Anyone have thoughts about this episode?
I take it that they did indeed mass wipe huge amounts of the population, creating a military force that was essentially zombies. It sounds like they did it through the phone, using distance wiping and implanting.
I wonder if Topher did made the technology that did it.
Will Season Two pick up from here, or go back to fill in the gaps?
Great episode, by the way.
Surely they wouldn’t change the whole show that drastically for the second season-- I imagine it’s going to be something like once or twice per season they do a future episode, with the rest of the season getting us to that point. Else the main cast members will be stuck being guest stars in their own show.
But I really have no clue.
Good episode tho, I think the fact that it didn’t air actually makes it sort of more interesting, in a way.
By the by, I loved hearing what I assume to be (my favourite) Dichen’s real accent.
Wait, what!? There was a new episode and nobody told me?!
I believe it was included as an extra on the DVD release. Is there anyplace else you can watch it?
Also, I heard that they reused some of the footage in other episodes during the season. How much, and is it really noticeable?
“Epitaph One” was done around the time of filming of “Omega” (the US season closer) and was intended for foreign markets to complete a contractual obligation to supply 13 episodes. FOX apparently didn’t contract for it, so it wasn’t shown in the US. It is on the DVD, however.
Apparently it will not be shown on HULU, but may be available via iTunes (can’t check right now). It will be interesting to see whether they eventually go ahead and show it on broadcast as a lead-in to Season 2.
Apparently the DVD also includes the original, unaired pilot; this, not “Epitaph One”, would be the episode for which some footage was re-used in other eps.
If it doesn’t show up on hulu or fox.com I’ll probably get it form itunes or maybe get the dvd. Fortunately there are now ways to see missed episodes of a show - in the good old days once it was gone it was gone. 
Poor Victor. The executive that had taken over his body mentioned something about Topher and Adelle had earned their place in “The Ark”. Maybe the apocalypse was part of some larger plan. A attempt to create a new society of people perhaps. Anyway, the doomsday scenario was surprisingly chilling.
A story I heard was that FOX was concerned about the budget when it came time to decide whether to renew. Joss shot this on 1/4 the budget of a typical episode, just to prove he could do it for less, if need be.
He must have saved a bundle on lighting the set.
Coming across this with no context regarding the ep, its availability and inclusion of spoilers is a bit frustrating.
So it sounds like this ep has some important plot-twisty stuff in it?? So is it fair to assume that Season 2 on Fox in the U.S. will reflect these twists?
oy.
The DVD is currently winging its way to me but I’m a spoiler hoor. Epitaph One is set in 2019, with flashbacks to earlier times.
Season 2 (Yay, Dollhouse got another season!) will continue the story we’ve seen on TV. Although I think certain bits will resonate better if you’ve seen the future as shown in Epitaph One, it’s not necessary to understanding the ongoing story. (And–is it the Real Future or a Possible Future?)
Fox will pretend the episode didn’t happen. (Well, it hasn’t happened–it’s still 2009.) Unless their PR department gets a wild hair & decided to show The Forbidden Episode after all.
All good - thanks, BB - I see the thread titled was updated, too; thanks mods.
Here are some EW interviews from Comicon. There is one with Joss and Eliza; he explains where the episode fits into canon… or does it?
Just saw it. Read somewhere that it’s considered canon, but the bits that were memories flashes are of course considered possible unreliable narrator, and also the context of them may give them a different meaning than is apparent.
I guess I liked it. It was very very different. Much darker. It also felt a little bit like ‘wrap up a show that might be cancelled’. Felicia Day is always nice. The little girl bit was twisty. I liked it as as an episode by itself, or as a series ender, but as an episode within the context of the larger series, coming in the middle, it’s a little odd. And it’s a little disappointing to already know so much about where the show is heading. Also wondering how Victor and Whiskey get healed.
Yeah, what’s up with that?
Okay - thanks a lot; I spent my money and got the DVD’s and took a look at the ep. Very interesting and cool - glad that it took the concept of loading in personalities/minds/souls into host bodies was taken to its logical extreme. Loved the characters introduced - it was a great show of scriptwriting craft that the world of 2019 felt like it unfolded naturally - characters laid out, lingo created, continuity from Today’s world established with strategic inferences and glimpses.
Overall - cool.
Anything else in the set I should look out for? I literally bought it, loaded in the disc and watched it. Haven’t gone through the rest of it yet…
I don’t know but I’m just glad they fixed poor Amy Acker’s face. The things Joss does to that poor girl… First she gets all blue and creepy on Angel, now all scarred for Dollhouse. LEAVE HER ALONE MR. MEANIE JOSS!
I just got the DVD and “Epitaph One” is bitchin’. It was definitely a very good episode (and others said, the logical endgame of the Dollhouse and the Rossum Corporation), but it worries me that we know so much about the future now. Will that make season 2 episodes feel kind of lame?
Also, watching the original pilot, “Echo”, really makes me question the wisdom that Fox executives are always wrong. It was terrible the way it was. But a good 50% of the episode was shown in different contexts in different episodes where they worked much better.
I think if they had led with that episode we never would have gotten a season 2 because the story would have went in the entirely wrong direction.
I finally got around to seeing this crazy episode. It really was an excellent show, it was compelling and exciting, very well written and acted. It is possible one of the best hours of any Joss show, but I still can’t shake the feeling it was a bad idea.
This is assuming that this is the actual future for this continuity, also the the show will now continue from the present time point. Both of these seem to be the case.
I know this future jump thing is a storytelling technique that can be used very effectively, especially in a self contained story like in a book. I really just don’t like when TV shows take this approach for two very important reasons. The first is that it just scares me from a practical standpoint. I value continuity in a show like this, so a radical jump into the future makes it a little too easy for the writers to write themselves into a creative hole. I’m not doubting that these talented writers can make it all make some kind of sense, but now they have a distant point for the characters that will limit the decisions they make.
What if the story would be best served to kill of a character who we now know to be alive and well after the apocalypse? Sure they COULD do it, and we’d all have a little mystery to decode on how they are going to resurrect the character, but the point is they’ve now created hoops for themselves to jump through, obstacles in creating an organic and evolving narrative like TV shows are supposed to do.
Shows have to constantly create some kind of tension and suspense. Now that we know where the characters will be in 2019, the focus of that suspense will no longer be the “is this character going to die?” variety, it’ll be the “hey…how does this plot twist jive with the future I’m already aware of” sort. It will be super easy for the writers to fall on that old crutch of just introducing a slew of mini mysteries that they probably don’t even know the answer to yet. In other words, this show is in danger of becoming Lost. Or Heroes…ugh
I’m all for a twisty mythology and all, but Joss has never been about twistiness for twistiness sake, his stories are supposed to tell us something about ourselves, to explore the blacks and whites and grays of everything that is human. I can’t help but feel that this new stuff will be a distraction to that process.
Also in the practicality vein, what happens if (God forbid) one of the actors is unable to continue on the show? In order for the story to have any semblance of closure we need to see how we got from A to B. There are any number of things that could go wrong that would have been a simple matter of writing around before, but now threaten to unhinge the entire story. Especially consider how this show is always a threat of being canceled at any minute. Where Joss could have continued to work with a neat little package that could wrap up at any point, now he’s got a huge epic that in all likelihood he won’t be able to complete with any sort of satisfaction.
My second concern is just as a consumer of good fiction, the whole working backwards thing just ruins a lot of the suspense for me. This episode felt like I was halfway through a great book I was enjoying, then I skipped to one of the last chapters. Sure it was a great chapter, but I would have much rather gotten their organically and enjoyed the process.
I understand that this is where Joss wanted to end up with the concept anyway, it is the logical conclusion to the show’s premise. I also understand that part of the consideration in making it was so that we can see this awesomeness in a show whose future was uncertain. I just feel that it would have worked way better at a different time, even if it was hastily thrown in as a final episode after they got the inevitable cancellation notice. As it stands now, it just leaves me feeling a little empty inside.
Someone tell me I’m wrong or that I’m taking it too seriously, I concede both of those things are definite possibilities:)
I just watched this last night, and I really enjoyed it. Now I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction. I know comparisons to Lost have been made on a negative basis, but Lost really improved when they did the flash-forward. And the fact that memories are unreliable stills keeps some suspense. Didn’t Joss say he was gonna kill off a major character this season (If it’s Topher, I’m done)? Plus, we’ve got a ten-year span to cover, and we have no idea when these events take place.
I think if this show can survive long enough to go through with this whole storyline, it could easily be my new favorite show.