Last week’s episode of Dollhouse was supposed to be the one that changed everything. This is the show Joss intended to make, insiders cried. Give him some time! After that bit of underwhelming story, I figured that Dollhouse couldn’t impress me. I would even go so far as to say that I think the show is pretty damn bad.
Then I watched “Echoes”. I won’t say it changed my mind about the show completely, but I did feel like there was an inkling of something interesting going on — though, sadly, not enough for me to even say I enjoyed it. I still think people who, upon viewing last week’s episode, felt that the master had returned were just fooling themselves and falling for the hype. I bet if Joss posted online “Oops, I meant episode seven, not six, my bad!” those same people would later say that six was just as horrible as the five that came before.
Moving on!
In this episode of Dollhouse, we find out that something called the Rossum corporation is what runs all the 20 dollhouses across the globe. We learn that they entrust the R&D of their sci-fi-inspired drugs and processes to university labs with lax security. I predict this will go as well for them in the future as it has in the past. Rossum also seems to feel that the best way to deal with people messing around in their lab is to force them into indetured slavery. This is going to end well for everyone.
One of their experimental drugs goes missing, a student who took said drug kills himself while tripping, then the drug decides it’s going to pass from person to person via touch which causes everyone to start freaking out. Normal people just act high. Dolls have bad flashbacks. Can I just say at this point how really annoyed I am that the Sierra doll flashed back to being abused by her handler? That storyline was sketchy enough, but in this episode we actually get to see him raping her.
I hate you, Joss Whedon.
Echo, who isn’t even supposed to be near all this, accidentally sees the Rossum building on TV, rushes to the scene because her memories are leaking through, and conveniently provides us with some background on how she came to be in the Dollhouse to begin with. Glad there were 6 episodes between that stupid first scene in the entire series and this. Now we can look back and think “ohh, so that’s what was going on!” and feel satisfied even though nothing satisfactory happened.
We also got an extra dollop of stereotypical black man is the bad guy in all of this. Stereotypical not because he’s doing bad things (all people do bad things. and at least he’s a scientist) but Joss took down his favorite character-building book “How to Create Minorities in 3 Easy Strokes or Less” and turned to the raised by a single mother/he’s all she’s got/she’s in financial trouble page. Thumbs up!
I enjoy an episode where the actors are given a chance to be crazy and weird. The upper echelon House runners seemed to be enjoying their trippy state quite thoroughly. But I am not the first person to recognize that this plot was ripped off of a first season Star Trek: TNG episode which was, in turn, “inspired” by an original Star Trek episode. And this isn’t even on the list of episode tropes every SF show does at least once.
I feel like this episode started a bunch of sentences it never completed. It raised questions, gave half-assed promises to answer them, then wandered off. What kind of crap is that?
Also, and I cannot stress this enough, I DO NOT WANT to ever, ever see Sierra being raped again. Or really anyone else.
Watch “Echoes”, courtesy of Hulu, and tell me I’m not right. (I so am.)
I can’t help noticing that the Rossum corporation has a name rich in association – as in Rossum’s Universal Robots, or R.U.R. the Karel Capek play which gave us the word robot, which of course derives from the word for worker. And one of the things that robots are, is dolls…
What really annoys me about this show is that all the crappy sexual and racial politics are getting in the way of showing what it is really about, which is that in a late capitalist society, we are all commodities, we are all dolls. We will, I prophesy, discover before season end that Adele and Topher have had reasons for selling themselves, that even Dominic has a reason…
Which is at once an interesting take on class and economics and a moral cop-out. Because is Mengele any less monster because he has childhood traumas? The scene between stoned Adele and stoned Topher was brilliantly done and morally repugnant – it made us like people who are, at the end of the day, monsters.
I thought Whedon did say it was Episode Seven! Or at least Dushku said Episode Seven in her AV Club episode.
I am not sure “Echoes” is better than “The Man in the Street,” but I do think they are both better than the earlier episodes I bothered to watch.
At this point, Dollhouse can’t just “get good” or even “get awesome.” Going through so many episodes of totally deliberate ickiness has left the story with a debt of ill-will that needs to be cleared off.
What it needs is a revolution, and fast.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the Buffyverse, either. And while the universe surrounding Firefly/Serendipity is certainly interesting, the execution of the show’s premise didn’t reel me in.
However, it seems to be a commonality that the characters (and the dialog) are chief to the success of Whedon’s efforts. This has been almost entirely absent from Dollhouse up to this point. And, while only a hint of any of it has shown up even in this episode, if that trend continues (and increases), I am sure the fanbase will come back to it. Even if it does turn into Dark Angel.
“And while the universe surrounding Firefly/Serendipity is certainly interesting, the execution of the show’s premise didn’t reel me in.”
It was ‘Serenity,’ and I really like Joss Whedon’s perspectives. I am a Professional and Technical Writer for my university, and I really feel that some of the point is being missed with this series. The person who touched on the dolls in a capitalist society was not completely wrong. Buffy was a huge success. However, if some of us care to look back, the starting of it wasn’t that great. The first season was too cute.. too cheeky. It was in the second season that it gained substance. Unfortunately for Firefly, that opportunity was taken away from the fans because of bad advertising and reviews from critics such as yourself. But, for those of us who really enjoy Joss Whedon’s material, we would appreciate that this show got a chance to have a second season, so that it can gain substance. We’re expecting guest spots in the future of some of our favorite Whedon actors, and we know, if this show makes it, that will definitely happen. At least let the show have some growing room. It’s not like it’s taking up an important spot. Most people are out Friday nights and DVR this show. Give it a chance.
This episode disappointed me for many of the reasons Tempest outlined. So many plot elements were pulled from tired cliches. And, I’m sorry, but Eliza Dushku just cannot act. I cringed when she mouthed her “activist” spiel. And word of advice, Echo/Caroline, when your boyfriend is shot in the stomach, punching him in the chest and screaming at him isn’t going to make him better.
What bothered me about the Topher and Adele trip-out was this vulnerability was supposed to make me feel sympathy for them, humanize them. But they are repugnant characters when sober. Seeing them spaz out only made me realize how pathetic and disgusting they are. I didn’t find this scene cute or charming or disarming as others have.
I think the fault of the show is a lack of sympathetic primary characters. We are supposed to feel for Echo, but since Dushku can’t act, instead I wait in eager anticipation for the few other secondary characters to evoke sympathy, like Mellie.
I sadly must agree with the assessment above. As a huge Buffy fan, I was willing to give Joss Whedon some time to get Dollhouse working on all cylinders. But so far, the pieces don’t fit together, and the vintage Whedonesque humor is (for the most part) missing. The Dollhouse is not a nice place. The show makes it crystal clear that we’re watching the had guys in action, enslaving people and sending them on misssions that include sexual exploitation. I would expect that at some point there has to be a major comeuppance once Echo regains her identity, but it’s been a long slog through silly missions and bad acting and I’ve grown impatient waiting for that to happen.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed the similartity beteween this episode and “The Naked Now” and “The Naked Time” from ST:TNG and ST:TOS, respectively. In the Star Trek series, the disease they encounter forces the characters to lose all inhibitions, thereby giving the viewers a glimpse of the “real” characters lurking beneath their facades. I think this is kind of a neat trick. And it did humanize Topher and Adele a bit more.
I’m just impatient. How many more bad episodes do we have to sit through hoping that Joss Whedon finally regains his form?
I rebel against the idea that shows need to be given a whole season in order to mature and get good. Why would I ever, ever waste my time like that? Why would anyone?
Buffy’s first season may have been “too cute” for you, but I think it succeeded with the audience it was attempting to reach – teen girls and early 20′s women with a dash of the 18 – 35 year old male everyone wants. The reason the show matured as it went along — it wasn’t just the second season that leaped forward in depth — was because the audience was maturing. And if the newer maturity level (or whatever you want to call it) then picked up some other folks later on, that was just icing.
Buffy’s first season wasn’t bad. It may not have been for everyone, but it wasn’t bad.
Dollhouse is bad.
Firefly didn’t get the backing from Fox it deserved, I think.
Dollhouse doesn’t deserve much more than a boot up the butt. I don’t think it’s at all reasonable to allow a show creator to create bad television for a season so that in the second season it can be good. That’s crazy talk.
I have to agree with Tempest. A whole season to “mature” or “find a voice” is asking a very lot given the number of good shows that get canceled because they are “too smart” or “too expensive.” Giving Dollhouse a buy on sole merits of the writer’s prior success seems to be an unreasonable approach.
I’m willing to see it through to the end of a season, but I haven’t seen anything new in this series yet. I haven’t seen anything to indicate that another season will radically change this yet.
I really wish people had given Amy Sherman-Palladino’s The Return of Jezebel James a tenth of the perseverance and calls for perseverance that viewers are giving Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse.
So it sounds like you’re taking the same unreasonable approach as me?
Kidding aside, I did enjoy Episode 6 quite a bit, and there were glimmers of interesting bits in Episode 7 that merit giving it another few episodes. After that…I don’t know.
I love Dollhouse. It’s a big deal in our home. It is very entertaining and interesting and leaves us wondering, what’s going to happen next week for this to unravel. Love the actors and Joss ROCKS!
I think when you try to rip it apart and analyze any show, you lose sight of the big picture, it’s called entertainment. If you are entertained Great if not, change the channel. Each of us are entertained in our own unique way. Dollhouse is entertaining for me.