Well I had DVR troubles that stopped me from watching the whole thing on my television, but thank goodness for the internet. I watched the rest of Dollhouse over at Fox’s website, which is a far cry from what I would have had to do not but a few years ago. I have always been a big fan of Joss Whedon’s work as Firefly was some of the best science fiction television that I have seen. I was quite excited to hear about Dollhouse, even if the network had put it on one of the death nights, Friday.
Dollhouse has a bit of Total Recall feel to it, but it follows Eliza Dushku, as Echo, an “Active” which means she can have her personality wiped out and another one downloaded to her to perform a multitude of jobs. The company that does this caters to the super wealthy and powerful clientelethat need someone like a negotiator, a weekend date, assassin, or just about anything else. A question that immediatly comes to my mind is about muscle memory and physical capability of the actives. Yes I know we saw the people training in the Dollhouse, but the reason that the professional sports job market is not overrun I believe has as much to do with heart as it does with ability and physical attributes. Something just does not jive for me with the way that works, but I can get past it for the sake of the show, just any annoying nag in the back of my head.
We have a lot of acting talent on this permanent roster as well as guest stars for Episode 1, and a few were personal standouts to me based on not just their work in Dollhouse, but the fact I get to see some of my favorite people from other shows score a job with Joss Whedon. It was great to see Tahmoh Penikett and Mark Sheppard, Battlestar Galactica vets, with Tahmoh really nailing his character of Paul Ballard. I am not fully sold on Eliza Dushku as Echo, but it was not a horrible casting choice from just seeing the first episode. Olivia Williams playing Adelle DeWitt works, and Reed Diamond hits it with Laurence Dominic, as someone owed him from killing Journeymanso early anyway. Harry Lennix as Boyd Langdon is another one that does not yet scream out to me as the perfect casting choice, but I think this one may win me over after a few shows.
The twist in this episode was a bit much for me to swallow. Echo recognizes the man who is part of the kidnapping case she has been assigned to as a negotiator and it causes much drama as well as a too convenient plot point. All of this happened because of a memory that was carried along with the imprinted personality. The question is why put these things in with the personality, and while we get an explanation half way through the episode it just was not strong enough. It was just too much of a coincidence, so unless we get an explanation at a later date, that was a flaw. The story itself worked well enough, and it was a good setup to give us a bit of the personalities of everyone working with the Dollhouse. When I look at the show in pieces there is so much to like about it, but yet when it was all put together I was not blown away. I am hoping that it is just due to the story having a bit of a complex background it needs to be explained to the viewers. The choice of negotiator instead of super cool ninja assassin as the first job is a bit of a chance with all those clamoring fans and advertising people, but we shall see if it was the right choice later on I guess.
Dollhouse is going to be one of those shows for me that I have to watch a few episodes of before I pass full judgement on it. It started out a bit slow for me, but picked up steam towards the middle of the episode. The thing I have the most problem with though is why is it any different than what else we can find out there? My hope is that the back story of the Dollhouse is what becomes the real story we are tuning into each week, and I think episode 1 handles that part of it pretty well, I just hope that it continues that route. These are things that should find out after we get a few episodes under our belt, right now it is a show with a lot to prove.
in general i agree with your assessment on this one.
the thing that stood out to me as being odd is that i’m not really sure how the ensemble is going to come together. for me, that is the standout part of joss whedon’s other shows (i love firefly, never got super into buffy but both my best friends did so i’ve at least seen enough of it to make a comparison). they had a very strong ensemble cast who played off each other and made you believe the connections they had with each other. while i think this show has some strong characters, i’m not sure how well they’ll play together.
it was good enough that i’ll keep watching for at least a few more episodes…i think you called it to say the jury’s still out. hopefully it will pick up steam as it develops further.
Yeah I wanted to be blow away by it and yet I was not. The concept though seems solid just the execution of it. Really made me mad that the twist which was obviously so pivotal to the story of this episode does not seem to have a real reason behind it yet. If the show picks up steam though it may be one of those shows that I think, wow see now I understand episode 1 a lot better. Problem is I do not think America will wait for that.
I sort of got the impression that this was just a big ol’ pot of Joss Whedon stew. It took elements of all his previous shows: super-hot chicks with balls (Buffy, Dark Angel) + sci fi element (Firefly) + huge (possibly evil?) firm catering to the super rich (Angel) = Dollhouse. Not that any of that is bad, but it’s just a new twist on the same. So I guess what I’m saying is I whole-heartedly concur with both of you that only time will tell if Joss can pull this one off. If not, I’m petitioning for a Dr. Horrible series.
Ouch. That will teach me to post before fact-checking. Just ignore that Dark Angel thing.
Dr. Horrible was great, but I think it worked because we just got a taste not the whole meal. I do not know if the singing would get to me after a few episodes. Plus if you dont have Neil Patrick Harris it would not be worth watching and he is already wrapped up with HIMYM
“The question is why put these things in with the personality, and while we get an explanation half way through the episode it just was not strong enough.” The notion that you can’t separate the personality from the memories seemed like a solid explanation to me.
One thing that I noticed the absence of in Dollhouse, which has always been (to me) a strong element of Whedon’s past projects, was humor.
Hmm see when I watched it I got the explanation of well it makes it more complete, not that they could not remove it. Actually your comment made me go back and watch it again to make sure
Plus seriously a hard drive with platters in it? Hmm with all they are doing they should at least have flash memory drives, something solid state 
Ok so after watching it again I say, why make her nearsighted, why make her have asthma? Same thing yes his explanation of well they dont want to create pieces or a greatest hits just doesnt seem to hold weight where they could cut pieces out to make that person a better, whatever, like negotiator.