Review: Dollhouse (Pilot)

SPOILERS, but nothing you can't get from a summary of the premise of the show.

Revered television writer Joss Whedon's long-awaited new show Dollhouse, starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Eliza Dushku aired last week and I finally got around to watching it. (Sorry, that was quite the sentence).

It wasn't great. Pilots have never really been Whedon's strong point-- even the Firefly pilot was slow to get started. However, I felt this lacked the extra spice that made shows like Buffy and Firefly, to steal a phrase, shiny.

Whedon can weave great stories and create great characters. And I did like the characters... but I felt all of them seemed to be not quite themselves. Perhaps that is due to it being early in the show-- many shows lack centered characters at the beginning. But Whedon has historically been pretty good at getting characters right first time, and I didn't get that from this episode.

Dushku plays Echo, one of a set of men and women who can be programmed into being the perfect whatever-- the perfect assassin, the perfect cello player etc. Whedon wrote the show for her to play the lead, but I think that at some point along the way in the development the character slipped from her into someone else and left Dushku's conception of the role behind. I think that the finalized role would have been better off in the hands of a newcomer who came to the role as an outsider, rather than Dushku. Not only did she not manage to quite capture the complete transformation of the 'programmed' characters, she also seemed to lack the qualities that made her a convincing and intriguing blank slate when she is between roles.

Echo's disjointed life makes it difficult to pull her together, perhaps, but the other major characters, among them her handler and the scientist behind the dollhouse project, also seemed to not really have a good sense of who they were. Someone described this as the characters not seeming to have lives that extended beyond where the camera was pointed and I think that's an apt description. The characters lacked the details and consistency that gave both the audience and, most importantly, the actors, a sense of who the character is.

This is especially problematic given the unstable main character-- but I don't think Echo had to be quite so disjointed. I think she needed some minute anchor that is enough to hold her together. This could be some uneraseable feature or something as simple as having the other characters begin to form a predictable reaction to her: some exchange of dialogue. The desire of her handler to create some kind of relationship with her, for example, could help to define even a totally unresponsive Echo while at the same giving her handler a key personality feature.

Although I did not notice this while I was watching the episode, I realised that there was no humour. Humour has always been a key part in the formulation of Whedon's characters and perhaps because this show demands a more serious outlook (especially considering the main character cannot crack jokes) the characters ended up a little blurry and bland.

I think what the show lacked was reality. By "reality" I don't mean gritty darkness, I mean the little details that make characters and worlds work. I've already talked about the characters, but this was also true of the sets, which were decidedly undetailed. In a world as complex as the one of Dollhouse, the sets need to have more practical and imaginative thought behind them than just 'girl's bedroom', 'broken down cabin', 'party', 'futuristic living space'. They need to contribute actively to the story, rather than being a passive (and occaisionally impractical) backdrop.

And finally we come to the plot. The entry was a little ragged, with a lot of disparate threads and backstories coming together all at once-- I do not think quite so many needed to be included; the opening could have been far more streamlined. However, it did hang together and I do think the concept is worth pursuing, and not only because Whedon is at the helm.

It does need work though. The writers need to pin down what their characters are like and give them detailed dialogue. The set designers need to think realistically and creatively to give the world more solid depth and give the actors a further sense of who they are and where they are.

I'm hopeful. Buffy had a start that was less than stunning but proved its strengths over time and I'm hopful that Whedon can give this rather dull show a shine of its own.

Take a look. Don't expect Firefly quality, think instead Dark Angel-- but Dark Angel was watchable, and it wasn't even Whedon.

Mr. Whedon and the Conclusion of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

MAJOR SPOILERS

So, if you're on top of things at all you will have hopefully seen the third and final episode of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. May I remind you again that this post contains Major Spoilers, although I'll try not to spell it out so if you're skimming it over you won't see it. There are also very vague spoilers for all of Whedon's work, so if you want to experience the full effect, don't read this post.

Joss Whedon is one of my favourite writers. I think he's a pretty special guy, especially in his own genre: television. His characters- villains and heroes both- are vivid and unforgettable, each stealing the show as he or she and very occaisionally 'it' passes through, be it for an extended period or simply for one episode. His dialogue is always witty and funny and I think he makes it easy for other writers to write the same witty, funny dialogue for his characters. His plots are gripping, hilarious, surprisingly deep and moving and- on many occaisions- horribly tragic.

However, that doesn't mean that he does have his foibles. Many of Whedon's most ardent fans are able to peg down his style, knowing when he is likely to kill off a beloved character. Like all writers- like everyone in the world- he has a tendency to walk the same path again and again.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog captures Whedon in all his glory. Including, and here's the spoiler, the tragic ending. I have a love-hate relationship with Whedon's tragic endings. By far, the most moving episodes of television I have watched have been Whedon's. I know the traditional Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode to name in this context is The Body, but I put forth The Wish for equal consideration. And then there's of course the final episode of the Buffy television series, among many others. In the Buffy spinoff, Angel, there are a similar number of tragic episodes. And finally there's the movie Serenity which was the capstone of the short-lived but fabulous tv series Firefly, that I have on good authority makes strong men weep.

So Joss Whedon likes to make us cry. What of it? Why am I writing an entire post about this?

Whedon is very cruel to his audience. He knows what the worst case scenario is. He knows who and what we hold dear. Although many of his fans, as I mentioned before, have learned to expect the tragic conclusion or shocking (also tragic) twist, he still manages to surprise us and break our hearts.

It is what brings us back again and again that interests me. Whedon is very dark, but he's more of a realist than a pessimist. People die; Whedon's 'tragedies' acknowledge this, but he's not pessimistic about it. Whedon's deaths, especially the ones that have no episodes following them in which to heal the wound, often have twists that follow them that allow us to look through the tears and smile about it in the end. Think of the end of Serenity, the ultimate end of Buffy and- here in particular interest- the end of Dr. Horrible. Instead of leaving us down and destroying our faith in all that is good and holy, Whedon turns the end up just a very little, and gives us a little hope.

It has been noted by watchers more astute than I that whereas at the beginning of the 'blog' Dr. Horrible is expressing himself through the blog and the public figure is the mousy Billy, this is reversed at the end of the show. Dr. Horrible is very much the public figure and Billy, shown in the last scene, is expressing himself through the blog.

The final line of the show is, "I won't feel a thing." Whedon and his Dr. Horrible comrades have Dr. Horrible, garbed in red, conscience-free, boldly sing, "I won't feel..." then cut beautifully to a very sad, unconvinced Billy facing the camera in his video-blog position, who finishes the sentence with "... a thing." The sentence is complete, but the musical phrase does not end in a satisfying manner.

Not only does the Billy side of Dr. Horrible, however beaten, get the final word, he gets to say it in a way that makes it very clear that he does feel. He feels it very much so. His conscience is still there, crushed but present and, because of that incomplete musical phrase. And that is the little smile at the end of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, betraying the inner core of optimism that keeps us, Whedon's beleaguered but adoring audience, coming back- able to come back- for more.

Now go watch it all again.

Review: Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (Act I)

Joss Whedon is changing the world. Well, television. Well, internet television.

In a moment of madness brought on by the writer's strike, Whedon- the writer of such beloved shows as Buffy, Angel and, relatively recently, the tragically murdered Firefly- along with a few friends and relatives, decided to turn their sights on low budget internet media far too silly for real television. The result was Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. That link is to a fan site. Why? Because at the time of this post, the real site is down due to the huge numbers of people attempting to watch Act I which was released early this morning.

Dr. Horrible is a three-act of fifteen-minutes-an-episode musical show that is almost, but not quite, as silly is as it sounds. The main character is a wannabe super villain (Neil Patrick Harris) and the antagonist a superhero (Firefly's Nathan Fillion). It's hugely adorable. Despite being only fifteen minutes long, the first act is so full of stuff that it feels much longer. It's got loads of funny, romance, action, science fiction and yep- songs. It's better than any show like it.

But as Whedon and interviewer C.A. Bridges note in this interview, there isn't really anything like it. Dr. Horrible is something new. It is internet media written and acted at the same calibre (above the same calibre) as anything on the major television networks. It doesn't need to conform to any standard rules, and so it's not only very good, it's fresh in a delightful, hilarious, adorable way.

Although the official site is down, you can get it from iTunes or pirate it directly- with a few audio/video errors- from a torrent site. (What!? How am I going to get into the Evil League of Evil if I don't cultivate my skills?)

Tell your friends.