Dollhouse

[mrv3000]

Overall I enjoyed it a lot. But critical thoughts in no particular order:

• I imagine people were probably upset that it was canceled after only two seasons, but I actually felt satisfied with what was there, including Epitaph One and Two. What was in those two episodes was enough for me -- thinking about it, one of the last things I really would have cared for would have been to see an entire season of society devolving into chaos. I imagine that's what a third season would have been, and while it is part of the future story, it would have veered wildly from the original premise and point of the thing. I could easily see this show collapsing under the weight of itself if it'd gone in that direction.
  
  
• However, I am miffed that they stuck Epitaph One at the end of the S1 DVD. While I really enjoyed the episode, it took away some of my enjoyment of S2. It was kind of like reading the end of a mystery book first and then going back and reading the rest -- they journey can still be enjoyable, but all the suspense was gone by knowing which characters were still around and what they were up to.
  
  
• While Joss is known for his sudden deaths (and several of them took me by surprise), Paul's death and integration into Echo was just plain silly. It smacked of an attempt to be really deep in that supposedly that was the only way for Echo to not be alone, but came off as cheesy and trite. (Also quite silly was Paul winding up as Echo's handler. So contrived. :D)
  
  
• Speaking of Really Deep, I had to laugh when I found out that the world ended up in apocalypse. Apocalypse seems to be the Hollywood writer's darling in the last decade or so. It's no longer enough to teeter on the brink in these "man vs. ..." cautionary tales; we have to go all the way in ultimate "GET IT NOW?" scenarios.
  
  
• One thing I was confused about was how Whiskey wound up back in the Dollhouse and wiped. I thought the last we saw her, she was in Arizona and was killed when all that went down. Plus someone restored her face. Huh.
  
  
• Also, Alpha must be an absolute wiz at cleaning and herding. I thought I remembered the group with little!Caroline wandering around for a couple of weeks before finding the others. Then when they go back to the Dollhouse it's all cleaned up and Alpha's herded a 100 or so people in. Huh.
  
  
• And speaking of little!Caroline, there didn't actually seem to be any point to resurrecting her. She didn't really do anything.

But for all my quibbles it still was an entertaining ride. :D

Comments

[elismor.livejournal.com]

I actually really liked Paul's death (though not the integration bit). I thought it was shocking and *real* in that random way where, sometimes in life you are walking down the street and bad shit goes down right there in your path. (As opposed to Wash's death in Serenity, which was certainly shocking, but felt more like the point was to be shocking, not to show you how fragile life is.)

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was due to marathonning it all over a couple of days, and having seen already several of those random deaths (a la Tara in Buffy) that it lost its edge. It threw me out of the moment with a "well, it's Joss. of course he's going to unexpectedly kill off someone important like this."

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

I think Wash's death was meant to set the stage that anyone could die. I really had doubt that any of them were going to make it out alive. It was brilliant.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

I saw "Epitaph One" as the future they were trying to avoid, so I was kind of surprised and a bit disoriented when they ended up there anyway. But then "Epitaph Two" handled it in a satisfactory enough way, and was interesting enough on its own, that I didn't mind much.

ITA about any S3 having nowhere to go but off the rails, tho. It might have been interesting, but it wouldn't really have been Dollhouse anymore. I loved the show, but felt quite satisfied by the amount of it we got.

Sometimes a story is just done. The US model of series television isn't very good at getting people used to that idea.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

I saw "Epitaph One" as the future they were trying to avoid, so I was kind of surprised and a bit disoriented when they ended up there anyway. But then "Epitaph Two" handled it in a satisfactory enough way, and was interesting enough on its own, that I didn't mind much.

For some reason my mind didn't go that way. I just assumed that what was saw was the way things would be, no matter what. For me it gave it all a slight ring of thinking what they did didn't really matter in S2. It'd all go to hell anyway.

Sometimes a story is just done. The US model of series television isn't very good at getting people used to that idea.

Yes, exactly. I remember when I was first introduced to the shorter seasons and shorter runs of UK productions, it seemed like the viewer was getting ripped off. "13 (or 6) episodes instead of 22? Only 2 seasons and they stop, even though it was a popular show? What?" But now I much prefer it - generally the storytelling is so much better when it's not open-ended and doesn't need to be padded out.

[platypus]

Epitaph One was Joss's way of wrapping things up, because everyone knew they were cancelled after S1. Fox didn't even bother airing it, because of some mumbo-jumbo about how the re-filmed pilot counted as the 13th episode and they didn't need another one (apparently it was somehow made dirt cheap). Then the show got S2, and they had to figure out how to get to Epitaph One's world. Some elements of that worked better than others, I thought. But it's kind of unavoidable to have it on the S1 DVD, and that's where it fits in to the narrative on a meta sort of level. It never aired in the US, so Fox went straight into Epitaph Two from the end of S2 and there was quite a bit of WTF.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Okay, Fox is just nuts.

And I was thinking about Epitaph One some more. I'm not exactly sure when I'd like to have seen it. There'd obviously be a lot lost if watched after S2, but at the same time it still bugs me that I was spoiled (in a way) for the direction of the show.

(But I adore Felicia Day (more for The Guild than Dr. Horrible) and loved the episodes anyway.)

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

Okay, Fox is just nuts.

Amen.

[sesaworuban.livejournal.com]

Don't remember Epitaph 2 too well but rather liked how Epitaph 1 was a flashforward and that we had that to remember/imagine as we started Season 2. I reckon if it'd gone for a third season, the final few episodes of Season 2 would have been a lot more spread out and could have gone a different way.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with it (after Fox had taken their hands off the steering wheel after the first few fairly average eps).

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

I have to admit it was neat seeing how certain scenes slid into place when before they had no context. (Still didn't like being sort of spoiled though.)

I was very entertained by the whole thing. I'd recommend it to anyone.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

The one thing that I really missed was (as you noted) what happened to Whiskey. She was a fascinating character and I wish we'd had more time with her.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

It really stuck out at me. I wonder if TPTB ever answered that question outside the show.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

I would love to know.

[shinkonokokoro.livejournal.com]

It wasn't until the second season of this show that everything really seemed to pull together and really take off at the speed of light. Granted this was partially because it HAD to, but still. The second season was some of the best tv that I'd seen in a while. I love Joss's creations and he really is a master of lengthy television series (A la Buffy & Angel), but I do agree with how everything laid out with Dollhouse, the two seasons were enough. I think, had Joss the option, he could have done more with it that wouldn't be overdone or conventional, but what we got from Dollhouse was really perfect. I liked the end-of-times view of things that we got. The distance between Victor and the other girl--forget her name at the end was really cool to see. I was sad that Topher had to die, and his deterioration really made me sad. The 'betrayal' by Boyd was rather shocking for me. I had never expected that...
All in all, I really love Joss's characters and mind. :) So this really was very entertaining, I agree!

[nic]

I loved Epitaph One. I had been warned it was an 'end of series' episode so watched S1, S2, E1, E2. I think little!Caroline worked in the sense of E1 only. If the show had never continued, we could at least be assured that Caroline lived on in SOME format even if we didn't know what happened to the original.

Paul's death shocked me but it's Joss, so I was expecting someone to die. It was Topher's death that ripped out my heart, even though it made sense. I wanted him to get better. :( (And then stay with Adelle forever.)

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

It seems like little!Caroline was only used as a plot device, rather than actually being part of the plot.

Topher was rather sad, but I suppose it was redemption and all that.