It ’s been a workweek since Joss Whedon ’s Dollhouse close up its rent - a - hard worker procedure , and we ’re still aggrieve , for the write up that will never be told now . Dollhouse kept pass its limitations — but never reached its electric potential . Spoilers ascend …
There are really two kinds of television shows : the ones canceled too shortly , and the ones that drag on past their good - by escort . Very , very few television shows end at the right time . Even though Dollhouse got enough advance warn that it was able-bodied to cobble together a definite finis , we still palpate as though it belongs in the same class as Firefly , Terminator : SCC and many other show .
Dollhouse started out as the most conceptually challenging matter Joss Whedon ’s ever done — but force that conception into the box of a weekly TV show was a process akin to chainsaw bonsai . Whedon was clean , from before the show launched , that this was basically a show about a char who had been rob of her personal identity and dehumanized . The overall discharge of Dollhouse was going to be about the mind - wiped Echo fighting to recover her stolen sense of selfhood . And yet , the need of having a weekly “ happy ending ” think we had to root for the client who hired Echo ’s prostitute casing every calendar week .
Or as the sardonic Boyd put it , “ We ’re pimps and slayer , but in a philanthropic path . ” At its best , the show had merriment with this dichotomy , but it was often a bit of a stretch .
Almost every television show today has the conflict between endure - alone and “ arc ” episodes , and every show has to find its own solution to that quandary , with wildly varying degrees of success . With Dollhouse , you end up with a situation where the stand - alone instalment were all about desire and yearning — mostly the clients ’ — and the “ electric discharge ” was all about paranoia and existential dread . So the now - traditional electric discharge - vs - stand - alone tension became a tension between desire and fear . And as the show becomes more serialized during its run , you see a dumb shift from desire to fear .
( I was somewhat affirmative about the surrogate of the original , more thriller - y airplane pilot with the “ surety negotiator ” episode , and the “ five pilots ” that followed , but in retrospect it would have been way good if Fox had just get Whedon set up the show with something that explored the negative entailment of the premise more full . )
To be sure , there was something haphazard about Dollhouse ’s arc — Whedon was planting the seeds for “ Epitaph One”‘s Revelation as ahead of time as episode six , “ Man In The Street , ” but I ’m sure we would have acquire there much more tardily , and perchance in a unlike form if the show had n’t been facing imminent cancellation .
But at the same prison term , my sense is that this slow burn , from explore the complexities of human need to delving into the paranoia of corporate mindfuckery , was always drop dead to be part of the show . If the show had last six season , we would have get the journeying in a different way , and some of the plot of land point might have matte a bit more elegant , but this was probably always the shape . We start out delving into the branching of citizenry who desire what they ca n’t really have — because why else do you lease a pre - programmed human automaton ? — and over clip , the show displacement into showing that the real ramification of our desire is that we all become the slave of a corporation that wants to own our minds .
In a horse sense , Dollhouse was the story of how wanting what you ca n’t have inevitably turns you into the property of company that will take forth everything you do have .
I ’m moderately sure everybody reading this has had the experience of luxuria , or longing , turning into apprehension and remorse . It ’s one of the most quintessentially human experiences , and Dollhouse , taken as a whole , beguile it in an amazing room .
Dollhouse was already a complex and intriguing show before we ever see “ Epitaph One ” — we ’d already seen how Sierra was turned into a Doll because she enounce no to the wrong rich bozo , for example — but now it ’s inevitably going to be viewed as a show about the Revelation of Saint John the Divine . Almost every interesting genre TV show now winds up being about the apocalypse , one way or the other — look at BSG , Terminator : SCC and Jericho , and I ’m willing to bet Fringe ’s pandimensional warfare will look more apocalyptic at some compass point — but Dollhouse was the first show where Fantasy Island basically demolish the intact human race .
More significantly , evil robots did n’t destroy the world , we did . Even though Dollhouse give us a convenient whipping boy in the thoroughly evil Rossum Corp. , it ’s still clear that it took a Greenwich Village to provoke Hell on Earth . Every sexual climax , every purgation , that Echo serve up out brought us closer to turning everybody into “ dumb shows ” and “ butchers , ” because the Dollhouse was perfect the technical school in the field of operations , and Topher was gain more agreement of how to sprain everyone ’s brains into pulp .
( By the room , I ’m not rhapsodise about how much I loved the characters on Dollhouse here , because I already did that withlast week ’s list of ten thing we ’ll miss about the show . )
https://gizmodo.com/10-reasons-well-miss-joss-whedons-dollhouse-5456899
Interestingly , Dollhouse author Jane Espenson left the show to go work on another show about brainpower - copying leading to the apocalypse : Caprica , where Zoe Graystone ’s brainiac gets duplicate and winds up becoming the template for the deadly Cylons that end Caprican civilization .
But in Caprica , the reasons for the impending Book of Revelation are much more television - friendly : there ’s Daniel Graystone ’s heartbreak over the death of his daughter , causing him to produce the robot Zoe that becomes the first Cylon . And there ’s the spiritual fanatacism of the hysteric monotheist , who screw up up the gear and kill the original Zoe in the first station . ( For us , the viewer , Caprica ’s spiritual disputes seem a bit odd , since we stop worship Athena and Zeus long ago , and nothing forged happened . But then we already know that BSG end by hint that there really is a God , and he ’s a cruel bastard who in person orchestrated the Cylon racial extermination , just for jollies . )
In any case , Caprica ’s Revelation of Saint John the Divine comes about because of crime syndicate and faith : motivation we can get behind . Dollhouse ’s apocalypse , meanwhile ? Is the product of lust , avaritia , fearfulness and ego - manic disorder . It ’s hold of cheapness , and nurtured in hubris . ( Oh , and rich people treating the rest of us like toys . ) It ’s knockout to believe this show actually made it onto program television set .
The weird thing is that “ Epitaph Two , ” the 2nd post - apocalyptic instalment , seems to refute the estimation that this is a show about the apocalypse . include — you did n’t expect this show to have such an upbeat termination , did you ? Even with the deaths of Paul and Topher , it was weirdly much sunnier than I ’d have expected from the splendidly dark-skinned ‘ n ’ twisted Joss .
Because , all along , this show was n’t just a downer fable about how evil bay window will wipe your mind , or about how your fantasies are the keys to oblivion , or whatever — all along , it was really about how we ’ll triumph over all that . Whedon talked up this hopeful root over and over again : the central content of Dollhouse was always the invincibility of Echo . And by the ending , we get a few other hopeful themes , like the fact that Victor and Sierra ’s sexual love really does sort of conquer all , and the buyback of Adelle and Topher , our two original “ baddie . ” ( If you think Paul needed redeem , I ’d argue he gets that , too . )
Who knew that Joss Whedon ’s darkest , sickest show would turn out to be his most affirmative and life - affirming ?
And that ’s why I ’m most confident that Dollhouse should have had a few more class to draw its class . Not just because the teddy from “ eww icky phantasy fulfillment ” to “ the whole human slipstream is at stake ” could have been a smoother arc . Or because the cognisance that Rossum was the real monster , and that the L.A. Dollhouse was going to have to posse up and fight , could have dawn more slowly . But because it would have been something to see the “ you ca n’t stop Echo ’s brainwaves ” message develop and amplify over clip .
There could have been some serious “ fucking yeah ” second built around Echo reclaiming her personhood and becoming a multi - faceted ninja , a procedure which was mostly skated over in the six - calendar month gap during the “ Jane Doe ” episode .
But yeah , I ’m still thankful for what we ’ve got , and for get down enough clue and enough subtle jabs to be able-bodied to figure out the missing bits and sketch out what the story would have looked like if it had get the six years it deserve . It ’s not what we should have receive , but maybe it ’s enough .
dollhouseEliza DushkuJoss WhedonTelevision
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