Dollhouse 1.01

[lettered]

The main trouble with this show is that it takes place in The Real World.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer supposedly took place in The Real World, but very rarely. I mean, that series started by telling you it was not Real, but rather a spoof of both horror movies and highschool. I still think it had the best pre-credit bit for a pilot ever. And then there was this girl with superpowers, and vampires. And while the vampires and superpowers were already there because of the movie, that was actually a great way to start the series, rather than trying to convince us first that Buffy was a Real Girl. What happened in that show was that we slowly realized despite the show not occurring in the Real World, these were Real People.

Sunnydale was never meant to be a Real Town, and the stupidest parts of the show were when there were explanations for how Sunnydale fit in the real world, or how Sunnydale might be Real (i.e., why wasn't everyone aware that there were vampires, or that their town was on a Hellmouth). Or anything to do with the Initiative, as if national government had any place in that show whatsoever (whereas municipal government--i.e. the Mayor--made perfect sense).

Firefly, of course, was even more simply Unreal, and by its very premise had license to pick and choose Real World elements and weave it into a new world fantasy.

Dollhouse has a premise that suggests unreality, mindwipes, memory adjustment, yada yada, but it's definitely supposed to be the Real World. Now, you say, Torchwood has mindwipes yada yada, and it's not as fantastic as say, BtVS, but it works. Let me clarify by saying TW does not work for me at almost anything; I don't like the show very much. But in this respect--and I think the respect I'm talking about might be genre?--TW does fine. It does not bring Real Government into it. The government on TW is fake government; it's a fantasy government constructed by both TW and DW, and we barely ever see it (if at all. In DW we see the PM, that's it. In TW I don't think we even see that, we just see UNIT which is apparently a branch of the government [wait, is TW a branch of the government?], but anyway it's not government either). And hostage situations, child abuse, and Secret Agents on TW all have aliens. So it's all unreal, and makes it's own kind of sense. TW isn't the best example; I've had some trouble with the ideas of just how real and unreal they're meant to be, but it was the first example that came to mind. Besides, despite it's screwy logic and very wrong unadmitted date rape sequences, it does a lot better at what I'm talking about than Dollhouse has so far.

I felt like Dollhouse had these real elements it was trying to bring in. Businessmen (real businessmen, not the fake businessmen who make no sense, like David Nabbit on Angel), and kidnappings, and Helo in what appears to be some government agency or something--is he meant to be police/FBI/CIA/Secret Service/whatever (am a little confused)? Not to mention slave trade and child abuse. But then you've got this sci fi premise--which is okay to have in the real world! It is okay to have a Real World show with sci/fi fantasy elements going on, like those ones about prescient crime-solvers who see crimes happen or whatever, all those shows that aren't very good anyway.

But the thing is--it's Joss. I never went to Whedon for anything this real, and I'm not sure I trust him to pull it off, and I'm not sure I want him to, or anyway that I want to watch it. It's not that Buffy didn't have real, as I said. It was so real, it did talk about things like child abuse, and it talked about grief, and apathy, and sexuality both healthy and unhealthy, it talked about family both ugly and beautiful, it talked about all those real things. But it never expected me to take the actual premise and put it in a world that couldn't hold it.

I still don't know whether the world Whedon has created can hold his Dollhouse, but something didn't feel right, felt off to me. I have more to say about the show in general, but I think I will wait until the next ep to pass more judgment.

All that said, *chin in hands*, what did you think?

Comments

[seraphcelene]

I'm still out on the first episode. In a very real way it reminded me of the first season of BtVS, although without the quirky charm. But then again this is a much darker show than BtVS started as. The pilot felt very much like the set-up: here are the basics, the people you should know, and a general idea of the rules of this 'verse. It's all colored very dark very immediately, but also almost peripherally, and that has a draw of its own, but other than those elements that we will Get Into Later this reminded me of the MotW format of early Buffy. I also felt the same way about Buffy S1. It was vaguely interesting but I blew it off until Season 2 and then had to back track. In retrospect, season 1 was all about the set-up. Angel didn't require that intensity of set-up (although it does get its own period of establishment), leading out from Buffy with an already established 'verse. I get the feeling that Dollhouse, however will be different. Even Joss admitted that the show doesn't really find its legs until episode 6. That's disturbing considering how many shows have been canceled after four episodes.

Locating Dollhouse in the Real World will be problematic for all the reasons that you mention, however, I wonder how long and to what extent Dollhouse will be allowed to remain in the Real World. Joss has a habit of narrowing his storylines, creating an increasingly insular, and sometimes claustrophobic (see Angel S4) world. So even though events will occur in the World, I'm curious to see how he will insulate the narrative, what trappings of the world at large will remain.

It really is too early, I think. Although ... if this hadn't been a Mutant Enemy Production I probably wouldn't tune in next week to how it progresses. There wasn't enough in that first episode to really pique my interest. It may be that TPTB are hedging their bets on Whedon's fanbase and the attraction of Dushku as lead. That doesn't seem especially smart, but I'm willing to give the show a shot until it turns into something that I'm really not interested in. Plus it comes on right after Terminator so it's not like it's all that big a deal for me to NOT turn the channel.

[kat99999.livejournal.com]

Joss has a habit of narrowing his storylines, creating an increasingly insular, and sometimes claustrophobic (see Angel S4) world. So even though events will occur in the World, I'm curious to see how he will insulate the narrative, what trappings of the world at large will remain.


This is a very interesting point, you're absolutely right. Joss is very 'good' at ignoring the rest of the Real World in favour of his own vision, i.e. dropping an airport right in the middle of Sunnydale hee. Of course these things have always been quite tongue in cheek and fit with the Buffy aesthetic. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out for Dollhouse.

[seraphcelene]

Things like the airport and the coming and going of the vampire bar were the more cheesetastic elements to serviceable plot elements. I need a magical drive thru, so here is a faux McDonald's that happens to be a portal. But there was also a way that the rest of the world falls away to the exclusion of what goes on in, not only the Real World, but Sunnydale itself. Joyce falls prey to that narrowing, for example. Angel constricts itself down into the interiority of Angel's psyche in the Darla/Beige arc, and then again with the Jasmine arc. Everything becomes so limited. It's like Joss creates a context for the show but then eliminates (or ignores) the larger environment. Angel goes from exteriors (Los Angeles) to interiors (Wolfram and Hart). Buffy goes from High School (an interactive exterior) to the VERY narrow confines of the Summer's house by the end of S7. For all that Firefly had an entire 'verse to soar through, I can only imagine that over time Serenity would have gotten very claustrophobic as it became more and more representative of Mal's and River's emotional/psychological landscapes.

Of course, the premise for Dollhouse is dependent upon interaction with exteriors. So, production must be focused, to some extent, on keeping Echo in The World. Dollhouse could turn out to be a very different kind of animal.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

This is SO interesting, and I can't believe I never noticed it. I did notice in S7 Whedon trying to expand back out to include the school again, and then in the end all of Sunnydale, but I observed that as "back to the beginning"; I wasn't observing the actual space in which the story takes place. FASCINATING.

I'm particularly fascinated by this because I don't care about place. Like, at all. I don't care about the outside world, really. I have whole posts on this, and I could go on forever about it probably, knowing me. But anyway, maybe what makes me uncomfortable about Dollhouse is that it has an Outside World, and I didn't expect that from Whedon, so was uncomfortable with it. And maybe Whedon is a little uncomfortable with it too.

And the thing about Firefly was the Outside world could all be suited to fit Serenity; I mean the Outside was constructed for the Interior World. You can't do that in Dollhouse because the Exterior there is Our World, which viewers know, and that means you can't mess with it. Or anyway the pilot made it look like the Exterior World was Our World, and that was difficult for me.

ARGH I have so many thoughts on this! I'd love to look at the ways in which the Exterior was presented in Firefly, and how much it really focused on the Interior, i.e. how claustrophobic it was and how claustrophobic it could have become, how that might have happened.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

True about MotW. When I found out the premise I thought it would be MotW-y, and I was sort of glad, because I thought the reason Firefly got cancelled was because it wasn't MotW-y enough. It was all big arcs and stuff, which I rather prefer, but for some reason networks think that's not commercially successful. While I want quality I want it to be successful too (difficult combo!) so that I can keep watching it!

But now you mention it, I fell in love with BtVS because someone told me Angel's story up to S1 of AtS, not because S1 was so great. I thought it had a lot of good stuff but I wasn't utterly in love with it until Prophecy Girl. Though The Pack and Angel were good stuff indeed ;o)

If I kept up with tv at all, which I don't any more, I'd watch it next week even if it wasn't Whedon, because the premise hits a lot of my kinks. But the show does strike me as a weird combo of--"we're trying to appeal to mass market besides the niche Whedon folks!" and "we think you'll stick with this because you're niche Whedon folks". I think the network wants both, which is dumb. If they get the latter they're sure to get *some* of the non-Whedon folks. Whedon built a base from somewhere; if the show is as good as his others it will always draw an audience.