Posted on March 18th, 2009 in Brick Prior, Doc, Miscellaneous by Doctor Detroit
BRICK PRIOR GIVES THIS COLUMN A FUCK-
MOTHER, JUGS AND BRICK. LET’S GO, LET’S CRANK THIS UP!
Doc: With the recent debut of Dollhouse, Joss Whedon’s return to the small screen, I decided it’d be a fun idea to revisit Whedon’s most successful television series’, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. No, I haven’t seen Firefly, because I blinked and it was gone. c’est la vie. I have it in my Netflix queue though! So soon. Anyway, after the first few episodes of Dollhouse, and a lot of time spent
talking with Brick, we both started noticing a lot of weird parallels between Dollhouse and Whedon’s earlier work.
The main character in Dollhouse is a skinny, a-stereotypical ass kicking girl with an odd name, a strange past, and has an older, more knowledgable male mentor. All of those apply to Buffy, and those parallels are made more glaring by the fact that Eliza Dushku played a similar character in the Buffyverse (I hate that term. I hate it! HATE.) The Dollhouse itself is a mysterious, vaguely powerful or
supernatural place… Very similar to Wolfram and Hart in that regard.
However, while there are these parallels littered throughout Dollhouse, there’s one glaring difference between Dollhouse and Whedon’s earliest work: the characters are completely unlikable. This isn’t anything new to dedicated Whedon fans: Buffy was incredibly annoying from season 1, prone to prolonged melodramatic fits that went from being good storytelling tools to mildly annoying to brain stabbingly ridiculous to unintentionally hilarious. They seem to happen once every other episode, at least. "Buffy." "Angel." "…Buffy." "…Angel, but you’re a v-vampire." Bitch please. The entire strength of Buffy as a series comes from the quality of her
supporting characters–they’re funny, believable, relatable, and it’s easy to get invested in them from day one. And when you look at the
entire universe over it’s televised storyarch, the best characters are neither Buffy or Angel (who does benefit from a lot of flashbacks,
which I think does make him as three-dimensional as the others I’m about to mention). We get to see Wesley go from an inept, goofy
academic (ahem) to a legitimate badass. Cordelia goes from a stuck up bitchy princess to an almost maternal, genuinely likable woman. And when things start to border on getting too unbelievable, Whedon had a knack for bringing in new innocents and developing them extraordinarily well — Gunn begins as a stereotypical thug, Fred a naive Southern good girl caught in a world she doesn’t know, Dawn, as Buffy’s sister, finds her own way, and so on. For all of the supernatural heroes and archvillains and evil paramilitary groups and law firms, Buffy/Angel had a good cast of regular people around them that helped move the story along.
Dollhouse doesn’t have that, and that’s why Dollhouse kind of sucks so far.
The stories we’ve seen so far and the general premise of the show are solid. But there’s no hook. I don’t care about Echo at all, I don’t
care if her memories are reconciled, or who she was before she got Shanghai’d by the Dollhouse. Nor do I care about the FBI Agent trying to reveal the Dollhouse’s secrets. Nor do I care about Alpha, the doll whose programming crashed or some shit and went insane and sliced people up and took off into the night. Neat story, but don’t care. I don’t care, because there’s no reason to get invested in any of this. Casting Buffy alums Eliza Dushku and Amy Acker was a bad idea, because they’re both playing simulcrums of their Buffy alter-egos. Olivia Williams has turned in a performance so far that redefines the phrase "she sucks on this show." Her face is stretched so taut that she makes Joan Rivers look like a bulldog. She’s just there; she adds nothing at all to the show, but because she is such a big name, she’s prominently featured. This is not the woman who turned in the outstanding performance as Rosemary Croft in Rushmore — this is some kind of weird alien clone, like maybe some kind of mutant termites hollowed her out and are masquerading as her. Harry Lennix, as Echo’s handler, brings all of the acting chops he picked up on "24", "Living Single", and The Matrix: Revolutions/Revelations to the stage, in that I keep waiting for him to say "That’s where All State stands" and turn Dollhouse into an insurance commericial. He sucks. Fran Kranz, who is the Dollhouse’s resident programmer/Microsoft Certfied Tech, is pretty
funny, but he’s basically Andrew from Buffy, which makes me wonder why they didn’t just cast that guy. The other Dolls, I don’t care about. The one woman has eyes on each side of her head and looks like a horse; I also don’t care about whether or not the other dude is getting off in the shower because he has the hots for the horse girl, even though his memory has been wiped. Great plot point! The intricacies of brainwashing! It’s like a Manchurian Candidate situation, BUT THOSE AIN’T BULLETS HE’S SHOOTING AWW GROSS. Anyway: Don’t care.
In spite of all this, I have to give Dollhouse a break because obviously a lot of my complaints are in large part due to the show
going through growing pains (show me that smile again / the best is ready to begin! / OOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Brick: I would pay to see that version of Olivia Williams interact with regular folks. Now that would be a show worth watching… not to say that this isn’t a show worth watching, but I think damn near everyone is trudging into this program((me), if you dig that kind of spelling)) with great expectations due to the fact that folks expect a lot from Joss Whedon. But, let’s face it, it’s got the deck stacked against it: one- it’s on Friday night, which will be the Fox Death Slot no matter which way you shake it, as one successful show in that time slot (X-Files) doesn’t count. Two, and this is the biggest thing for me, its’ lead-in show (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) can’t even hold its’ own ratings, so it’s not making for a good choice as a lead-in at the moment.
Another thing that concerns me due to the first few episodes is: how much of this show is pure Joss Whedon, and how much of it is a concession to what Fox wants (or wanted, since all the net rumors have been pointing to Joss pulling out all the stops from episode six onward)? Let’s not count the fact that the original pilot was scrapped, and the aired pilot did a hell of a lot to alienate the casual viewer tuning in. There were no likable characters (save for Agent BULLET HATER Ballard’s obsessed neighbor), no real hook to the concept, and the viewer was just thrust into the world without any sort of preparation or guidance.
Much like real life, you say? Yes, but this is TV, where the viewer’s reception and acceptance of a show is key to its survival. Let’s not take into the fact that all the actors on the show (save for Eliza, and I will deal with my criticisms about her later) feel like substitutes for Whedon-based characters we know and love. What we’re talking about here is the premise, the fact that there is an organization that exists that can grant the wishes that anyone wants… just as long as those people have the money.
Where’s the hook in that (and by hook, I mean easily identifiable character the audience can relate to, because I don’t relate to rich people well)?
If the show started with Echo already aware (who’s to say she wasn’t aware already? She might have been- the pilot doesn’t really bring up the fact that this is the first time she’s aware of stuff or not. Hell, Victor getting a boner in the shower is a bigger plot point (OH GOD NO THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID) in the show, and that was just a b-plot full of funny.
Because boners are funny. BONER BONER BONER.
Granted, another big hook is the presence of Eliza Dushku, but for all the wrong reasons. This still feels like "Faith-lite" to me as much as it isn’t, which infuriates me due to the fact that I am smart enough to know that this isn’t the case, yet my brain still goes "HAY THERE WAS A BIT OF FAITH IN THERE WHEN SHE SAID" and I tell it to shut up repeatedly. Granted, you can’t take the Boston out of the girl, but holy shit- when Echo’s got the blind cult personality going on, and gets her vision slapped into play, I do not expect a hardcore scripture-loving lass to suddenly shout "MOVE YOUR ASS".
Or maybe that was Echo coming out to play briefly…
Things that make you go… hrm.
Anyway, there’s a lot a like about the show in general- as Doc has pointed out to me, once I hit conspiracy mode on a show (LOST, me during the last season of Angel, me during the final episode of Berserk), I am hooked and there’s nothing I can do about it except to bitch when the show’s not on the air. Due to the Dollhouse premise, I am hooked- the idea that every single character has the potential of being wiped and imprinted with a new personality (if they haven’t already- Olivia Williams, I am looking at JOO) is fascinating. Is this the only Dollhouse in existence? Who created the sumbitch? If you willingly become a doll, then why is the FBI involved thinking that it’s some sort of slave trade deal? WHO OUT OF EVERYONE IS POSSIBLY KENYAN?! IS IT BOYD?!
ANSWER MY QUESTIONS. FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS. I AM LIVING PROOF.
Doc: That’s going to get us some more hits on the site! BONER BONER BONER WHURR IS THE KENYANS. Anyway, there is some other stuff I wanted to plug, but since I am making boner jokes there’s no HOOK into the more SRRRIOUS content now. We’ve entered the quirky zone, oh lordy lordy! So that comes Monday! Wil Wheaton and Twitter and old school Chappelle and Boondocks love, AHOY.