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1.1 Ghost DeWitt: "I'm talking about a clean slate." Caroline: "You ever try to clean an actual slate? You always see what was on it before." Yes, it held my interest. It has potential. But you know what bothered me? It didn't feel... Whedony. And that was odd, when we essentially had Faith and Fred living in a set that looked like Wolfram & Hart. It felt like it was taking itself too seriously, overreaching a bit. And I mean that also in the sense that there was no humor whatsoever. In a show written by Joss Whedon. Is that because it's difficult to have humor when your characters have no sense of self? The basic premise does have an almost endless potential for good stories. More adult stories, too. Buffy and River all grown up, imprinted with people like "Eleanor Penn", a human being with flaws and foibles and past traumas. It's a dream role for an actor. And there's the underlying mystery of the Dollhouse and Echo herself to be solved. Why would someone voluntarily submit to a sort of slavery that is the death of self? Who owns the Dollhouse, and why does it exist? And what was going on at the end of the episode? In the zoom zoom department, there was plenty to catch and hold the Dollhouse demographic's eye, at least during the first part: fast motorcycles, Eliza Dushku dancing in skimpy, sexy clothes. We even got Tahmoh Penikett with his shirt off sweating sexily and working out his rage issues boxing with another guy; not our forthright upright Helo at all. At least they know their audience. It was an interesting choice to go with the cliched librarian look and such a troubled personality for the second part of the episode. A message that we're not just gonna get fluff. I didn't expect that we would. Characters: -- Echo's real name is Caroline, and she was a college student. She did something wrong, "actions have consequences", and she signed up for a five year "term." If she lives that long, which doesn't seem likely. Her conversation with the boss, DeWitt, made it sound like DeWitt was an authority figure Caroline knew. -- Paul Ballard is FBI and has been assigned to investigate the Dollhouse for fourteen months. He was recently divorced, and seems to be a hothead. He feels that people in the Dollhouse may just as well have been murdered. -- I liked Boyd, Echo's "handler". He seemed to genuinely care about Echo's welfare, as well as the little girl kidnap victim. -- Topher completely creeped me out. I don't know if that was intentional or not. He looked like a friendly nerd, but he didn't feel like one. -- I thought Sierra was interesting, and we only got smidgens of her: receiving her initial programming whatever (while she was writhing in pain), and when she was all supersoldier coming to Echo's rescue. We didn't see any of the other "actives." -- Amy Acker's character, Doctor Claire Saunders, was a great big question mark. It felt like she was a prisoner; Topher kept looking at her oddly. Where did she get those scars? What is she doing in the Dollhouse? It was like she was a project gone wrong, hanging around because there was no other place for her to go. Bits and pieces: -- The title of the pilot episode is "Ghost". We were told that the kidnapper who abused "Eleanor" was the ghost, but in fact, it's Echo herself. She's literally an echo; she responds with what has been downloaded into her. -- Conditioning isn't perfect. Echo showed discomfort or possibly discontent a couple of times. Curiosity about what was happening to Sierra. Reluctance to get into the Chair. When Gabriel referenced the Dollhouse obliquely and talked about what had been done to "Eleanor" as a child, Echo's conditioning weakened and she flashed on Topher hurting Sierra. -- The code names are from the NATO phonetic alphabet. -- Nearsightedness and asthma went with the Penn imprint. That and the cliched librarian look were not a convincing look for Eliza Dushku. And by the way, I'm a librarian. We don't dress like that. It's a stereotype that really bugs me. -- Symbolism? All over the episode. In particular, I thought the closing with all of the "dolls" in their little beds, below the floor and under glass, symbolised what these five people are. -- I recognized the names of *all* of the producers. I've even met some of them, from going to so many Buffy/Angel events. -- Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku, looking oddly alike, did promos together during the entire two hours of Terminator and Dollhouse. Come to think of it, they're both lead actresses that Whedon chose, so maybe their resemblance wasn't all that odd. -- I appreciated the limited commercial breaks. Unfortunately, even though they were short, there were too many actual breaks and they increased as we neared the end of the hour. Breaks concentration. -- The guy at the end who was sitting there naked after killing two people, looking at the video and photo of Caroline. This was right after they showed us a folder labeled "Alpha", another phonetic alphabet letter. Was that Alpha? Quotes: (what there were of them) Topher: "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so, man friend." Topher: "She's living the dream." Boyd: "Whose dream?" Echo: "A fatherly type." Gabriel: "Like Edward James Olmos." Yes, Battlestar, I'm going to miss you. Ballard: "Wash your hands. And your shoes." I liked this episode better the second time I saw it. There's stuff going on here. It could be good, Billie View all comments or post a comment. |
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