In Defence of Dollhouse
A couple of weeks back Narin Bahar blogged on here about her disappointment with Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse. She was particularly dismayed with the amount of screen-time devoted to Echo (Eliza Dushku) running about in various revealing outfits. Narin raised some interesting points but, with the greatest respect to my fellow blogger, I disagree with her overall judgement of the show.
Allow me to put on a gravely voice for the benefit of those who haven’t been watching. “Previously on Dollhouse: buff young men and women have had their personalities erased. Now they are reprogrammed to become the ultimate fantasy for paying clients around the globe.”
Now, the first thing that springs to mind with a premise like that is that this is going to be a show about exploitation. It’s clear from the title. The "Actives" aren’t people anymore – they’re dolls for rich clients to play with. And often that play is going to be sexual. So episode one saw Echo hired as some guy’s perfect date and the following week she was booked for sex (by a psychopath, of course).
Then there was "Stage Fright". This time around the story focussed on Echo’s adventures with Britne – sorry, Rayna, a diva-ish pop star having a very messy breakdown. Echo is programmed to be both a dancer and a bodyguard. Which of course involved wearing very little and changing her stage outfit while the other dancers looked on.
Seedy? Sure. But have you watched any pop videos recently? Crikey. They make "Boys Boys Boys" by Sabrina look positively prudish. Sex sells, and it’s totally believable that Rayna and her dancers would be showing some skin.
It’s not just there to titillate viewers either (though I’m sure there is an element of that). The episode is making a direct comparison between the two women. Rayna is trapped. She’s used by her manager, hounded by her fans and just as much a commodity as Echo and the other dolls. One is wealthy and famous, the other lost and brainwashed, but they’re both essentially slaves.
The other criticism I keep hearing is that the show doesn’t question the (rather horrible) actions of its characters. I disagree. The criticism is written into the fabric of the show, right down to making one of the regulars a cop trying to shut the place down. It’s just not verbalised by the characters who work at the Dollhouse.
If you were to write a drama set in a brothel, you wouldn’t have everyone sitting around discussing how terrible their lives are. The Sopranos wasn’t condoning gang life. Surely we don’t need our drama to hand out a tidy little moral at the end of every episode?
Besides, it’s a bit bloomin’ rich coming from Whedon fans – a group that has championed characters like Spike the cheery mockney murderer and occasional rapist, and Jayne, a man who betrays his friends, kills without a moment's thought and jokes about it afterwards.
I’m not saying that the early episodes of Dollhouse are flawless – far from it. "Ghost" is shocking for none of the right reasons. But neither are they sexist, or promoting human trafficking, prostitution and murder.
If I’m honest, it took me some time to warm to Dollhouse. It was the one-two punch of "True Believer" (where Echo takes on the persona of a blind cult member) and "Man On The Street" (where things get darker and considerably more complicated) that brought me round and now I’m utterly hooked. The latter is especially brilliant. Classic Whedon, it’s smart, funny and troubling in equal measure. It picks apart the issues at the heart of the show and features an ace scrap to boot.
The bloke from Battlestar is still a bit rubbish though.
This is a personal article by Will Salmon, one of our new bloggers - read more about our volunteer contributors over on this dedicated page, on in the Post Apocalypse section of the current magazine.
Are you following Dollhouse? What do you reckon about it - have you been disappointed, and is it improving? Your thoughts welcome as always, in the comment thread below or on our forum.
but now it's beginning to get quite good,
although with fox showing you have to wonder if there will be any more episodes made
Posted by daft aider (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 08:45 AM BST #
I've watched the first 6 episodes (and have found it a chore to do so) and have seen none of these elements. The dialogue has been clunky and the chemistry non-existant (which has not been helped by the premise, which makes it difficult for the lead to have any chemistry with others when she has her personality wiped every episode. The 'twists' have been easy to see coming, the acting pretty awful (with exception to the guy who plays Boyd) and most of the characters are pretty unlikeable.
You say that the 6th episode (am assuming that's 'Man on the Street?') is 'especially brilliant'... I'm really not seeing it. The 'humour' you refer to, seems to revolve (briefly) around a 'joke' about porn and the fight you refer to is completely pointless. It serves no purpose, other than to show a hot woman in action. Which kind of sums up one of my issues with the whole series. It's really about showing new (ish) and creative (ish) ways to make Eliza look hot... that's not enough to keep a show going.
I hope this show does well, solely because I know some of the people on it, but I won't be watching anymore, it's too painful.
Posted by Chrismk (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 09:36 AM BST #
Thankfully at least, more viewers are tuning in to the vastly underappreciated Friday Night Lights over on NBC at the same time.
It's ironic that the soulless Dollhouse is up against a show which is an example of some of the best acting and character drama on television. It's like contrasting Britney Spears with Beethoven.
Posted by Impossibilium (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 10:43 AM BST #
Posted by Bretty (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 03:08 PM BST #
Posted by Chrismk (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 04:02 PM BST #
I also find it a bit strange that it was OK for Buffy to get into a fight every week, but when Echo does, it's apparently just an excuse to "make her look hot".
Impossibillium: Sorry, I just don't agree with any of those points.
Lack of characterisation: I can see plenty. Boyd is especially interesting - a moral, decent man doing something utterly abhorrent. Tahmoh Penikett’s character is also developing nicely.
Predictable storylines - a fair cop for the first few episodes, but I found ‘Man on the Street’ and ‘True Believer’ to both be surprising and entertaining.
Weak concept: It's pretty strong if you ask me, and thematically very rich. Dehumanisation, sex as a commodity, what makes a person, the value of life – these are all big subjects that TV SF should be addressing but rarely does. There are flaws in its internal logic. Narin pointed out the main one in her blog: if anyone with a big enough bank balance can find the dollhouse, why can't the police. But I trust Whedon enough that, given time, these will be addressed.
Sorry guys, rushed reply, I'm off to the pub.
Cheers,
Will
Posted by Will Salmon (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 05:02 PM BST #
As for the fights in Buffy... well, she was a Vampire Slayer, her whole existance was supposed to be about slaying the denziens of Hell(mouth), so yes, it was a given that there'd be a fight most weeks. The fight between Echo and Ballard surved what purpose exactly, if not to make Eliza look hot? She was programmed not to kill him but to warn him... so why bother fighting him at all, she was certainly the aggressor and didn't need to be. It was a pointless scene.
Posted by Chris Slinn (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 08:08 PM BST #
“The show is losing viewers, suggesting that more agree with me than with you.”
Actually it’s not. The show’s viewership started off sort of OK. Dropped a bit and has wobbled all over the place since. Viewers were up for ‘Man On The Street’ last week. They were down again this week, but given that it’s consistently hovering around the 4 million mark each week, I think it’s too early to say that it’s losing significant numbers of viewers.
Besides, if we’re going to play the numbers game, then none of Whedon’s past shows have been especially popular. It doesn’t make them any more or less worthwhile. I remember the first few weeks of Firefly, when a lot of Whedon fans were slating it, actively hoping it got cancelled. Look at how many of them changed their tune...
The fight: spoilers for those who haven’t seen ‘Man on the Street’ yet.
If you believe what Echo tells Ballard, then someone within the dollhouse has corrupted her programming to send him a message. Given that she was probably sent to beat him up/kill him, it would make sense to still give him a hard time before passing on that message – especially if someone from the dollhouse is watching. It's also possible that the dollhouse is feeding him a yarn for their own opaque reasons that haven’t been explained yet.
That episode is very clearly setting a number of things in motion for the overall arc. It’s too early to say how that will pan out, but I found it pretty interesting.
And given that Dushku is fully clothed during the scrap (in a hoodie, as I recall) it's not a very good attempt to sex the show up.
And your point about Buffy doesn’t actually answer my question. Yes, her purpose was to fight. But (depending on her programming) so is Echo’s. “I don’t like the programme” aside, what is the difference? Except, of course that Buffy was (deliberately) about empowerment, and Dollhouse is about the exact opposite.
Posted by Will Salmon (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 10:28 PM BST #
Except, of course that Buffy was about empowerment, and Dollhouse is (deliberately) about the exact opposite.
Posted by Will Salmon (127.0.0.1) on March 31, 2009 at 10:29 PM BST #