Spoilers for episode two of "Dollhouse" coming up just as soon as I put my shoulder to the wheel..."Do you know how to use this?" -Boyd"The Target" is easily the best of the three "Dollhouse" episodes I've seen.
"Four brothers. None of them Democrats." -Echo
The anthological Adventure of the Week was a very well-executed riff on Richard Connell's famous short story "The Most Dangerous Game," given a slight slasher movie update by making the hunter's human prey be an attractive, terrified, scream-prone young woman who slowly learns to fight back. Matt Keeslar, best known around these parts as The Middleman, was suitably bad-ass as our bow-hunting villain(*), and Echo's brassy jock persona was right down the middle of Eliza Dushku's strike zone.
(*) Most of Whedon's leading men -- David Boreanaz, Nathan Fillion, even Tahmoh Penikett -- are cut from the same cloth (tall and strapping but also capable of great self-deprecation) as Keeslar. Though a "Dollhouse" return is obviously out of the question, I wouldn't be surprised to see him join the Joss Whedon Repertory Players.
Just nicely-done all around, and smartly integrated with the flashbacks to how and why Boyd came to be Echo's handler. Because Echo is either a blank slate or a brand-new character each week, there needs to be someone we identify with, and at the moment, that's Boyd. Topher's too creepy, the other Dollhouse personnel too aloof, and Agent Ballard too separated from the main action. Boyd's the one consistent, recognizably human character the show has -- the only Dollhouse employee who seems to have moral qualms about the work they do. Because he cares about Echo, in theory if we care about him our sympathies will then translate to Echo no matter what persona she's adopting. So it was important to quickly get into the backstory of their relationship, and to more properly introduce Alpha, the rogue active who seems to be this show's big bad.
We get some necessary exposition out of the way -- Why is security so tight? Why don't the actives all have default fighting skills? Why does Dr. Saunders have all those scars on her face? -- discover that there's a larger danger to Echo than the people she works for, get our first hints that she's not as blank a slate as Topher believes (she puts her arm to her shoulder even after being wiped), and get a slick self-contained thriller in the process. All in all, a strong enough hour of television that I'm going to save my larger qualms about the series for an episode that actually provokes them.
What did everybody else think?
Here are some scattered thoughts:
ReplyDeleteThe main plotline was laughably bad. I was hoping for more humor in the show, but not from lines like "You know what gives someone the right to live? NOT KILLING THEM!" and "Four brothers - none of them Democrats." It's bad enough that they revisited the high-concept hooker thing so soon, but then the shocking twist is that he wants to hunt her? Really?! REALLY?!
Plus, I was actively bored during much of that plotline, especially when Echo was . I don't mind hating a TV show, but I can't stand to be bored by one.
The flashback stuff where something went horribly wrong three months ago or whenever would be kind of intriguing in a different show, but here it just plays up how terrible the premise is. Because yeah, if you open the most ill-conceived business ever in the history of Earth, things are going to go wrong. Not a shock.
Nice to see three of Eliza Dushku's past selves, all looking and acting exactly the same.
I liked the Spider-Man 2 cake girl scene.
Topher, with his juice boxes and his "I can detect the diff" and his off-putting smirk, is exactly what Whedon haters say all of his characters are like. He's like Xander as seen by someone who can't stand Buffy.
Bullet Time? Really? What year is it?
Heh Great post title.
ReplyDeleteAlan, thanks to you I checked out Middleman (I caught some full episodes streaming on a Japanese site) and I was blown away by how good Matt Keeslar was here. Having played such a relatable fuddy-duddy there, it almost seemed like his younger brother was playing the psycho here. (I kept expecting him to shout something like, "You can't win Dubby!")
If this is the best Dollhouse can do, than Joss & company need to do something different. I covered "Most Dangerous Game" back in grammar school, so even the violent twists they threw in weren't enough. E for effort.
Anyone else think the FBI fangirl was spying on Tamoh P?
While watching Dollhouse all I kept asking was "Why do I care about this show?" This show has nothing that really makes it WORTH watching. What are key pieces of the show that would make a viewer tune in, once you remove the sex?
ReplyDeleteI guess the biggest complaint I have is that the basic premise of this show could be used in 1/2 a dozen other show types that could be much more interesting.
appreciated the flashbacks.
ReplyDeleteotherwise...
for me, what's frustrating (among other things) is that people seem to know the characters' names... was Topher called by name last week? (I know he was this week)
If not - I'm getting tired of "learn the show by reading the publicity."
We should learn the show by *watching the show.*
I was feeling this frustration with some of the new people on Grey's this year. Except New Black Intern (forgive my Scrubs-speak). I'm still not sure why he is there.
Maybe I missed an article.
This wasn't a good episode of TV, but it was a much better episode of Dollhouse. But it was only interesting to the extent that we got to know characters who think Dollhouse is a horrible, nonsensical place -- Alpha and Boyd, primarily, but I even grew to like Mr. Dominic when he pointed out that it is silly to keep Echo around (it really is silly, isn't it?).
ReplyDeleteKeeslar played a ridiculous psycho in a ridiculous storyline, and I can live with that. I look forward to his next project, whatever it may be.
Also, is Mark Sheppard the hardest working guest actor on TV right now?
Count me in with the naysayers who found the "Most Dangerous Game" plotline appalling. "Buffy" could throw in a horror archetype every week because the show was about classic legends coming to life. But "Dollhouse" aims for some sort of futuristic realism where that sort of thing doesn't fit in at all. What's next, a haunted house?
ReplyDeletePlus... would anyone with half a brain really think it's a good idea, after turning a woman into an amnesiac sex maniac yet again, to send her out into the woods with a strange man who's creepy enough to pay for that sort of thing? (Forget the background check -- the fact that someone hires this company in the first place should be enough of a red flag that he's a weirdo.)
As for the "Dollhouse" company itself... Okay, you've got technology that can "imprint" entire skill sets into people, including shooting like a marksman and fighting like a ninja (and, yes, seducing like Jennifer Garner in "Alias" -- which this show is starting to resemble a little too much). Why not just sell it to the Army and the CIA for a couple billion dollars and be done with it?
I really wanted to like this show, and I hope it gets better, but that's looking pretty unlikely. It's hard to care what happens to Echo when she's a literal nonentity (and it looks as if her "real" self won't be that much more exciting), while the company folks are neither interesting enough nor evil enough for us to wonder whether they'll ever get caught. (Plus, Joss' patented brand of sardonic humor seems sadly missing in action.)
On to the next? Let's hope so.
I don't even know which one Mr Dominic is. Sad, huh?
ReplyDeleteDominic, if I'm not mistaken, is the Reed Diamond character.
ReplyDeleteWhat made this episode worse for me was this - I recently watched a horrible B film that had Joe Mantegna in it that had the same idea. And I have no idea what the title is, but it was done much better (granted, the advantages of a movie are more time, but still, it was a pretty bad movie).
Now ... I still find this show pretty bad, although let's see if we can parse out some interesting bits:
a) Love the countdowns (the whole we'll be back in 60 seconds).
b) Is Alpha the Big Bad? There's a lot of ways they can go with this. Maybe Alpha wanted to teach Echo to activate her past imprints (or whatever it was that Alpha did to harness the multiple skills). The end did suggest that the wipes still aren't perfected.
c) I hope Mark Sheppard can land a job somewhere fulltime. He deserves it.
d) I hope they gave Tahmoh a bit more to do, and tell him to loosen his face up. He was all stoic in BSG... and I swear he has less emotion in this, even though he's not supposed to.
There's a lot to critique, as others have already, but one thing I will say is this - for a show about an organization, I hope they show other actives more consistently, akin to what they did last week.
I work with David Willey, the editor of Runner's World magazine. This episode creeped me out because I couldn't help but associate the psychokiller client with David.
ReplyDeleteA picture of David:
http://www.magazine.org/ASSETS/7CCDCCCD2AE84565AD50C40CB5ACDF14/mKahanNMA08.jpg
After last week's incredibly disappointing pilot, this was much better. It's still not a masterpiece, but it had a coherent story and it kept me interested in what was going on.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I really got a kick out of seeing the Middleman turn into a demented killer.
I think there is a much larger point to this story that is missing from this discussion. Did Alpha create or hire Matt Kesslar to purposely start the integration of Caroline with her imprints. I think this was implied by the way the ranger sent to kill Boyd was killed. It was also implied by the deep back story on Kesslar and knowing how Echo's backup worked - out of range location, Kesslar's mention of Echo.
ReplyDeleteObviously, Alpha saved Echo for a purpose - is it good or is it bad. Obviously there is a lot of moral ambiguity here. Is someone killing at the Dollhouse bad - especially if it includes killing doll-stage actives. Or are they good in trying to get Echo to come alive and maybe mercy killing the others. Does Alpha have imprint technology?
So the bigger picture - how did the creation and purpose of the Dollhouse come about. Reed Diamond certainly is only derisive of Echo and the actives, he looks to have military training - was he brought in like Boyd? How did Ballard get the trail of the Dollhouse - is Alpha leading him on? (and yes I think lasagna girl is a plant). Does Alpha remember Caroline or Echo or both. Is he looking to save Echo or set up a rival organization with Echo to bring down the Dollhouse. Will each mission always be question of whether she is being hired by a civilian or being exposed to more re-integration by Alpha - this adds layers to each episode.
I am hooked by the complexity of the interplay of Ballard, Alpha and the Dollhouse and I find Boyd to the human connection that I need right now - he provides the continuity that I need.
thanks to marenamoo for making me interested
ReplyDeleteand toonsterwu for Dominic
and Bid Ted
>anyone with half a brain
for sticking Dr Horrible back into my head.
marenamoo - you're not a plant from Whedonesque, are you?
I love Joss, but they were all really committed last week. and I really do love Joss. he just dosn't write... non-genre and I'm not scifi/fantasy girl (Angel took me three tries and Firefly, I just gave up. I didn't watch Buffy till it was in season 6 and on FX)
I did watch The Pretender, but not till after the first 5 eps had already rerun and i had to beg for tape. My friend tried everything to get me to watch it - and then finally she grabbed by my maternal instinct and yanked. hard. that worked, but really, once I'd seen the mysteries put forth in the first two eps (they were simple mysteries, unlike this) I was hooked. no maternal instinct necessary.
Umm...I'm having trouble keeping all the white blond dudes straight. The psycho killer client looks sort of like the jerky deputy to the stoic executive lady. And the fake cop who shot the driver looked a little like the FBI guy. Even Alpha seems like he might be light-haired? And they've all got a vague military sense about them. I know two of these guys are now dead, so that's not a big deal, but still. Makes me wonder if the big secret is that they're all from the same secret government lab cloning Aryan super soldiers or something.
ReplyDeleteI just hope everyone here is taking into account how much control FOX has over these first few episodes. Luckily, Joss is able to leave the stand-alone so-called excitement episodes and ep6 and gets into the mythology. Shame we gotta wait another couple weeks though. Usually people leave a show by then if they are going to make up their minds eventually. And really, FOX's handprints are all over these episodes. I do think Joss made it work for him in this second episode which resembles a bit of what I read in the pilot script that leaked online last year.
ReplyDeleteWoosers! The fangs are dripping venom in the early comments so something in the show triggers an attack response in a proudly analytic subset of the audience. So yeah, the premise is a science fiction fabrication to allow Eliza Dushku to play a different character each episode. If you can’t gleefully accept the fictional science then there is no way to enjoy anything else in the show.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the show appears to have Cleopatra 2525 potential, and by that I mean 28 episodes.
I gave up halfway through this episode. I was bored and frustrated with how little sense the premise made, and I can't see myself coming to care about any of the characters.
ReplyDeleteWell, judging by the ratings, don't get too attached to Dollhouse because it's about dead already.
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe it's better this way, since even this fan of Buffy and Angel only found this episode OK. I don't understand how anyone could think the premise of this series was a good idea. Basically, the heroin has no personality and no purpose.
Since I'm not familiar with "Most Dangerous Game", this didn't seem like a ripoff to me. And it was pretty damned creepy.
ReplyDeleteIt was also a vast improvement over the first episode, so I think there might be hope. I am, of course, not objective, because I love Eliza Dushku. And because no one else will do it, I'll defend her acting ability. She's not Meryl Streep, but most actresses aren't. I've always thought that Dushku did a much better job than Sarah Michelle Gellar in "Buffy"'s body-switching episodes. She had the voice inflections and the body language down. "What's a stevador?" always makes laugh. What she does, she does nicely. Also, my husband pointed out that she looks fabulous in a pair of camo pants.
I'm not expecting it to last long, but I'll stick with it.
Mark Sheppard is every where these days, and that is never a bad thing. And because Alex Carter is also everywhere (sometimes with Sheppard), I won't be surprised to see him pop up soon.
I liked it.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTo me, one of the flashbacks made it apparent that Alpha is Ballard.
ReplyDeleteI found this episode perplexing.
ReplyDeleteSo, the client says he's just looking for a girl who is who she says she is, and he wants to take her away for a wildnerness weekend. How is this not a high-priced hooker? Is that really the sort of client the Dollhouse people are sniffing out?
How do people FIND the Dollhouse, anyway?
How big is the organization? Who's running it, and for what purpose? Were those all Dollhouse SWAT team members combing the woods and the skies at the end? How can Dominic and DeWitt seriously contemplate a "kill order" on a Federal agent?
What's Dominic's story? He had such contempt for the Actives. Why is he in this business?
And, for that matter, Boyd was just as contemptuous and creeped out in the scene leading up to the "bonding protocol." Why would he stay in the job?
(I realize that some of these questions could turn out to be addressed gradually as the season builds--the problem is that they haven't actually been set up as a Mystery; they just feel like sloppiness.)
And then...seriously? The Most Dangerous Game? Already? And wasn't this originally supposed to be the pilot? (I guess they added the scenes following up the kidnapping after it was bumped to episode 2.) You're really gonna go with the Most Dangerous Game from the word go?
And Topher? Geez. Usually, the wisecracking guy is the Whedon character you root for. This guy's just a jerk.
I want to like this show SO BADLY. But this was really lame. I'll keep trying--for Joss!--but this is turning into a true test of loyalty.
I did like the scene with the lasagne girl, though.
This episode was soooo much better than the pilot. I really wish they had done a two hour pilot that could have set up these characters better. It was great to get a little background through flashbacks this week, but I still feel like we are missing big pieces- and not in that "oh, I can't wait to unravel the mysteries" sort of way. More like the "I'm not buying this without more explanation" sort of way.
ReplyDeleteBut, I love Joss and Tahmoh and Amy Acker- even Eliza. I wish Mark Sheppard had a larger role. Hope we see him again. I'm going to stick with the show and hope it continues to improve.
I had planned on giving Dollhouse 6 episodes to catch my interest, but it turns out that 2 is my limit.
ReplyDeleteThis show is too twisted, brutal, cruel and ugly for me. There is only one moral character, Ballard, but he won't shut down the Dollhouse for at least 5 years, it's clear.
Echo's handler is a sleazy jerk who hired himself out to be an enslaved prostitute's bodyguard, and he's the most humane character within the Dollhouse.
I guess Joss is proud to be making a show as sick as Dexter. I won't be watching anymore.
Really, I understand the whole sex for hire concern, but I think it is just a metaphor for society. Do you think anorexia, fake boobs, face lifts, steroids etc. are to make someone feel better. No it is because we are imprinted by society to think we need to look a certain way. Do you think little girls think they should be thin or are they just dolls? In a way, the whole selling sex to people who can't consent, is in fact, manipulating people the way the gossip rags and ladies magazines are controlling our minds as how to look and behave. We think that we can look away but in fact we can't.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see I'm not the only one having trouble keeping track of the characters. There area an awful lot of people floating around who haven't made much of an impression on me, and I definitely can't remember their names or their motivations. That's not good.
ReplyDeleteI notice that people keep referring to Echo's sexual activities as prostitution. It's not. Prostitutes consent. This is rape, plain and simple. Echo does not consent to sex, any more than someone on Rohypnol does. She consents because she has been programmed to consent. I can't get past that, and seeing her having sex with Middleman creeped me out vastly more than any attempts to kill her did.
Slightly OT: I assume you all heard that Middleman has finally been officially ... er ... put in hibernation in a high-tech vat? They will, however, be giving us some closure in comics. Here's what Javi has to say about it:
ReplyDeletehttp://themiddleblog.livejournal.com/41963.html
I thought it was a definite improvement over last week, and the various threads underlying the show much more clear.
ReplyDeleteHarry Lennix does a great job of conveying weary (and wary) decency.
I think it's worth pointing out that Joss is traditionally kind of a slow-starter when it comes to his shows. "Buffy" was clearly on to something early on, but it wasn't until the second season that it really took hold. Same with "Angel". Obviously we didn't get to find out how "Firefly" might have evolved, but it was really uneven as well.
I'm willing to exercise some patience, mainly because I think the elements are in place for something pretty decent.
If this wasn't a Whedon product, I'd probably already be deleting the season pass from my DVR. Thus far, not impressed. I'll give it another episode or so, but my patience will run out if it does not improve.
ReplyDeleteBetter than the pilot, but the "Most Dangerous Game" riff only compelled me because of the Keeslar. I would have loved to see Good Middleman vs. this guy. Keeslar got GAME!
ReplyDeleteStill, the premise seems limited. The problem with many of the supporting cast is that they are kept in limited positions. Topher is stuck in his computer-box. Adelle is...in her office. Boyd is pretty much the only one who can interact with Echo as part of the plot. And I've had no reason to care so far about the assignments -- Echo's achievements in each are limited, seeing as they're wiped out. It's sort of hopeless, though she does take away little things.
This has until episode six to grab me -- they say that's when it kicks in.
I love Alpha, though. Like the Reavers, he has a great build-up.
(SPECULATION ON FUTURE PLOT POINTS FOLLOWS -- BASED ON FIRST TWO EPISODES, BUT COULD TURN OUT TO BE SPOILERS IN RETROSPECT:)
My theory is that he's Caroline's boyfriend, he was involved in the same mess that got her indentured to the Dollhouse, and now, in his insane state, he's trying to free her by messing with her assignments and programming. That would be a classic Whedon character -- the guy using murder and psychological torture on the woman he loves to reunite with her. And I want to hear how he talks -- do his different personalities cause him to change from sentence to sentence? Some cool Druscilla/River Tam-type rambling potential there.
The whole sex/prostitution/rape component of the show is a valid criticism. I would only point out that in the world of entertainment fiction, sex is always and only a tool for holding the desired audience. There is a mentality in our current circus performances that conceives of sex as merely another bodily function. In other words, Echo having sex on an assignment is no more troubling than Echo sharing an outhouse to take a dump.
ReplyDeleteThis was a much better episode than the first, but I agree with others that there are still major problems with this show. Like Tracey above, I think there are some real moral issues with the nature of the Dollhouse itself. Plot of the week stories aside, there's some really creepy stuff underlying this premise -- in that there's always going to be a power imbalance between clients who *know* the actives aren't real and the actives who are fully-imprinted in their current personas. They seem to be so vulnerable to manipulation, like in tonight's ep, and that gets back to all the icky money = power = dominance stuff. I know Joss screened this show for several women's advocacy groups to get their feedback, and that there were concerns over parallels to human traffickng, but so far I think there are still some very gray areas in the setup that need to be addressed before this can be a show I'll enjoy.
ReplyDeleteBack to thoughts on this ep, though:
Jeff H - I thought Ballard might be Alpha, too, but wasn't the whole incident (ie Alpha's murderous rampage) just 3 months ago? Doesn't seem like Ballard could establish his FBI career that quickly, unless it's all an imprint!
Lasagna Girl - totally seemed like a plant.
It didn't occur to me while watching, but I think peeps here have the right idea that Alpha hired Keeslar to hunt down Echo for the reason of forcing her personality issues.
I don't think Alpha will turn out to be "bad" even if he is the show's Big Bad, cuz he seems to be trying to bring down the Dollhouse and the Dollhouse seems like the real Big Bad to me.
The Echo-Boyd relationship is providing a nice anchor so far, but to me it's just a redo of the Sydney Bristow - Dixon relationship, yet another way this show feels a lot like Alias so far.
Dollhouse is reminding me a lot of last year's bad Bionic Woman Reboot--questionable people manipulating women, a Battlestar star, a former inmate going rogue and on a killing spree, one who may or may not be good...
ReplyDeleteLots of debate here. For me, it's simple. I'm going to give it the season to catch its stride. I think its too early to give up on, given what we know of the reshuffling. I think the "boo Fox meddling" and "go Joss" arguments are too simplistic. Joss has a troubling premise, is off to a weak start, but maybe he can pull it off. I'm willing to wait and see.
This plotline repelled me in many ways, but I was relieved to find out that the agency wasn't aware that Echo was going to be hunted, because honestly, until the guy showed up and shot Langdon's driver, I thought that was what she'd been hired for and it was offensive. That being said, the offense didn't really wear off. It worries me that the characters I find the most compelling are the big creeps here, Topher (compelling, but not likable) and Reed Diamond's character, and that might just be because I'm still excited he's on the show, and expect him to be good even if he's like Ballard opposite here.
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that I couldn't stop watching and my attention span as of late hasn't been supporting a lot of hour shows this season...
This is what I'm hoping:
ReplyDeleteEcho killed Alpha three months ago- he was the guy who wouldn't "wake up."
Echo is the one who can surgically fillet a guy in eight seconds, and did so to the other guy in the woods after killing The Middleman and before returning to Dixon.
As for the "Dollhouse" company itself... Okay, you've got technology that can "imprint" entire skill sets into people, including shooting like a marksman and fighting like a ninja (and, yes, seducing like Jennifer Garner in "Alias" -- which this show is starting to resemble a little too much). Why not just sell it to the Army and the CIA for a couple billion dollars and be done with it?
ReplyDeleteThe entire premise of the show utterly destroyed in one paragraph...how does this stuff get the green light?
I think the application of the tech has to fall under willing suspension of disbelief. Half the super villains in comics could make far more money, far more easily and safely, by finding a legal method of either selling their tech or renting out their services, but the genre requires that they rob banks instead.
ReplyDeleteThe premise is terrific, classic science fiction - assume the mind-wiping/imprint technology works and see how it would be used, what effects it would have on recipients, what the moral/ethical fall-out would be, and so on. I do agree with Alan's point that for many functions, like the K&R specialist from last week, it makes more sense for rich clients to hire the real thing instead of an imprinted active, but other than that the premise is fine to me, and it's ripe to explore fascinating questions about power, memory, free will, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe Dollhouse is not supposed to be sympathetic! It's like SD-6 in Alias, where one of the throughlines will be finding out what these people are up to and bringing them to justice. The twist is the Sydney character doesn't know what's going on, but all the support characters do. Topher is like Marshall without empathy or a conscience. Boyd is like Dixon, although he is compromised to some extent because he knows what's going on (so, some Jack too?). I do think this episode was important for suggesting the main reason he's still there is because of his sense of responsibility for Echo.
BigTed wrote: Why not just sell it to the Army and the CIA for a couple billion dollars and be done with it?
The boss lady (I'm not up on all the character names, either) had a key quote this week, about how messing up would not please her bosses. I'm guessing she's a hired gun and her bosses are using the Dollhouse as an experiment to see how this technology works, with an eye on using it for military/intelligence applicatons down the road.
I don't want to defend the show too much, because the pilot was a mess and this was better but still had execution problems. The quicker they can get to Echo becoming more self-aware and move away from pure stand-alones, the better. I'm encouraged by the report that the back half is much less compromised by network demands, so I'm willing to give it a chance to grow.
I am a HUGE Whedon fan. That said, I just do not like this show so far. I was never a huge Eliza Dushku fan. And I just don't think she has the range or believability for this role (though she was obviously more believable in this episode).
ReplyDeleteI really want to like Dollhouse, but I just keep comparing it to Buffy and Alias.
Honestly, if it wasn't a Whedon show, I would not have watched it to begin with, much less be giving it even a second chance. Because it is, I will give it one more show.
One thing sorely missing, I think, is any kind of humor.
I don't understand the negativity directed towards this show after only two episodes. Were you all expecting the equivalent of Buffy season 3 right from the get-go? I have had many issues with the first two episodes, but I can see where Whedon wants to go with this and, if he gets the chance to go past the initial 13 episodes, I think this will eventually become as great as his prior efforts.
ReplyDeleteAnthony Strand - the twist is not that the guy wanted to hire her, the twist is that the whole thing was set-up by Alpha. Anyway, I agree with a lot of complaints but I think this is one of those shows where if you can hang in for the first 6 episodes it will pay off in a big way.
I am getting a kick out of the comments talking about the implausibility of the premise of this show. DUDE - most shows out there are implausible! If Bret Michaels can get 10+ girls to hop on a bus and follow him around the country like little puppies, then I vote that Whedon gets a pass with his own silly show.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Dollhouse is my guilty pleasure this season. I am not proud of it, but eh. Whatever.
I was hoping for more humor in the show, but not from lines like "You know what gives someone the right to live? NOT KILLING THEM!" and "Four brothers - none of them Democrats."
ReplyDeleteShould she have said "progressives" instead?
(Whoops, sorry, Alan!)
Could Boyde be Alpha??
ReplyDeleteDidn't Echo say - 'you look familiar' to Boyde, which could just be as Boyde but may be more of her Alpha connection bleeding through.
ReplyDeleteAnd then after the bloodbath at the Dollhouse, when Boyde asks - 'What happened to Echo's last handler?' The doctor says 'You're standing in him'
And what better way for the Dollhouse to control Alpha by convincing the prisoner that he has been given the illusion of freedom.
Makes this an updating of The Prisoner
Could Boyde be Alpha??
ReplyDeleteGiven that we saw Alpha at the end of the pilot (albeit from behind), and he was played by a white guy, I'm thinking no.