It's supposed to be getting more interesting around now, right?
Gray Hour. Echo becomes a burglar so she can perform a dangerous art break-in. Meanwhile Ballard challenges Lubov and Adelle makes a disturbing confession.
Comments after if you got 'em. Also, anyone planning to watch the new Nathan Fillion show? I believe it starts next week.
Have a nice weekend, y'all.
I thought this was the best episode yet — and I was totally psyched out by the fake gang rape at the beginning, thinking they’ve gone too far even for this show, and the reversal came just quickly enough for me to not turn off the TV. Some very interesting implications in everything that happened and the new revelations about Alpha (especially knowing the casting spoiler) are particularly full of possibilities, some of which I’ve seen spec about elsewhere. This episode gave me hope, enough to keep hanging in there. We finally got to see more of the other dolls, and Eliza Dushku seems to be figuring out how to play the role. I find myself beginning to root for Echo, making her steamy-room Picasso self-portrait.
I do so wish we could get rid of the phrase, “Did I fall asleep?” I HATE that and it was repeated so many times. Perhaps that can be the Dollhouse drinking game? Drink when someone thinks they’ve fallen asleep but have actually been mind-wiped.
Hee! Lowell is provoked by the phrase too, and now whenever Ecco says, “Did I fall asleep?” he says “Why yes you did!” I see why they thought it’d be a cool-useful indicator …but irritating.
I liked last night’s episode okay (last week’s was the worst clunker for me — just terrible): High points were the development of Sierra & Victor characters, particularly Sierra. The Agent Ballard character is a bore so far.
Have high hopes the show is going to snap together in the next few weeks — raise high the roof beams!
I enjoyed this ep, too, which isn’t really something I can say of the previous three. I was entertained enough not to spend the entire time analyzing the subtext, which was nice.
It still bugs me that it’s the minor characters, though, like the guys on the heist team, or even the “Taffy” persona, that I’m most interested in. Adele is sort of interesting, but Topher just repels me in every way, and Boyd is just Mr. Dependable and that’s sort of boring.
Still, this was the first week that I was left wanting more, so that’s promising.
I liked this episode the best so far, too. It had a nice cleverness and tension to the plot and some snappier dialogue which may relate more to the characters the dolls were playing than anything else. I hope not.
Saw it, liked it, enjoying that Boyd is being drawn into complicity with Echo, and her very preliminary gathering of a feeble little brain gang in the middle of the Dollhouse. My favorite character was the nice art thief she saved. I like the way they’re handling her growing self-awareness, that it’s not all about flashbacks and memories so much as awakened instinct and a sense of disturbed complacency; the cubist art was a neat way to convey that.
Castle was better than I thought it would be, which isn’t saying much. I don’t think I’ll watch again, despite good old Nathan Fillion struggling valiantly to turn his character into something with more depth and charm than the “boys will be boys” smarminess he’s set up for. Wouldn’t be surprised if the show caught on, since it’s classic dram-rom-com stuff (see “Moonlighting” and all that).
Maybe it’s nostalgia for “Moonlighting,” but I rather liked “Castle” and I’ll watch it again. Fillion is just fun to watch, I think because he’s clearly having fun working. I liked the family relationships, too, and the Stephen J. Cannell and James Patterson cameos.
I began as a lover of all things Joss, so I might have been biased. I didn’t mind the first episode (knowing as I do that most Whedon shows are slow burners) but there was something about it I couldn’t nail down. Finally after four episodes I know what it is: This show’s not easy to like because it has no moral center. Everyone in this show is complicit in some way. Even Echo supposedly has some kind of past, something she did that led her to join the Dollhouse. Because of that, it’s hard to root for anyone on this show. Even her handler (who’s a great character) is part of the evil. Sure, he looks out for her and protects her and we can see his wheels spinning over the moral ambiguities, but at the end of the day, he still does his job.
Once I realized that and embraced it, loving Dollhouse became easy. It’s twisty and turney and it’s got light moments (usually involving Topher who I adore) and it’s great escapist TV. Unfortunately I think the gray morality will eventually turn too many people off. No matter who they root for, at some point the show is going to put the mirror to their face, and no one likes self-examination.
Watch Dollhouse, Friday nights on FOX!
I began as a lover of all things Joss, so I might have been biased. I didn’t mind the first episode (knowing as I do that most Whedon shows are slow burners) but there was something about it I couldn’t nail down.