Joss Whedon's Dollhouse

[Kyle]

is full of win. Discuss.

For those not up to date, the gist is:

In Dollhouse, Eliza Dushku plays a young woman called Echo, a member of a group of people known as "Actives" or "Dolls." The Dolls have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas, including memory, muscle memory, skills, and language, for different assignments. They're then hired out for particular jobs, crimes, fantasies, and occasional good deeds. On missions, Actives are monitored internally (and remotely) by Handlers. In between tasks, they are mind-wiped into a child-like state and live in a futuristic dormitory/laboratory, a hidden facility nicknamed "The Dollhouse".

This first episode (which aired tonight) was pretty fantastic, in my opinion, and Eliza Dushku did a lot to assuage fears that she isn't a flexible enough actress to play so many disparate characters.

What'd you guys think?

(P.S.: To prevent undue crankiness, spoilers are best avoided or housed in spoiler tags. To demonstrate, I will reveal an embarassing fact about one of the FBTB Staff!

Don has a difficult-to-medicate nipple chafing disorder.

)

[Solo]

I was somewhat underwhelmed. She doesn't know how to use an inhaler for one thing. I'll withhold judgment for another episode or two at least.

[Firespray]

I have to check it out online, missed most of tonight's episode so I didn't really get a feel for it

[uubergeek]

i watched it tonight right before battlestar... and i'll say, it was ... ok... really didn't just pull me in... loved that a bunch of former firefly/bsg folks were on there, but the story was just all that great for me... maybe it will pick up quickly...

[enigmabadger]

Apparently, not everyone is thrilled with the concept of the series.

Having not watched any episodes, I really can't comment, but as a fan of Whedon's work, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that it works and isn't crass exploitation.

That said, I'd be way more interested in a Dr. Horrible series

[Solo]

Reading the article I understand the trouble he seems to have gotten himself into. It's a bit of a hard sale but he knows what he's doing and needs time to really get the story rolling to show off how unmisogynistic the concept can be. But, it's on Fox, so it'll be canceled within a month or two.

edit: I wasn't the only one unimpressed. So, who wants to start a pool? I say it'll last six episodes... and I'm being generous.

[Kyle]

Dude, it's a Whedon show on Fox. Of course it's gonna get canned.

On the other hand, with Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse together on Friday nights, Fox is closer to their desired 5.5ish million Friday primetime viewers than they have been in a while, according to my girlfriend who pays attention to such things, so maybe there's hope after all! (Dollhouse had about 4.7 million viewers, which is surprisingly close to the target considering the lack of advertising from FOX and the negative hype from people determined to focus on the OMG-she-has-no-free-will aspect instead of the she's-obviously-going-to-be-regaining-her-free-will aspect.)

[Solo]

Well, I'll give you one thing, blocking those two together made me tune in... but now I'm just confused and disappointed since I've missed out on the rest of this new Terminator season.

[liquidcross]

I have no more respect for Joss Whedon. Buffy wasn't my thing, but he deserves credit for it. But too many of his subsequent properties have been shameless ripoffs of other properties, and he claims them as his own. (e.g., Firefly from Star Trek, Astonishing X-Men stories from multiple Iron Man tales from 1990s, etc.)

Dollhouse? I read it over a decade ago, when it was called Aphrodite IX. Ugh. What a scam artist!

[Zepher]

It looks very cool, though I've no time for more shows. I read an article on it, and it did seem interesting.

[theJudeAbides]

liquidcross,

Are you kidding me? How was Firefly ANYTHING like Star Trek? As a fan of both, I see little to no similarities between the two. Other than the fact that they're both shows about a group of people traveling through space, there's no similarities in plot, characters, or overall themes. If you're going to go about making such outlandish statements, you'd better back it up with real, hard facts.

I haven't seen or read any of the other shows you've mentioned, but if they have the same amount of "similarities" as the two shows above, then I'm calling BS.

The fact is, Dollhouse is very original and like nothing previously seen on TV, and I give him props for it. Yes, it had a bit of a slow start, but give it time. Many other great shows have had slow starts as well (Remember Star Trek: The Next Generation's first season?). I applaud Joss for taking chances, trying new things, and expanding the media. The fact that America chose to watch "Ghost Whisperer" and "Wife Swap" over this show is a testament to how stupid America is. Man, I wish America would stop watching crap and watch quality programming such as this and Terminator, before both shows are canceled.

[Solo]

OK, either you haven't really watched Firefly, or you haven't watched Star Trek. Or maybe you just have a brain tumor or something. I can't figure where that connection possibly spurred from.

[Austin]

I'm going to have to agree. You can take virtually any media whatsoever made in the last 200 years and go even further back to something that 'ripped it off'. For that matter, there's no such thing as an original idea, since statistically speaking almost every concept would have already been done by now. If we're going to nitpick, Aphrodite IX would have been a rip-off of Blade Runner (programmed memories) and The Terminator (robots to destroy the government) with a dash of Scud: The Disposable Assassin (assassins). Everything should be judged on it's own merit, not on your preconceptions of whether or not you like the writer/creator or not.

All that said, I found the first episode to be a little ho-hum. I'll give it another week to impress me, but the show didn't feel as strong as it potentially could have. Then again, like Jude said, plenty of shows have rocky beginnings (such as Whedon's own Buffy) and then go on to be strong shows, so maybe this one just needs a few episodes to hit its stride before it's inevitably murdered by Fox.

[Xiphos Systems]

While I expect a lot from the series, I wasn't expecting much from the first episode...as a few of you have said, it's just the pilot, and those aren't always great. Yeah, so it didn't have any great Whedon moments, but just give it a little time.

The only time I've ever been awesomely impressed by a story's exposition is the first chapter of Stephenson's Snow Crash. Somebody has got to make a movie of that sometime.

[GIR3691]

I just watched it, it was kinda' meh. Wasn't bad, but I couldn't really get into it.

I was hooked on Firefly from the first episode, but Dr. Horrible had a very slow start. I'll give Dollhouse a few more episodes. I wasn't a fan of Buffy, and Echo feels like a very similar leading lady. From the pilot, she doesn't seem nearly as interesting as Mal. The only character I liked was Echo's "handler."

[onions]

okay, i watched the third episode last night (dvr), and all i can say is i'm hooked. the last 10 seconds pretty much raised a hailstorm of questions.