Dollhouse: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
So, Dollhouse came to an ending last night after 2 seasons and 26 episodes. Man, even the Sarah Connor Chronicles survived longer! Fox, how I hate you. It's like you get some kind of sick thrill out of making awesome TV shows and then pulling the plug on them just as they're becoming really epic for fear that they might take away viewers from your pathetic little reality shows or whatever other crap you have.
Seriously. Stop that. It's not cool, man, it's not cool.
So, what was my reaction? It's in the title. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. If Dollhouse had ended after 25 episodes, I would have had a warm, fuzzy feeling. The flash-forward to the future where they decided to Really, For Real, We're So Sure This Time That It'll End, End the show... eh. I mean, hell, it gets an A+ for mindfuckery.
Spoilers.
Paul freaking DIES with as much drama as Wash did in Serenity or Uncle Derek got in Terminator. Alive one second, DEAD the next, killed by a random extra and left on the ground to rot. Unlike Wash or Uncle Derek, Paul was one of the two Main Leads! After all the crazy stuff that happened, everyone ELSE who died, you'd think they could have let Echo and Paul have their Happily Ever After in the decimated ruins of the post-apocalyptic world. But NO! So Paul DIES!
And THEN! At the very end, Echo imprints herself with Paul's identity, adding him to the collection of other random mind-brains inside her skull so they can be together in spirit forever. Yeah. Her boyfriend is a computer-ghost living inside her head. That's just going to make having Relations all sorts of awkward. Or really simple, it depends on your perspective. Paul may have to get used to being a semi-embodied ghost living in a female's skull. I foresee the relationship being strained by his lack of body.
But who knows, this is a world where Mad Science has perfected the ability to download your entire being into a hard drive and upload it on demand into any body, to destroy personalities by remote and carry around PhDs on a flashdrive that you can synch with through a speaker held to your cybernetic bluetooth tattoo. Somewhere someone learned how to grow a human clone and they can upload Paul-Ghost into Clone-Paul and him and Echo can have perfectly normal Ghost-Clone / Human Brain Salad relations. What? It makes more sense then the ending of Terminator: Salvation! Shuddap.
So, was Dollhouse good? Yes, Dollhouse was amazing. Did it end well? Yes, it did. Even with the lack of Happily Ever After for the main couple, it still ended well. The bad guys got what was coming to them (off-screen), the world is saved (..kinda) and at least 1/3rd of the cast survived to live meaningful lives.
Oh, crap, I just figured out that Alpha (who is good now, btw) is still imprinted with Paul. Except he got reset to pre-imprinting (so he's evil again, but Echo thinks he'll Stay Good), so is he? And if he is, could Echo and Alpha fall in love because Alpha is part Paul? But Paul lives in Echo's head...so he'd be.. ow. I need a nice brain-wipe myself after trying to figure THAT out.
Conclusion: Dollhouse = Epic, Fox = Fail, Paul = Dead. Mood = Happy, but not Ecstatic. It was at least 36 times better then the ending of Stargate SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis, neither of which ENDED! There were no resolutions at all! Nothing happened! ARGH!
Seriously. Stop that. It's not cool, man, it's not cool.
So, what was my reaction? It's in the title. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. If Dollhouse had ended after 25 episodes, I would have had a warm, fuzzy feeling. The flash-forward to the future where they decided to Really, For Real, We're So Sure This Time That It'll End, End the show... eh. I mean, hell, it gets an A+ for mindfuckery.
Spoilers.
Paul freaking DIES with as much drama as Wash did in Serenity or Uncle Derek got in Terminator. Alive one second, DEAD the next, killed by a random extra and left on the ground to rot. Unlike Wash or Uncle Derek, Paul was one of the two Main Leads! After all the crazy stuff that happened, everyone ELSE who died, you'd think they could have let Echo and Paul have their Happily Ever After in the decimated ruins of the post-apocalyptic world. But NO! So Paul DIES!
And THEN! At the very end, Echo imprints herself with Paul's identity, adding him to the collection of other random mind-brains inside her skull so they can be together in spirit forever. Yeah. Her boyfriend is a computer-ghost living inside her head. That's just going to make having Relations all sorts of awkward. Or really simple, it depends on your perspective. Paul may have to get used to being a semi-embodied ghost living in a female's skull. I foresee the relationship being strained by his lack of body.
But who knows, this is a world where Mad Science has perfected the ability to download your entire being into a hard drive and upload it on demand into any body, to destroy personalities by remote and carry around PhDs on a flashdrive that you can synch with through a speaker held to your cybernetic bluetooth tattoo. Somewhere someone learned how to grow a human clone and they can upload Paul-Ghost into Clone-Paul and him and Echo can have perfectly normal Ghost-Clone / Human Brain Salad relations. What? It makes more sense then the ending of Terminator: Salvation! Shuddap.
So, was Dollhouse good? Yes, Dollhouse was amazing. Did it end well? Yes, it did. Even with the lack of Happily Ever After for the main couple, it still ended well. The bad guys got what was coming to them (off-screen), the world is saved (..kinda) and at least 1/3rd of the cast survived to live meaningful lives.
Oh, crap, I just figured out that Alpha (who is good now, btw) is still imprinted with Paul. Except he got reset to pre-imprinting (so he's evil again, but Echo thinks he'll Stay Good), so is he? And if he is, could Echo and Alpha fall in love because Alpha is part Paul? But Paul lives in Echo's head...so he'd be.. ow. I need a nice brain-wipe myself after trying to figure THAT out.
Conclusion: Dollhouse = Epic, Fox = Fail, Paul = Dead. Mood = Happy, but not Ecstatic. It was at least 36 times better then the ending of Stargate SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis, neither of which ENDED! There were no resolutions at all! Nothing happened! ARGH!