Dollhouse: In The Beginning

Friday finally introduced us to Joss Whedon's newest show, Dollhouse. I will admit that after about a year and a half of following the development of the show through the alterations to the pilot (that is putting things lightly), the schedule shift from Mondays after 24 to Firefly's Friday night death slot, and the numerous pre-emptive Save Our Show campaigns, my rock-solid belief that this show would be off-the-charts incredible became not-so-rock-solid. After finally seeing it, I can say that while it isn't the best thing I've ever seen Joss do, it kept my attention, and will probably hold on to me as a viewer (on the internet the next day) for at least the entire season.

On one hand, it's very unfair to judge an entire show based on its pilot, especially when the first seasons of Buffy and Angel were among the weakest for those two shows. However, while I can make that argument for a new viewer of those two shows and still justify sitting through the early stuff, Dollhouse is a brand new show that needs to establish an audience. Whedon has had three shows before this, and by now he should know how to make an effective pilot. I'm not saying the show was bad; I liked it enough to immediately want to see the next episode, but I acknowledge that there are problems that need to be worked out.

My biggest gripe is the character dynamics; it seems like there are groups of characters who exist in Venn diagrams, where some will interact very often, some will rarely interact, and some will never interact (at least for a while). Echo is in contact with the other actives (like Sierra), her handler Boyd, and Topher the tech. She had a brief prologue scene with DeWitt, the head of the Dollhouse, before she became an active, but I doubt the two of them will see each other much more in the coming weeks. And, Echo's interactions with Boyd will likely be inconsequential, because anything meaningful they say to each other will be wiped away with the rest of the implanted personality whenever Echo's engagement is over. One review I read referred to Boyd as the Giles to Echo's Buffy, but every time Echo will need a Giles will be when she's engaged, and those memories are ultimately destroyed (or so we think). As for Agent Ballard and Lubov, the Russian mobster, they likely won't have any interaction with the Dollhouse for quite some time. I rank this as such an important problem because the character interaction is what makes Whedon's shows worth watching. Watching the complex relationships develop and seeing how the various characters deal with each other was such a pleasure in the first three shows, and now, two main characters are nothing but blank slates, while most of the rest only exist in defined circles.

I know that Whedon has long-term plans for this show (when does he not have long-term plans for his work?), but I don't know how long he can stretch out the story of Echo self-aware again. There are other plotlines, such as exploring who Echo was before becoming an active (we have seen brief glimpses of her life as "Caroline"), and the story of Alpha, a rogue active (who has ties to Echo and Ballard), but the plotline that we have been aware of from the beginning is the one involving Echo retaining her memories. The tagline of the show reinforces it (You can erase a memory, but can you wipe away a soul?). For one thing, how long will it take until Echo begins to realize what's going on? And where do we go from there? Does the show pull an Alias and have Echo leave the Dollhouse partway through Season 2 and join up with Ballard? Speaking of story arcs, I pointed out to a friend of mine that Topher reminded me a lot of Warren from Buffy. At first it was just physical (they both have HUGE noses), but then he started talking, and their personalities align. Topher isn't as maniacal as Warren (yet; remember that Warren also began as a harmless (relatively) asshole), but he shares a few of Warren's views on peoples' "places in the world". My friend believes that Topher will somehow (he isn't sure how Joss would pull it off) evolve into a major villain on the show. I certainly understand where he's coming from, but I'm not ready to say that Topher could pull something like that off. Then again, I've seen one episode, so I'm sure there are plenty of character twists coming that no one can anticipate right now.

And then there's the big complaint that at least 2/3 of reviewers mentioned: the practicality of the Dollhouse (which even the characters in the show address in one scene). The plot of the pilot certainly begs the question of why someone would pay millions of dollars to hire an active to help get his kidnapped daughter back if he only wanted her as a negotiator. He could get a real negotiator, with real experience, for much less. An argument could be made that an active would be absolutely perfect, but as we saw, imperfections are built into the personalities. Maybe sending Sierra in to kill the kidnappers was part of the plan all along and he only wanted Echo's negotiator as a front. However, the Dollhouse makes perfect sense for engagements such as dates and crimes. An active is much better than an escort because the active truly believes that he/she cares about the client, and doesn't know he/she is being paid. As for criminal jobs, the client probably wants someone trustworthy, competent, and off the radar. The police would have to do some serious investigating to find the active, and if they were to find him/her, he/she wouldn't remember anything.

I am still excited to see where this series is going. Sadly, I'm not as optimistic as I once was, but I still have faith that Joss Whedon knows what he's doing.

Up next: Warnderland...