Yay! Three things posts!

Feb 14, 2009 11:22

My three things about Dollhouse 1.01: Ghost!

1. (The non-spoilery one) I have never once been sold on a Joss Whedon show from the first episode. Except maybe Angel, and that doesn't count, because we knew all the characters already. Buffy took me at least seven episodes; Firefly took me two or three. (I suppose Dr. Horrible is an exception, but that doesn't really count.) Given that pattern, I wasn't expecting to love the show from the get-go. And I didn't- but I do think it has a lot of potential.



2. I understand that people are squicked by the concept, and that many people were squicked by the exploitative cheap emotional trick-ness of child sexual abuse. (I'm putting the race issues on hold for the time being, because I don't think they're as big of a deal as people seem to be saying, and because honestly I don't expect Joss to not be kind of bad on race anyway.)

The squickiness of the premise is actually one of the things that I like most about the show. The complete ethical wrongness of the whole operation is brilliant- Joss tends to be at his best when he's dealing with moral complexity and reminding people that things aren't always, and shouldn't be, black and white. (Consider, eg., Wolfram and Hart, Dark!Angel from Season 2, Spike's character arc, etc.) I understand why people are squicked by the exploitation, but I don't think that that's a legitimate reason to criticize the show on an academic level- the point is that exploiting the Actives is a bad thing.

Because, of course, this premise (and the way that the child abuse plotline was carried out) is classic Joss all over- an exploration of power through powerlessness. Ellie Penn walking into a room with her former abuser to rescue a child was pure Joss-style female power, and I love it. I get that it's a problematic plot device. But for an exploration of power dynamics, I kind of think it was a good choice.

3. My biggest concern, actually, is how sub-par the writing was. This was a Joss-written episode! It should have been pure, sparkling genius in every word. Instead, it was a lot of cutesy Joss-isms without much backbone, a lot of awkward exposition, a couple of poor deliveries on Eliza Dushku's part that might have been her fault and might have been the writing, and just a general sense of something not being quite right.

To be fair, I think it might actually be brilliant on re-watch, and there are some things that I really liked about the writing- especially clients' responses to the Actives. I loved the bittersweetness that comes with knowing that they're not quite real.

Also, I don't think that The Plot Hole is anywhere NEAR as gaping as some people seem to think it is...Actives are untraceable (and perfect) in ways that a hire-able real person could never be.

I need to go back and look at the framing.

P.S. Was it just me, or did Amy Acker seem kind of gratuitous?

dollhouse, television, joss whedon, three things

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