in next.
• The eye gouging and the torture scene were too graphic for my taste and really rather unnecessarily lengthy.
• Dr Saunders telling Victor he was ugly which is such nonsense and really hurtful.
• The fight between Alpha and Echo wasn’t exciting enough. Whatever else there is to say about Tahmoh Penikett, he knows how to fight.
• Echo knocking off the “wedge” wasn’t handled well. It just looked silly. Though Paul saving Caroline that way was hilarious.
• The fact that the whole series revolved around the fact that Alpha thought Echo was hotter than Whiskey.
• That Alpha was sinister at all times even when he was a doll (I do understand he was gaining self-awareness but he was creepy the whole time).

I didn’t mind:

• Paul joining the Dollhouse because that may make no sense now but it will in the future. Won’t it?
• That we got no further information about Caroline’s past. Something has to be saved for S2.

*Click for larger image

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People were fighting on me

Dollhouse – “Briar Rose” (Jane Espenson)

Poor Victor!

I appear to be in a minority (but not a minority of one) in not particularly liking this episode. I’ll save my complaints until the finale since the two as a whole may hang together better for me. There may even be an explanation for the Dollhouse’s abysmal security but it will have to be good to explain why an organization which is so rich that it is able to set itself up as a self-contained unit has pathetic security systems that allowed Ballard and Alpha such easy access and for them to wander around for ages and with such effectiveness (well, one of them was effective).

The way they attracted the random Doll’s attention in order to nick his clothes was silly too. The dolls have been presented as childlike not zombie-like so at least they could have given the random some dialogue.

Anyway, I do wish Ballard had thought a little harder before shagging Mellie in the last episode. I guess he was supposed to come to his senses in the shower the day after and decide to break up with Mellie so he could pursue her (and once again, great DH security there allowing him to follow them). Still – creep.

And you know, maybe I have moved to the position that is difficult to like this show because there is no one to root for. I’m not totally against moral greyness (though I’m not sure if I can think of anything comparable I do like) but do I like watching it week after week? Not really. And I am mighty fed up with being told that, along with others who don’t like the show, it’s because we need “instant gratification” or lack the brains to give it “hard intellectual and emotional work”. Sigh.

Ballard’s rubbish, the DH staff are compromised by the mere fact of working there plus all their other faults, and there are the dolls who are all blanks and when they are likeable imprints they are doomed to be wiped. And there is Echo but I’m don’t really care about her either.

I do love Olivia Williams, Enver Gjokaj, Amy Acker and Miracle Laurie but liking the actors and their performances isn’t enough to make me love the show.

In the welter of criticism of Eliza Dushku’s acting it has slipped by that there is a worse actor on the show and he was quite awful in “Briar Rose”. He may be the reason that Paul is such a creep.

The Whisky incident is interesting because I assumed Dominic was talking to Dr Saunders but he may have been looking at Boyd. Either way it doesn’t really make obvious sense because why would Dominic address someone who doesn’t know they are a doll by their doll name? But! I do know that it was Saunders he was referring to because she wears high-heeled shoes and, as I know, there is a high-heel fetishist in the costume department.

Enver Gjokaj channelling Reed Diamond

I was spoiled for Alpha’s identity (despite trying not to be) but that didn’t stop me from being completely shocked by what he did to Victor.

Poor Victor.

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Nice adjective, excellent noun

Dollhouse – “Haunted” (Jane Espenson & Maurissa Tacharoen & Jed Whedon)

Eliza Dushku has a limited range has an actor (that’s okay, so did Doris Day) and that was quite evident in “Haunted”. Dollhouse isn’t a vehicle that suits ED but I am struggling to see what actor could manage it.

This episode was the Dollhouse meets Miss Marple. Jane Marple was always being parachuted into people’s homes to undercover a possible crime. I missed the part when Echo was invaded to stay in the dead woman’s bedroom. Rich people with large houses often find they have to accommodate strangers this way even with wills of introduction.

Oi, you two, be quiet

The funeral service scene was awful. I fully expected the other mourners to turn round en mass and tell these people to stop being so bloody rude and shut up.

I enjoyed the Topher and his best friend who is just like him for one scene but otherwise I find Fran Kranz hard to watch for more than a few seconds.

The problem with MOTW eps like this is the challenge to get you to care about the characters in the “mission” storyline who you are never going to see again. Neglected daughters, loser sons, and young husbands – it’s hard to care about such cardboard characters. Dead Like Me did MOTW (where the M stands for mortality (noun)) episodes much better – the gay couple episode called “The Bicycle Thief” was deeply moving.

“Haunted” was redeemed for me by the compelling Paul/Mellie storyline which was full of disturbing and revelatory things:

• November’s criminal record
• her programming as a passive doormat
• rough sex
• “I found one”
• Ballard wants to rescue Caroline but he doesn’t seem to be inclined to want to rescue Mellie. He’s using a woman who is right in front of him who is tangible and real (but not quite herself at the moment) in favour of someone who he has formed a picture of, a someone who is NOT there, someone like Laura in the film Laura.

[If you want a more considered analysis of Dollhouse, then Charles over at Heartache with Hard Work is doing a great job.]

Miracle Laurie seems to be the Amber Benson of Dollhouse – in lots of episodes but not in the opening credits.

Somebody in the costuming department has a stiletto heel fetish.

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You thought you were doing the right thing. I hear that can be confusing.

Angel – “Deep Down” (Steven S. DeKnight)

I’m not a big fan of Angel but I am a completist* and I’ve started so I’ll finish and so we are watching S4 to accompany Buffy the Vampire Slayer S7.

Anyway, I have decided to blog Angel from now on.

I am watching S4 with low expectations so it was a pleasant surprise how much I enjoyed this. It was really sad to see Andy Hallett resplendent in his greenery because it is terrible that he has died so ridiculously young. He also played one of my favourite characters. Cordy is also one of my favourites so it was disappointing to see so little of her (though storywise it made sense).

Fred and Gunn are a tiresome couple. The Fluffy dialogue started off being amusing but degenerated into tastelessness and unfunniness. It was painful.

Taking a Fluffy joke a little too far

The sex scene between Wes and Lilah was notable for Alexis Denisof’s chest, for Wesley doing something weird with his tongue and for Lilah licking his neck. The latter two things I wish I could forget.

Stephanie Romanov looked rather lovely and her character has indisputably moved to the right of the dark side with her beheading of Linwood. Linwood had a point, mind you, about her shortcomings, she is generally useless particularly if she did think Wesley didn’t know anything.

I like Vincent Kartheiser as Connor. I like the actor so much in Mad Men that I may be predisposed to like Connor but then I do like Dawn too.

Angel’s chat with Connor asking him what he deserved (a second chance, clearly) worked quite well considering the whole champion thing and using the comparison of what Buffy did to him (for more noble reasons, it must be said!) was excellent.

Since everything I write about seems to come back to Dollhouse, here is another observation. My problem with DH is that if you are going to deal with “difficult” subjects like prostitution, trafficking,  etc, then you need to deal with it well. Dealing with it crappily isn’t acceptable. So if Angel isn’t that great, it really doesn’t matter because it doesn’t usually deal with difficult real-life issues. Which is why “Billy” is one of my least favourite episodes along with “I Fall to Pieces” (stalking), “Hero” (Nazis) and “Expecting” (forced surrogate pregnancy).

*I’ll probably one day finish Astonishing X-Men and I won’t stop watching Dollhouse if it’s renewed just like I didn’t stop watching Heroes at the end of S2. I have stopped now. The murder of Elle was the final straw for a show that has next to no idea of how to write female characters of any interest at all.

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Is it Friday yet?

or should I say Saturday?

I want to watch Dollhouse.

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Maybe there’ll be cake.

Dollhouse – “A Spy in the House of Love” (Andrew Chambliss)

What a great episode. Why were the first five so crap? Or why were episodes 1, 3 and 4 so crap? Even three more mundane episodes to the standard of 2 and 5 might not have made this series so hard to get into. I am glad I persevered but it was a close thing; I was pretty unforgiving at the direness of Dollhouse’s first offerings. I don’t think the excuse of a new team taking time to bed-in is an adequate excuse. Maybe the really bad ones are the equivalent of  “Teacher’s Pet” and “I Robot, You Jane”: basically rubbish but redeemed in retrospect by fans scrambling around for funny dialogue and briefly meaningful moments.

I literally spent periods watching this with my mouth open and I said to Andy that I needed an advert break except the way we are watching it means we don’t get any (though I do know Prison Break is back).

The moral confusion in this show is surely at its height. All the non-dolls are now morally compromised now that Paul has to be immoral if he wants to bring the Dollhouse down.

I was quite surprised to see charts and some string in Paul’s apartment wall because that implies he has found out stuff on his own.

Random awesome bits:

• Mellie closing down and telling Paul all. I just loved how Miracle Laurie switched off and on.
• “My name is Bond, Victor Bond” I said before the suave Englishman got into his Porsche. And Adelle is different from Hearn how?
• Dominic’s brain wipe (aka trip to the attic): oo, the irony of him being mean to Echo…
• The ironic irony conversation and Olivia Williams’ spellbinding performance. In the future when I rewatch Dollhouse (and I think I will) I believe that Williams will be my prime interest along with the casting find of Enver Gjokaj who, fingers crossed, is a major star at the beginning of his career.

The acting continues to impress me and only Fran Kranz has failed to win me over and I don’t think it is because of Topher’s character.

I liked how this episode was structured. It reminded me of “Out of Gas” and that is a big compliment. I haven’t thought too hard about the various plotlines because I’m sure they don’t all bear up to scrutiny and I’m not in the mood for being mean. Hooray. Like Firefly, to me, this series is less about its “lead” but more about the other individuals in the ensemble. Kudos to Eliza Dushku for not insisting that the show be all about her character(s).

It even managed to ape Alias in perhaps the weakness part of the episode. I would rather see Jennifer Garner running in heels than Dichen Lachman.

Echo’s self awareness took a huge leap forward and if I was feeling as grumpy as before I’d be taking that story development to task for its suddenness and inconsistency. Did last week’s reset have no effect on Echo at all?

To finish, a criticism: I understand that the conversation at the beginning between Echo and Boyd was important because Echo was talking about trust but since I was both fascinated and repelled by her outfit I have no recollection of anything she said. Maybe, in the future, important conversations could be conducted by people wearing cardigans.

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I’m not your friend in here, Echo

Dollhouse – “Needs” (Tracy Bellomo)

This failed to engage me; it felt flat and unconvincing.

Echo’s closure was the only one that worked for me except I now can’t see that my theory that there is more to her than a freer of lab rats can have any weight any more.

I have gigantic reservations about Sierra’s storyline (let’s face it – who can’t not have reservations?) and I can’t see what closure she got. She meets the man who put her in the Dollhouse (and he’s even worse than you can imagine (I’d rather have the billionaire from “Man on the Street” with his shades of grey than this character’s (Billy from Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion) utter blackness)) and she stands there letting Victor do the work (not that I’m suggesting hitting him is adequate) and it’s only after she has shared a kiss with Victor that she falls asleep. So, what does that mean for her? The only thing I can thing of is that she has now stopped linking her rape by Hearn to Victor. Shit, Joss, what are you doing to Sierra?

If anyone in the Dollhouse knows how Sierra got into the Dollhouse then the moral ambiguity in the show now equals zero. Actually, Boyd’s words seem to indicate that he does know and he can still work there? I’m not happy.

Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman continue to impress me with the strength of their performances and they have chemistry.

Miracle Laurie was asked to be even drippier than Mellie Mk I, and ye gods, what did they put her in? She looked like a Dust Bowl Okie. What would have been wrong with jeans and a t-shirt like the others? She is also very tall although I should have realised that knowing that she wasn’t dwarfed by Tahmoh.

November’s closure was a mystery to me. Presumably, before the Dollhouse she knew her daughter was dead so how does visiting her grave help at all? Yep, she’s still dead. Funny gravestone too with no surname and no dates.

Erm, Victor’s closure was sweet, he gets a kiss and can now relax.

Paul was once again practically redundant. It looks like this white knight might save the day by being passive: people keep sending messages to him after all. I called the dream sequence as soon as he opened the door to Echo. This is a Joss Whedon show after all. It was a bit tacky and shows that Paul is definitely a screw up. We need some background motivation for him real soon.

I hope that female handler got a bonus for being beaten up by Echo because somebody forgot to tell her it was an exercise.

Dollhouse makes no sense in many ways. It’s frustrating and the goodwill it regained after “True Believer” and “Man on the Street” is being eroded. The dolls have been reset so unless there is a twist involving Dr Saunders’ actions then episode 9 starts it all over again. Great.

I read yesterday via Whedonesque that Dollhouse may actually be renewed. The last five episodes have to trend towards fabulous or, I’m afraid, I will stop watching. Gulp.

It's hot in here

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Being what? Sarcastic? Unfeeling? British?

Dollhouse – “Echoes”

Maybe it is too early for an effective “Band Candy” or a “Tabula Rasa” type episode but since the chances of a third or sixth season of Dollhouse are less than zero, I will take one now.

I’ll take anything that makes me adore Olivia Williams who was hilarious. She really made her role in this episode work.

I appreciated that Topher was only marginally different on drugs than his usual annoying, unbearable self. He managed to be unpleasant as he pulled at November’s head and shook it from side to side. He is not a likable young man.

I was initially disappointed that Caroline’s story was that she was an animal rights activist which didn’t strike me as all interesting. However, on reflection I feel that her being set up as a bit of a cliché student activist is going to be developed much further. Adelle does talk of two years playing “this dance” which suggests to me that their conversation isn’t straight after the break in.

Since the reactions to the drugs depended on whether the characters were normal or actives then a few characters have been ruled out as actives. The notable exception is Dr Saunders.

The main storyline put me in mind of superhero cartoon. I fully expected Batman to turn up. It was plainly ridiculous (a drug that acts through touch and wears off before the episode ends!) but I don’t care.

I didn’t even realise that Alice was dressed as a Japanese schoolgirl. The client Matt is a creep and one of the stipulations of hiring a doll should include “no video recording”…

Paul had even less to do than episodes 1-5 except to react to being dumped by his girlfriend. Their relationship has been soured for this viewer so perhaps it’s a good thing. It won’t be a good thing if it’s goodbye to Miracle Laurie which it might be since she isn’t a featured cast member. Boo.

The supporting cast was sterling as usual notably Reed Diamond as an apologetic Lawrence and Enver Gjokaj’s smart NSA agent.

This was by no means as good as last week’s (or least the second half of last week’s) but was better than 1-5. However, losing its must-see momentum was an error. Not surprisingly, I won’t be sad if Dollhouse isn’t renewed because it isn’t very good and I think Joss Whedon should be doing something (anything) else and with a better actress as his lead. Eliza is still okay but that might be okay if the series didn’t need an amazing, fantastic, awesome, convincing, marvellous actress and not an okay one.

After last week’s topless Paul we had topless Sam so it’s a positive relief that there is equal opportunity ogling allowed. Sierra’s white lab coat, short skirt and high heels get up was ridiculous. Who do we criticise? Mutant Enemy costumers or Topher and the unseen back room staff of the Dollhouse?

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The many faces of Olivia Williams as Adelle DeWitt

These are all from the episode of Dollhouse called “Echoes”. You can’t call her wooden.

The original is on Flickr.

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The season finale revealed!

Doll House Crowd Convicted, originally uploaded by moley75.

This is a poor screengrab of the final few seconds of Walk on the Wild Side (1962). The dollhouse in question is a brothel.

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