Dollhouse: "The Target" (Steven S. DeKnight)

dollhouse-s01e02
I laughed several times during this and only once when I was supposed to (“four brothers, none of them Democrats”). I laughed the most at the cut from Echo loosing the arrow and failing on top of Richard after a bout of sex.

I also cringed several times. Mark Sheppard is consistent – consistently bad. He was bad in the X-Files, Firefly, Bionic Woman and Battlestar Galactica. People just love him though and I don’t understand at all – I groan every single time I see him in the credits and then again when he kills a scene. He does these accents and they are all atrocious. The clichéd scene in the cabin was painful followed up by an equally painful one in the FBI office – the dialogue here was terrible. The next cringey scene was with Miracle Laurie as the woman with lasagne. I can only hope that Joss Whedon was lying to us about her not being cast as an active any more because she may as well be a blank – standing behind her door waiting for the neighbour she pines over to come home – a seriously not interesting character. The final cringey scene involved our Russian mobster friend (who can only be intriguing if he too is still cast as a doll) and his face-sucking girlfriend who can’t stop until he shoves her away.

I thought Eliza Dushku was better than in “Ghost” although her reading of “they won’t wake up” was poor. Harry J. Lennix is keeping my interest in the show above meh. He is plain excellent and his relationship with Echo is going to matter to my attachment to the show should that moment of attachment arrive.

Considering that Olivia Williams casting as Adelle was the most exciting news for me, I continue to find her off. I don’t like her long hair or her delivery (and I know she is a superb actress) but most of all I don’t like that she has been shown as not particularly competent.

Topher is really obnoxious as the Marshall without the charm, the wit and the good looks. In fact, I am not alone in being reminded strongly of Alias with Echo as Sydney, Boyd as Dixon and Topher as the nerdy one. However, Marshall always made me laugh.

I love watching this show in real time. It was easy to immerse myself in Firefly having heard excellent word-of-mouth and knowing even as I sat through “Shindig” there were definitely better episodes to come. With Dollhouse, I may have just watched “Out of Gas” and the rest are all “The Messages” and “Hearts of Gold”.

And please, no more "Did I fall asleep?", "For a little while." exchanges.