Perhaps you remember my first Dollhouse post ("Joss and I are on a break," February 28, 2009). I didn't exactly have the kindest of things to say about Mr. Whedon's latest television incarnation. In fact, I believe I concluded in uncertainty, unsure of whether I would continue to tune in each week at all.
Truth be told, I'm glad that I did. Tune in. Dollhouse, as was foretold by Joss, Eliza, FOX and the multitudes of Whedonites the world over, did, in fact, improve.
That being said, the show still has a ways to go if it hopes to 1) earn and keep a second season and 2) live up to the Whedon precedent of everything the Mutant Enemy empire has created in the past.
Improvements!
NARRATIVE TWISTS
The revelation of Mellie as "sleeper doll" pretty much signaled the show's shift from bland entertainment to must-see TV.* It was a fantastic plot twist and expanded the possibilities of the Dollhouse's reach past anything we knew or expected to at that point. Also, all Joss fans love to see a hot girl kick ass so between Mellie/November's fight scene and the scene between Echo as programmable mole (another exciting twist) and Agent Paul Ballard, it felt like Joss-home again.
* Seriously, what network used this slogan? NBC? Because its connotations have pretty much rendered it unuseable. It killed a piece of my soul just to type it.
"The Awakening" (or fakening or fakewakening, as it really wasn't the "awakening" we were promised) also nicely revealed a few key points about our favourite dolls' former lives. The reveal concerning Sierra was particularly rich, relating as it did to her violent experience in the house. Additionally, the lack of revelation for Victor's character will likely also prove a site of exploration as the series (if the series) progresses.
HUMOUR
A good rule of thumb for network TV: If your characters are getting boring, drug them. Drug them all. Drug them silly so they can break out of their one-noteness and emerge as more interesting, more free, more hilarious people. (Recall Buffy Season 2's "Band Candy." The show may not have needed a lift at that point but we certainly had fun following Joyce and Ripper/Giles romp around like horny teenagers.) Honestly, "I am very...British!" was probably the first time I legitimately LOL'ed during an episode of this show. All of the scenes between Adele and Topher were wonderful and foreshadowed the productive fleshing out these characters would continue to undergo in episodes to come (see "Character Development").
For Dollhouse to continue its uphill climb and should Dollhouse get renewed for a second season, the writers need to GET FUNNIER. Obviously with a show which deals with such difficult, complex, almost taboo issues it would be hard (perhaps impossible) to move right into 'funny, ha ha' territory. But remember: rape is funny (it isn't) (it is) (it isn't). On a show about programmable people plugged into a supercorporation of questionable morals, dark humour could reign.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (I am NOT referring to Echo)
As I have already mentioned, Adele and Topher, played by Olivia Williams and Fran Kranz, respectively, have definitely experienced the greatest character development of any of the show's dramatis personae. The writers have taken them from stuck-up-boring-British-bitch and I-press-buttons-and-think-I'm-smart-tech-nerd to the show's (arguably) most sympathetic and layered characters, especially in episode 9 (for Adele/Williams) and episode 10 (for Topher/Kranz) when we witness them transition from Dollhouse employees to Dollhouse clients in a none-too-straightforward effort to combat rabid, career-induced loneliness.
SURPRISING(LY GREAT) NEWBIE ACTORS
The most pleasant surprise - especially in the face of all that Dushku lacks, which I (re)address below - has been the emergent acting chops of relative newbies Dichen Lachman as doll Sierra and Enver Gjokaj as doll Victor. The weight and complexity which they bring to their various transformations prove that acting like a doll does not have to mean acting stiff and caricatured. Gjokaj has especially proven himself adept at taking on different accents and committing physically to different roles in an impressive and professionally mature way. Their chemistry together, too, has given viewers perhaps the show's only interesting love connection in a "fictional" world where we are constantly being reminded that "love," more often than not, is for the highest bidder. Watching Victor legitimately care for and look after Sierra without being able to fully understand his emotional connection to her has been one of the most surprising and touching turns of the season.
GETTING SERIOUS
I've already used the "r" word and I'm about to use it again, repeatedly.
In one regard, Dollhouse can be read as an extended meditation on rape, its various forms and all its implications. It's about time we started making the audience feel really uncomfortable about this and steps have already been made in this regard.
I'm not simply referencing the rape(s) of Sierra, before her entry into and during her time in the Dollhouse itself (though this is certainly a part of it). There is also, of course, the question of whether the Dollhouse's day-to-day practices represent the perpetual rape of human identity, in addition to the question of whether a one-time signature on a consent form really implies continual consent to prostitution across a 5 year term. I have always felt the general outline and concept of this show was a rich, frightening and complex one; it's nice to see the writers are finally exploring these questions in greater detail, beyond the I-used-to-have-a-life-and-now-it's-theirs, all-too-obvious, gradually unfolding conundrum of Echo. The most recent episode even broached the question of rape from the opposite end of the argument, with Agent Ballard self-identifying as a pseudo-client...of the corporation he detests.
Of course, these questions do not solely apply to the show's fictional dolls. It doesn't require much effort to extrapolate the representation of the dolls in the Dollhouse to the human position relative to society. Are we all clients of the Dollhouse? Or are we all dolls? The show has done a good job exploring the idea that "we" are in fact, and at different times, both, and if that doesn't chill the blood, you haven't been paying the underlying concepts of Dollhouse the consideration they deserve. At Paley Joss said Dollhouse explores questions of "power," the cornerstone of any rape or examination thereof. How many television shows have the balls to represent at least one (often many) metaphorical and/or physical rapes every episode without explaining or scapegoating them away?
Persistent problems...
DUSHKU
Everyone has already said it. I certainly wouldn't be the first. One of the main reasons recent episodes have seemed so good is that, in terms of screen time, we've been getting less Dushku and more everyone else. This is imperative. Dushku's acting remains Dollhouse's #1 problem and is proof (or might be), perhaps, that it takes more than a hot girl to keep a show on the air.
Blah Echo, Blah Caroline and boo cheap attempts to get Eliza into a dominatrix outfit before the first five minutes of an episode have rolled out. It's strange because there is almost nothing about Echo OR Caroline which is in any way engaging and yet Faith was a spectacle for the senses (seriously, you could almost smell her). All we can hope for is that Echo be assigned more Faith-like roles as she seems to be at her best when basically recreating her Buffy role.
...or perhaps they could kill off her character! Now wouldn't that be a twist! I would love it if Echo became only an echo on the show (wah, wah, wahhhhh). I really hope this is Joss's secret, secret plan.
But we all know, given the contract arrangement Eliza has with FOX, it isn't. Sigh.
ONE-OFF EPISODES
Despite devoting four episodes in a row to developing the arc (without question the four best episodes of the series thus far), last week's episode demonstrated that the-powers-that-be-behind-Dollhouse are unwilling to entirely relinquish episodic production just yet. It's not that I've never enjoyed a week-to-weeker when it comes to television, because I have and do. I loved a format like that employed by Pushing Daisies (RIP), for instance, which was unmistakably and almost absurdly repetitive in its production but no less lovable for it. There's just something about dressing Eliza up as x or y or z or dead and demanding the audience be convinced she's this different person (when we painfully can tell she isn't) which feels like the flogging-the-horse dream sequence from Crime and Punishment. Again, this is as much (if not more) a Dushku issue (say that 10 times fast!), as it is a writing issue.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
"I want to see Dollhouse return for a second season, because I think it's shown us, in the second half of its season, that it has tremendous potential as a dark story about the nature of memory and consciousness. But I don't know if it has that potential as a series. At its best moments, it's had the feeling of events rushing forward toward an imminent climax...I wonder if the ideal, then, would be for Fox to return Dollhouse, for a limited and final second season, to resolve its story without the burden of stretching it out with one-off episodes."- James Poniewozik's blog post in Time, April 27, 2009, "Save Dollhouse! Then Cancel It!"
I have included this quote from Poniewozik's April 27th post (linked above) because I think he makes a very interesting and useful point. I, too, am not convinced of the show's longevity and given my mixed feelings about it as it has progressed would not be heartbroken (sorry to say) to see it go. And I agree that a definite endpoint might in fact benefit the series and the writing of it. Firefly was tremendous and should never have been cancelled but I am of the school that what emerged from the wreckage (i.e. Serenity) is among Joss's finest work. It forced him to rely less on extended arcs and filler and re-emerge as Storyteller (hehehe). You might say this contradicts my claim against episodic scripts. Not so. I believe in arc narratives (and does anyone do them better than Joss?), I just don't believe in padding or bloating a season unnecessarily. Give Joss a timeline, let him tell us everything he had planned to about the Dollhouse and the people involved with it and let's call it a day.
Things to look forward to...
JOSS ALUM GUEST STARS! ALAN TUDYK AND FELICIA DAY (maybe)
As a closing note, I remain hopeful for the last few episodes (TBD how many we'll actually get to see), especially since Firefly/Buffy/Dr. Horrible alums Tudyk and Day are scheduled to make guest appearances (surely Jonathan Woodward is on his way?).
I solemnly vow to watch all 12-13, first season episodes and assess the damages thereafter. I'm not completely sold (and neither is the DVD box set, as I am not yet convinced it's worth the money), but I, and the show itself, have definitely come a long way.
See you at the aftermath.
