Oh, one other nice detail, the special effects that they showed as Echo was being ‘wiped clean’ was a nice callback to the signature conceit of Eliza’s “Tru Calling” - the rewind effect, but inverted this time.
As Tru Davies, the world goes backward a day, and nobody else can remember, only Tru.
As Echo, the effect is only inside her head, and she’s the only one who CAN’T remember her experiences.
It takes time for a new series to get good. Actors need to settle into their roles. The writers need to set the framework. Season 1 of *Buffy *and *Angel *were noticeably worse than the rest. Alexis Denisof and David Boreanaz flourished after settling.
The exception, of course, is Firefly, but that wasn’t shown in order and ultimately got cancelled. I think the metaphor of Joss having more up his sleeve is particularly apt. If you shuffle a magician’s act so the payoff happens earlier, you satisfy the most ADD riddled viewers in the audience, but diminish the show as a whole. You have to build up the trick a little before you get to the flashy stuff. It’s called showmanship.
I’m going to stick around. It takes time for a new series to get good.
Enlighten a non-comic-reader with what reference this is? (Well, I’m not a NON-comic-reader. More like an occasional comic reader.)
TVTropes links for Women in Refrigerators, named after something that happened in Green Lantern (a comic I’m not familiar with).
Maybe it will improve. But am I the only one who was thinking the entire show “Man, why couldn’t this be another episode of Firefly instead”?
I dunno. Clever and entertaining, with an “Oh!” cliffhanger. Plus it’s the first episode. I’m good with it - I have no life.
Yes, it was posted this morning.
Actually, they’ve ditched the original pilot completely. They were going to air it, but have decided to forget about it. Perhaps it will be on the DVD.
I can’t find my cite, though. It’s correct, but I can’t find the comments from Joss Whedon that confirmed this. You’ll see next week, I guess.
It is mighty tough for a new show to be compared against BTVS, Angel, Firefly …
I’m a HUGE fan of looking at ED, tho I’m not at all sure she has the acting chops to carry a show. As a lifelong asthmatic, i wished someone would have shown her how to use a damn inhaler. But that dress made me forgive her.
Good to see Fred, even all scarred up.
I’ll keep watching - at least for a while. Not thrilled that I’ve read it has no intention of bringing the traditional JW humor.
The negotiator persona was pretty much a lift from Rebecca Locke. Oooh, Minear’s back!
If this show tanks, maybe we can get The Inside and Dollhouseon a single DVD set. Yeah, I’m a big bag o’ optimism, I know.
“I’m imagining her all tied up, but in a negative way.”
Rolling Stone has an article about Whedon in its latest issue. It says, regarding Dollhouse:
This makes me think it might be worth it to give the show some time, to see if it picks up and gets closer to what Whedon wanted. Why does FOX feel like it has to screw up the work of someone who is as obviously talented as Whedon? I don’t blame him for wanting to do more Dr. Horrible-type stuff on the internet, where he is in control and doesn’t have to worry about having his vision overruled.
What I don’t understand is why Whedon went back to Fox in the first place. They already screwed him over once. He says these are different executives, but Fox has never showed much patience or loyalty to any show that wasn’t animated. He couldn’t get a big enough budget at F/X or USA? I don’t understand why he would risk premature cancellation yet again when he could probably have more freedom (if less money) elsewhere.
Eliza Dushku got an offer from FOX to develop a show around her (she is the Executive Producer of the show). She recruited Whedon to help her, which is why he agreed to do it.
I read somewhere (maybe in the other thread) that Whedon is under contract with FOX until 2010. If he wants something on TV, it has to be on FOX until then.
I watched the first ten minutes or so, and then realized that I don’t even like this kind of show – tech stuff, nefarious plots and machinations, evil organizations. Seems like there are a lot of them lately.
It actually lost me earlier than 10 minutes in, when Eliza’s character crashed her bike, took her helmet off and then got back on the bike. Unless that was a suicide wish from her “real” character, it made no sense at all.
Ah, that explains that. It also explains why we’re seeing so much of Eliza, not that I’m complaining. She deserves Executive Producer credit just for that white dress. How many takes did they shoot for her to get in the van without uncovering something?
Anyway, I will continue watching because I am a sucker for Eliza Dushku, but I was a little disappointed in the premise of the show. Why is there secret, presumably multi-million dollar corporation to provide impossibly high-tech prostitutes/assassins/negotiators? And if they can be programmed to do anything, why on Earth are they being used as prostitutes? Umm, you know they already have those, right? For much cheaper and you don’t have to do impossibly expensive memory wipes. I can’t help thinking that the prostitution angle is going to squick out some potential viewers, so hopefully they’ll drop it in favor of more ass-kicking type roles.
I see what everyone is saying about the “Woman in the Refrigerator” trope, but this really isn’t an example of that trope. Joss turned that trope on its head. He took a girl OUT of a refrigerator. In a symbolic sense, a woman took HERSELF out of the fridge.
I mentioned it because I’m sure it was intended as a comment on the trope. What Whedon was trying to say about it, I’m not sure, but there’s no way it was an accident. This is a pretty plausible interpretation, though.
Crikey, this is Joe 90 with boobs.
The only Whedon/Fox contract I’ve been able to trace ended a few years ago. If somebody has more info, I’d love to see it. However–as much as we might like to see him working with other people–he can’t do it by himself. He got *Dollhouse *because Eliza did have a contract & she asked him. We have no evidence that he’s been turning down other offers to work for Fox.
I found the show interesting & will definitely keep watching.
I’m gonna keep watching this, as I am one of the ‘dateless nerds’ I alluded to in another thread on this show, but despite the potential in the premise, I didn’t think the first show worked all that well. For one thing, most of the actors haven’t really established interesting characters yet. The only one that really registered favorably with me was the guy who plays Echo’s ex-cop handler; the rest so far are walking cliches.
As far as style goes, OK, it’s lowish-budget TV, but the production design, particularly the Dollhouse itself, was a mess. I caught a strange undercurrent of ‘Charlies Angels’ to the thing that I have no idea whether it was intentional or not, but if it was intentional, a bit more of a satirical tone would have improved it immensely.
I will confess I that the half a minute or so of Duschku shakin’ it in that white dress at the start made sitting through the rest more than tolerable, IMO.