Dollhouse

Comicon 2010 Review: Friday

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Sat, 07/31/2010

So I spent all. day. in Ballroom 20. Friday at Comicon was a perfect schedule for me. I was overstuffed with stuff by the time I wandered out. Loved it.

Stargate Universe

While I've only seen two or three episodes of this show, it seems to sport a really strong cast. I'm torn, however. I have a secret fondness for the ones that break the series pattern (Deep Space Nine, for example), but I also have a suspicion of needing to make a show "darker" and "edgier" in order to make it more "relevant." That usually just means that everyone will be grumpy and humorless and have lots of arguments about the Greater Good.

Which can be fine when I'm in the mood, but kind of a downer when I'm not.

Anyways. The panel itself was very entertaining, with Ming-Na putting on a one woman show over on one end and Robert Carlyle and his Scottish accent slouching over on the other. Alaina Huffman and David Blue were also on the panel. (I know it's shallow, but she has very pretty hair.) David got a lot of geek questions. 

They started off with some good questions from the moderator, ones that managed to tease out some details about upcoming episodes (mostly without spoilers) and the actors' experiences. (There's one called "Twin Destinys," commented Robert Carlyle. "I think you can guess what it's about.") Moderation was pretty good across all the panels this year.

I loved that when the question microphone went dead, the moderator went ahead and asked the "what was your favorite scene" question one his own. And good for Alaina Huffman for having an answer right off the bat instead of hemming and hawing about how many there are and ohidunno... 

Best line of the panel was from David Blue, wishing he had more time to play video games, then realizing the producer was standing right there: "I wish I had more time... but I don't want to die." 

New episodes start in September.

Caprica

This is a show I'm looking forward to seeing come back. Unfortunately, new episodes won't start until January, which is disappointing. 

(On a side note, can we stop pretending that it's still Season One when there is more than six months between the end of one batch of episodes and the start of the next. And quit it with the 1.5 crap; it's just a way of getting double money for the DVD sets and you know it.)

James Marsters was there, looking less fried with his natural hair-color. 

Sasha Roiz who plays Sam Adama, Alessandra Torresoni (Zoe), Ronald Moore, and one of the other producers were the other panelists. And Magda Apanowicz (Lacy) popped in after a few minutes. (I'm going to assume she overslept and that explains why her hair was like that. She was a bit Eighties about the ponytail.) It was a good mix of people. 

Everyone had great answers. Marsters in particular came across as very intelligent and talked about his character from a philosophical point of view. I liked the question to Ronald Moore about Caprica and Dallas. Because I'm the sort of person who loves the idea of a science fiction soap opera. It's my Reese's Peanut Butter cup of entertainment.

A lot of the audience questions dwelled on the connections between Caprica and Battlestar Galactica. The most interesting question that came out was the one about whether there would be stories about the six humans who were the original models for the Cylons. (The ones we met in BSG.) Ronald Moore thought it was a good idea but that it was too early to really get into at this point.

On the other hand, I liked that the creators seemed to understand that there was a danger of being "cute" in preloading too many references to Battlestar Galactica. They said that they wanted to be careful about too many in-jokes, but didn't rule it out entirely. To my mind, those first six would be the best place for it, but that's just my two cents.

Moore "firmly" believed that the show was coming back for a second season, which I certainly hope is true. I am very curious to see where they are going to go with this series. Even if Moore did also compare it to Titanic.

Potential t-shirt idea: Bad-Ass Buddhist.

The Big Bang Theory

So we started with Wil Wheaton, who I always liked. (I was so the target audience for Wesley Crusher.) And he suggested a sing-a-long. With the Barenaked Ladies. About whom I know two facts: that there was a band called Barenaked Ladies and that they wrote the theme song to The Big Bang Theory. 

In other words, I had no idea that they had an accordion. Sweet!

Wil Wheaton (I'll never be able to separate those names again; it's like "Rebecca Dew") had good questions for the cast. I liked the response to the question about Leonard being the emotionally center of the show. One of the producers pointed out that he is being torn between Sheldon (who wants to hide from the world) and Penny (who is pulling him out into the world) and how that means he suffers for it.

It was a little disappointing to hear that they didn't think they could do an episode set at Comicon. I get that it's hard to go on location (in the middle of the summer break, no less) but couldn't they fake up a bit of the convention floor? Really? They could set the whole episode in line and run it in real time and still not have to go into a panel or the convention hall. 

And as touched as everyone was the Wil Wheaton talked about how the cast likes each other, it's kind of hard to believe him when he says that it is "rare" to find that. Every. Single. Cast that comes along talks about how they like each other so much and are like family. So are all the shows I see are some kind of exception and everyone on the cop shows are assholes or what? Where are all these unpleasant people hiding that this is such a big deal?

Right. That went the way of being a bit of a complaint. Sorry. I really do like the show. I do.

Bones

Kind of drifted away from Bones. I generally burn out of investigator shows around year two and I never had any patience with the will-they-or-won't-they romance crap. I am as mushy romantic as the next girl who cries at Hallmark ads, but in this case, I'll care when they make up their minds.

That said, Hart Hanson, Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz (insert squealing here) have great chemistry together and were pleasant to watch. 

Joss Whedon

Typical adorable stream-of-consciousness burbling.

Covered Buffy Season 8. Doesn't have much idea on when Cabin in the Woods is being released. Shepard Book graphic novel is coming out this fall, so Ron Glass can finally answer questions at conventions. 

Whedon went to questions almost immediately, which meant that the whole thing hinged on the nice person screening the questions. Have to give them props because there was a nice mix. And only one in there that was of the "Remember the episode where X did Y, what was up with that?" And that one prompted this quote: "Drogan was the guy who couldn't lie and lived in a tree... I don't make this stuff up. That's what happened." Which I loved. (New info for me was that Angel Season Five was modeled after The Godfather.)

The question about Whedon's tendency to user long single-take shots got an interesting answer on how it's a technique that should be used wisely and why. He uses it to ground action in a space and keep people in the moment. In Serenity, it was used to contrast the chaos of the River / Simon / Operative introduction. 

A question on killing characters focused less on "you killed my favorite" and more on "what is it like to tell the actors?" Whedon noted that sometimes it has to do with the business side of things (contracts, actors leaving). Otherwise, he tries to tell them early when he can. Kristine Sutherland (Buffy's mom, for example) knew two years before it happened. 

What We Learned

  • Lloyd wasn't evil until Season Two of Dollhouse, but what a good idea, huh?
  • Someone is totally going to get around to looking into putting Doctor Horrible in Rock Band.
  • Nathan Fillion seems to have a lot of time on his hands.

Best Line (of many)

"We had inadvertently shot an apocalypse."

Entertainment Weekly Present Ladies Who Kick-Ass

Kind of disappointing after the panel last year. Of course, it is hard to top Sigourney Weaver. I really don't have too much to say about this one. There wasn't anything new or exciting from any of the panelist or questions. Jena Malone came across as the most articulate and passionate, which is what I thought Saturday at Sucker Punch as well.

True Blood

Wow. That was a long day.

I have a friend who loves True Blood, so I stuck around to watch this panel. Not knowing who any of the characters were, I mostly just enjoyed the pretty. Anna Paquin also has nice hair - as did all the hunks. Much nicer that what they sport on the show if the footage was any indication. Too much of the slicked back look that's either indicating "product addiction" or "really sweaty."

I think in this case, I'm on Team Werewolf.

There was a description of how the latest over-the-top sex scene was shot. Which included a full body cast of the actress strapped to the actor and some digital trickery. That lead to the question of what were the cast's strangest moments on set. And that lead to me now having the mental image of a "small man" in a sink "doing something intimate" to some intestines. 

What I Learned

  • Celebrities who love True Blood reportedly include Snoop Dogg, Elizabeth Taylor, and Anne Rice. 
  • There are three kinds of "socks." They don't go on the actors' feet.
  • The best trained animal on the set was the deer.
  • Wolves are like actors. Too neurotic.
  • Alan Ball doesn't think the show is about death, in spite of the massive body count.
  • Alan Ball personally roots for things to work out between Bill and Sookie, but doesn't know if it will.
  • Tara will "get a break" towards the end of the season, but it won't last.
  • Alan Ball wants the show to run as long as it can, but doesn't want to have to explain why vampires are aging.
  • Asked what their favorite non-True Blood vampires are, no one said Twilight. And no one said Dracula.
  • Although someone did say "Keifer Sutherland from Lost Boys," so we're good.
  • As a character on television, "Bubba" will be problematic for reasons having to do with Elvis.

Anyways. Like most of the panels, it was enjoyable to watch people who were passionate about what they do talk about what they do. The series itself certainly sounds wild. Perhaps I can find some room in my Netflix que.

Tomorrow: Short post on Green Lantern, Harry Potter, and Sucker Punch.

Epitaph Two

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Tue, 03/09/2010

Dollhouse Episode Review

In which everything is over.

What Happened

With little Caroline in tow, Mags and Zone try to reach Safe Haven, away from the imprinted hordes in the city.

Captured in route, they are taken to the Rossum headquarters. Fortunately, Echo and Ballard have arrived to rescue a kidnapped Topher and they free all of Harding's prisoners.

Topher announces that he has a way to reverse all the imprints all over the world. The catch is that anyone with Active architecture will also revert to who they were to start - forgetting all that has happened in between.

This is a problem for Priya, who doesn't want to forget her son by Anthony. The family is estranged, however, as Anthony has invested heavily in imprint Tech that gives him the skills to battle Rossum's forces. Priya is upset when Anthony returns to Safe Haven to help Echo and reminds him that he is not to tell their son about his parentage unless he intends to give up the Tech and stay for good.

Echo and Ballard decide that a small group will hole up in the Dollhouse for a year, safe from the EMP. Anthony and his warriors battle them a path into the city, but Ballard is shot and killed along the way.

Inside the LA Dollhouse, they find a reformed Alpha. Topher reviews tapes of Bennett, finding the clues he needs to finish the EMP. He tells Adelle that the explosion will have to be manually triggered and takes the device up to her office to do so.

Seeing Anthony burning his Tech, Priya introduces her son to his father. Leaving a wounded Mags behind, Adelle and Zone lead Alpha's dolls to the street. Zone has agreed to take care of little Caroline after she becomes a ten-year-old again, while Adelle will have to take on the task of putting some semblance of a society back together again.

Locked away inside the Dollhouse as Topher sets off the EMP, Echo finds a parting gift from Alpha: a wedge containing what is left of Paul Ballard. Echo downloads Paul into her mind and sets about the rest of her life.

The Good

  • Zone and Mags. Amazing how cool they are after just two episodes.
  • They tie up the pieces for all the main characters as well as the big idea stories, taking things to a logical conclusion.
  • Echo's breakdown over Paul. Beautiful performance from Eliza Dushku in a moment that could have gone horribly over the top.

The Bad

  • Same as last week - there's just not enough time. Alpha, for example, just whizzed by. Alpha should not whiz.

The Cliche

  • Paul. Paul. Paul. What is up with Joss Whedon and the brain splatz? This is the third episode in a row, dammit.

What Did I Think?

Finds a nice ending for each character (except Paul) but more time would have given things even more weight.

Watching: Catching Up Over the Weekend

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Thu, 02/04/2010

Well, quite a bit went by over the last week or so.

Dollhouse - Epitaph Two

So it's over. I really think that once they put their head down and started telling the story they intended, the show got infinitely better. And there was a lot of potential ground to cover, as evidenced by how much had to be winked at or left out. For one thing, what was the deal with Alpha?

One strength of this episode was that it squeezed every last drop out of all the dialogue. Every sentence had to move the story forward - including enough information to keep the viewer oriented to this new world order - without descending into dull exposition. It's a fine line to walk.

Caprica - Rebirth

Really liking this show. They added both local color world building and plenty of humor, while not losing the heart of the characters. I was especially impressed at Amanda figuring things out so quickly. Any other show would have dragged it out For.Ev.Er. Instead, they play the fallout, which - let's face it - is the far more interesting part.

It also occured to me that the old-style look and feel of Caprica is very appropriately. The story so far reminds me a lot of those early sci-fi short stories from the forties and fifties that asked some of the same "What If?" questions.

A Year in Provance

Via Netflix. Old fashioned Brit comedy based on the book by Peter Mayle. It was sweet but not very challenging. A sort of palate cleanser of a show.

Australian Open - Men's Final

There's going to be an entire decade where tennis players measure themselves with, "And then I lost in the Final against Federer."

The Hollow Man

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Fri, 01/29/2010

Dollhouse Episode Review

In which Boyd is evil now. Yes. I'm sure.

What Happened

Boyd dopes Echo as she comes out of the chair, delaying the reveal that he (Boyd!) is Rossum's co-founder. Needing a chance to blow that Rossum mainframe thingie, Adelle decides to take everyone to Tucson and they'll turn themselves in and see what happens.

What happens is that Clyde - in Whiskey's body - puts Echo in a lab for evaluation and locks everyone else up. Boyd stages a bit of a breakout, then sends Ballard and Mellie off looking for guns while he and Topher try to find the mainframe.

Boyd takes Topher into the Rossum lab, where his prototype Tech for remote imprinting still needs some work. Pointing out that things will be ever less bloody if they can just zap people into a docile state, Boyd persuades Topher to finish the device.

Just as he does, Echo appears and reveals all to Topher and Adelle. Boyd explains that he needed Caroline for her unique physiology. Every time she resists an imprint, she creates an enzyme that inoculates against imprinting. Rossum plans to harvest this from her to protect themselves from their own technology.

Needing to deal with Ballard, Boyd broadcasts the trigger for Mellie's sleeper program. She starts shooting at Paul, but regains enough control not to kill him. Unwilling to be used any further, Mellie turns the gun on herself.

Sierra and Victor's arrival adds to the general confusion, until Topher finally uses his device on Boyd, leaving him in a Doll state. As the others leave, Echo gives Boyd a grenade and an explosives vest and tells him to detonate it after they are gone.

The Good

Logic and explanations. Always good.

Obviously the problem with developing any doomsday device is that you might be caught in the fallout, so it makes sense that Rossum would need a way to protect themselves. This explains why Caroline was so special (physiology) and why Echo was so special (she was always intended to resist the imprints).

We are relying on some pseudo-science here, but this is television. To my mind, it has an internal consistency, so I'm satisfied.

The performances, particularly from Harry Lennix as Boyd, also carry things along. The core cast of this series was very strong and this episode gives everyone something to do.

The Bad

Not enough time.

Not enough time to deal with Mellie and Paul and really build to what she does. They were essentially coasting on good-will left over from the first half of season one - which was the last time these two were being played together - and they almost but not quite have enough juice to get there.

Doesn't help that the scene itself is something of a cliche. "You can fight this," he says melodramatically. And it is something of a sidetrack from the main plot when the issues it raises deserve more examination.

And I really wish I knew when Claire became Clyde. Was she Claire in the hotel room in "Getting Closer," honestly in love with Boyd and he messed with her head before bringing her back to the Dollhouse? Or had he gotten to her weeks before then and done some reprogramming to pull her in line with his plans? Figured as long as he had her there, might as well get laid?

Or was "she" Clyde all along and hello gender and identity politics can open, worms everywhere? Not enough time to really play with the possibilities here.

Finally, Clyde has a throwaway line about how his original "got stuck in a loop," indicating that someone, likely Boyd, is using the imprints in ways closer to what they did to Perrin and selectively changing personality traits rather than doing wholesale wipes. Which is and in some ways always was a truly subversive and creepy possibility that I wish they'd played with more.

In the moment, it plays into Boyd's declaration that he wants his family about, albeit only if they play along with him. (Shades of "Belle Chose.") But there's no time to pull it out and look at it closer.

In fact, we don't even know if Boyd is Boyd. Body-swapping is the whole point. How do we know it wasn't a scam from the start and that they didn't just grab some random schmuck off the street and program to think he's a criminal mastermind?

The Cliche

"Let's blow up this one gizmo and that will solve everything!" It's like the violent flip-side of "Let's put on a show and raise enough money to save the farm."

Oh, you poor naive little kids. Like this multi-gazillion dollar corporation isn't going to have back-ups to the back-ups when they have back-ups to the senior partners' brains?

What Did I Think?

To be fair, the last five seconds of this episode (and all of "Epitaph One") argue that the writers have thought this out, even if the characters have not, because obviously Rossum still went ahead with their nefarious schemes.

There's one more episode to pull it all together.

Getting Closer

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Thu, 01/28/2010

Dollhouse Episode Review

In which Topher and Bennett are happy for about fifteen seconds.

What Happened

Echo announces that Caroline met with Rossum's co-founder and is the only one who can identify him. Caroline's backup wedge is missing, however, so Adelle has DC programmer Bennett brought to LA to fix the busted version in Topher's lab.

She refuses, remembering how Caroline pretended to be her friend in order to gain access to Rossum. Bennett didn't mind that as much as when Caroline messed up the part where they set off the bombs and left Bennett lying in the rubble.

Just as Bennett changes her mind, and she and Topher share a kiss, Claire (Whiskey) returns to the Dollhouse with Boyd. Observing that Topher really seems to love Bennett, Claire shoots Bennett in the head!

Adelle, having had to do some shooting of her own to keep from getting fired, orders all the Dolls released and everyone else evacuated. As the others leave, Topher finishes repairing the wedge and plugs Echo into the chair.

Caroline had left Bennett behind intending to give herself up and take the fall for the explosion. Thinking that this was the end of the road for Caroline, Adelle and Dominic sent her off to a meeting with the heads of Rossum - Clyde... and Boyd!

The Good

I usually try to stay away from exclamation points, because OMG! I am not thirteen! but this episode earns two of them.

I was waiting for the reveal that Bennett was evil or programmed to be evil and was going turn on Topher, when uh-oh... in wanders a very oddly-behaving Claire. Not that she's been spectacularly normal lately, but she's been off snuggling with Boyd. She has to be a good guy, right?

Because Boyd's a good guy, right? Then, I spend about ten minutes feeling sorry for man and wanting to give him a hug and it turns out he is most definitely not a good guy. He is - in fact - a very bad guy.

Well. Hell.

The Bad

I really feel November and Ballard got the short end of the stick here. And will continue to feel that on into the next episode. The outlines of a truly intense emotionally messy connection are there, but there is simply not enough time to fill it all in.

And what good is it to release all the Dolls and lie to them that their contracts are up? The guy who came in last Thursday is going to see the date and do the math. And if he was in some sort of legal or emotional pickle, it's still gonna be there - five days later.

The Cliche

The Shock Death that Whedon pulls out an awful lot will eventually lose its impact. We've seen this grand tragic end on a regular basis. It hurts here because Bennett and Topher are so perfect for each other, but the awareness of the manipulation is kind of an issue.

What Did I Think?

Never fall for someone in the opening credits. Even if you are Summer Glau.

The Attic

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Thu, 01/28/2010

Dollhouse Episode Review

In which we see the attic. And man is it creepy.

What Happened

Echo works the dream sequence for a bit before figuring out that she's in the Attic. Attacked a spooky black creature, Echo gets unexpected help from Dominic, the ex-security head who was a NSA mole. He explains that the creature is called Arcane. It uses peoples' fears to travel from mind to mind, killing them from within.

Pulled into another person head while following Arcane, Echo learns that Rossum's mainframe is vulnerable - from a little Japanese man with no legs. Arcane appears shortly after Dominic does. When the Japanese man is killed, his brain begins to shut down, forcing Echo and Dominic to move on.

While this is going on, Adelle wants Topher to figure out how to resurrect Ballard. She orders him to put the Active architecture into Ballard's head. When Topher wakes Paul up and they have to explain what happened to him, he is very upset by the news that he is technically now a Doll.

Echo and Dominic land in Anthony's head and free him from his repeating loop. Finding Priya, they set a trap for Arcane and knock him into the clear. Arcane turns into a little man named Clyde. His worst nightmare is a world driven mad by the Dollhouse technology. Clyde sputters bits of information like, "everyone in the Attics are the mainframe." Rossum is using them as human computer processors, so he went around trying to reduce the number of CPUs.

Clyde explains that he was one of the two original founders of Rossum. They built the imprint technology and tested it on Clyde in 1993. Clyde's partner fried Clyde's brain, then downloaded Clyde 2.0 into another body and put Clyde in the Attic. His loop has being running scenarios on the Tech - all but 3% include the end of civilization. They need to identify Clyde's partner, but the only clue is that he may have once met with Caroline.

Echo gets herself shot, hoping to wake up disengaged. Priya insists on going with her and Anthony follows. Dominic and Clyde remain behind to help out from the inside.

Back in the real world, Echo tells Adelle that her plan worked. They have the information they need to bring Rossum down.

Now all they need is Caroline.

What We Learned

  • Safe to say, Boyd does not want a blankie.
  • It's a sport analogy.
  • Darth Vadar kills lieutenants. Not stormtroopers.
  • I think we can all safely say that this isn't real.
  • Never ruin the Highlander vibe.
  • Topher doesn't buckle. Occasionally, he swash buckles.
  • All the Attics are connected.

What Did I Think?

Now we get to the meat of the matter. (Not the cannibal suishi meat, thank you. Did I need that image in my head. No. I did not.) Again, it's sci-fi and probably wouldn't hold up to strict scrutiny, but Rossum's plans have a certain synergy that is carrying everything along.

Stop Loss

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Tue, 01/26/2010

Dollhouse Episode Review

In which we meet Anthony.

What Happened

With Victor's contract up, Adelle sets up one last Miss Lonely Hearts assignation with "Roger," only to listen to him admit that there is someone else. Topher can't account for it, but it becomes clear that what she encountered was Victor's hang up over Sierra.

It's a rather ugly break up - emotionally speaking.

The next day, Topher brings Anthony Ceccoli back to himself - five years just like that - all the PTSD cured. Boyd tells Anthony about the exit program, his trust fund and follow-up routine. Which goes kind of haywire when armed men break into Anthony's hotel room and kidnap him.

Fortunately for him, Topher has been monitoring Anthony's vitals and informs Boyd when the "squigglies" go off the charts. Boyd and Echo investigate and discover that a lot of former Actives who are in the armed forces have been snatched in similar ways. It's a super-secret army implanted with Rossum tech that connects them in a Hive mind.

Adelle is still nursing her broken heart, so Boyd turns to Topher, whose predictions about the group mind are rather bleak. After getting some mad skillz downloads from Topher and Ivy, Echo asks them to wake up Sierra and turn her back into Priya.

Echo hopes that Priya will jog Anthony's memories if necessary. It works - barely - so Echo leaves Priya and Anthony to fend for themselves and goes off to rewire the Hive. Injecting herself with an implant, Echo starts giving orders to the soldiers: she sends them all home.

That problem solved, Echo suggests that Priya and Anthony run rather than go back to the Dollhouse. But it's too late - Adelle has them remote wiped and brought in. Deciding that there is no way to control Echo, Adelle condemns her to the Attic.

The Good

Adelle getting her groove back. She's been on a bit of a roller coaster the past few episodes, personally and professionaly. Watching her spit, "If you're so powerful, why are you still my house, sneaking around, trying to find your comotose boyfriend?" at Echo is priceless. I do wish we'd gotten more of Adelle's backstory in order to really connect her different levels, but Olivia Williams sells what she has to work with.

The Bad

Plastic wrap? The best they can come up with in the Attic is tucking people in Tupperware covered in plastic wrap? They couldn't even come up with some sort of snazzy lid?

The Cliche

Super soldiers. Why does no one ever turn their swanky Hive mind into a way to build a better doctor? Or teacher? Or meter maid? Wouldn't using the technology to create menial workers be just as morally wrong and creepy, but less cliched?

What We Learned

  • Topher can barely keep a belch to himself.
  • All we have left is naughty pirate wench.
  • Save the small talk until after the gun fight.

What Did I Think?

I appreciate the focus on Victor/Anthony. The parts of him readjusting to the real world were strong. I'm also fascinated by the logistics of the Dollhouse routine, so that was kind of neat.

Equally strong was his and Priya's weird little relationship. It really works for some reason. I think because they are both so calm and not melodramatic about it. Echo's wide-eyed stares at Ballard as if he's the Only One in the World For Her just bore me. Melodrama much? (Her picking fights with Adelle, however? That I like.) Anthony and Priya have a sweetness to them without being cutesy and cloying.

A Love Supreme

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Mon, 01/25/2010

Dollhouse Episode Review

In which there is Alpha.

What Happened

Someone keeps killing off Echo's old clients, primarily clients she was programmed to be in love with. All signs point to Alpha, who promptly pops out of the woodwork wearing a truly indescribably horrible shirt and tie combo and takes credit for the massacre.

All this has been his way of getting back into the Dollhouse so that he can get his hands on Paul Ballard. Having observed Echo and Ballard all summer, Alpha is sure that Echo's feelings for Ballard are love, true love, and Alpha wants to know why.

The attempt to pry Ballard's brain open and see what makes it tick, however, ends with Ballard being rendered brain dead. With no other ideas, Alpha downloads Ballard's imprint into his own head, picks a fight with Echo and then...

...Well. Then, it's time for the episode to be over, so he just kind of leaves.

The Good

Alan Tudyk. Always good. Even when wearing that ridiculous outfit. He is, as usual, the perfect way to shake things up and I would have been a little disappointed if we hadn't gotten one more chance to play with Alpha before the end.

The Bad

That said, the plan? She makes no sense.

All that fuss to get your hands on Ballard? You couldn't have just snatched him while he was out on a Starbucks run?

The Cliche

And with that said, I must admit that Alpha's Batman-villian flavor of crazy isn't so unique as it was ten years ago. Nor his obsessive "love" that dictates an annual storming of the castle just because there's nothing better to do.

What Did I Think?

But the ending? Sweet.

Oh, not the bit where Echo and Alpha rip off the Buffy-Angel smackdown from "Innocence." I mean the bit where they leave Ballard brain dead. With no other option but to use the Dollhouse technology to bring him back, that will put quite the dent in his moral high ground.

Meet Jane Doe

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Mon, 01/25/2010

Dollhouse Episode Review

In which Paul and Echo figure things out. And Topher should probably not be giving Adelle that much lip.

What Happened

In a Doll state, Echo wanders around trying to find enough food to survive. When she impulsively shoplifts, another woman is caught up in her arrest and taken away. Echo, meanwhile, taps into one of her personalities and kicks enough butt to escape.

A few months later, we see the new order of things. Echo has teamed up with Ballard to figure out her next step. Adelle has been demoted - and is so not happy about it. And Topher is working on a top secret project for Rossum utilizing his remote wipe technology.

Suspecting that his work is just one piece of the puzzle, Topher confides in Adelle that he's been dragging his feet. The device that Rossum really wants - which Topher just happens to have drawn out plans for - would allow for remote wipes and imprints of anyone. Anywhere. Without the need for Active architecture to be installed first.

Now able to access her personalities at will, Echo and Ballard have been training together over the summer. Her last test is to use her knowledge to free the woman imprisoned because of her. It works - eventually - so Echo and Ballard call Boyd. They are ready to come back to the Dollhouse.

Where Adelle has just handed Topher's research over to Rossum in exchange for regaining control of her House.

The Good

Seeing Echo "in the wild" building her own identity. It was nice that they took that time. The explanation of how her integration works or doesn't work is necessary to set up her future actions and abilities.

The Bad

There is an awful lot of time spent on Echo's little friend.

She's interesting in theory, as part of Echo's journey, but so much as a real person. It's kind of like a cut-rate Pretender episode over here.

The Cliche

Cops. Corrupt cops. Corrupt Southern cops. Corrupt racist Southern cops.

Not to diminish the world's problems with either corruption or racism. But seriously? We need to put this one to rest.

And also the workout that is a stand-in for sex? I'm too busy rolling my eyes to enjoy the shirtlessness. That's just wrong.

What Did I Think?

It's a necessary episode to set up how Echo will work now. I wish we could have seen Echo contacting Ballard, but their scenes together had a good mix of exposition and character.

The thing I'm doing now with this show is playing with ideas about where they had to slice back the story to fit the fact that cancellation was immeninent. It's easy to imagine "The Left Hand" as a season finale, with "Meet Jane Doe" picking up again after a summer break.

The Left Hand, pt. 2

Submitted by thinkwatchthink on Sat, 01/23/2010

Dollhouse Episode Guide

In which Enver Gjokaj and Fran Kranz steal the show.

What Happened

At the DC Dollhouse, Perrin is scheduled to be reprogrammed so that he can go into the Senate hearing and exonerate Rossum. Echo is handed over to Bennett, the DC version of Topher. She recognizes Caroline and blames her for the injury that left Bennett's left arm paralyzed.

Sent in to get Perrin's brain-scan, Topher geeks cute over Bennett, who responds in turn. Bennett isn't about to let Caroline off the hook, however, and blames Echo when she and Perrin escape.

While Echo urges Perrin to expose Rossum, Bennett remotely activates an assassin program in Perrin and points him at Echo. She escapes, but Perrin kills his wife Cindy before Topher is able to undo Bennett's actions.

Later, Perrin walks into the Senate hearing and announces that Rossum was the victim of industrial espionage. Madeline, he claims, was a mental patient they used to trick him. And his enemies killed Perrin's wife when he got too close to the truth.

Seemingly unnoticed in all this, both Echo and Ballard have vanished...

The Good

Cindy is - when you think about it - a very interesting character. She was essentially a Doll, locked into a persona twenty-four-seven, but without the ignorance of her status. Does that make it better or worse? She has the illusion of control (she is the one with the gun) but the responsibility of seeing out Rossum's plan can't have allowed her to exercise that in any way. That's just twisted.

And speaking of twisted, how can I not give love out to Topher and Topher 2.0? Whoever thought of putting Topher's personality in anyone's body was a genius. Enver Gjokaj totally sells it, while the scene itself is so cute I'm practically in sugar shock.

The Bad

They don't earn Perrin's flip-flop in the Senate.

We last see Echo pleading with him to do the right thing, but then we go to a commercial break. When we come back, Perrin is completely on-script and tossing Madeline to the wolves.

One of two things has to happen during that break. Either Perrin was recaptured and reprogrammed in under an hour or two - yet somehow Echo got away. Or Perrin decided on his own that he would go along with Rossum's plan and exchange his free will for safety and power.

(Actually, that second scenario would have been a really interesting one to explore.)

I suppose that Bennett could have plotted the whole thing from the start and "killed" Cindy for Perrin as part of the original cover program because Cindy was sick and tired of playing the good wife. Bennett might have planted a flip-switch that would pull Perrin back in the second someone gave a code word or he walked into the hearing chamber.

Any way you slice it, that's a lot to yadda yadda yadda past. Not having that piece distracts me from the full impact of what Perrin does and says in that moment. Which is a shame, as that scene is kind of the whole point here.

The Cliche

Bennett is a sweet variation on the standard issue Cute Geek. Not as pliant as Early Willow; not as Spaced Out Genius as Late River. But she's still essentially a TV show trying to convince me that putting Summer Glau in a pair of glasses makes her a socially awkward outcast who is surprised when guys find her attractive.

What Did I Think?

The ideas in the this plot are very strong - the political machinations, seeing inside the DC Dollhouse, and the use of it all to propel Echo out on her own. There's just that one glitch at the end.

That said, the apple cart is successfully upended with Adelle flying into battle against her internal enemies and Echo and Ballard estranged from the Dollhouse - loose cannons on a very unstable map.

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