RIP Dollhouse

Jan 30, 2010 01:21

That... was disappointing.



They... found a bandaid for the apocalypse. What.

It was interesting in places? I like the Priya/Victor(Tony) storyline, the kid and the tech heads and their lives taking them different places and them being conflicted about it. Overall I think the tech heads were the most interesting extrapolation of the technology and it hacked me off that they got made villains at the last second. It seems very reactionary to me that OH NOES ALL APPLICATIONS OF THE TECH ARE BAD/MAKE YOU A BAD PERSON, WE CANNOT HAVE NINJA SKILLS ANYMORE (juls paraphrases the narrative moral) because dude? They done blowed up all their infrastructure, they could probably use some supermen rebuilding shit, actually. I am not saying there wouldn't be a reactionary response from reset "actuals" which would probably make an interesting narrative conflict, actually, them going from badass motherfuckers saving the world to being an outcast, useful but begrudged labor force. But instead the narrative makes them upset that they can't RULE THE WORLD because tech has made them greedy assholes? What the fucking fuck ever, for serious. (How much do I heart that they're Echo fangirls, though. Wow.)

I am bored that Ballard died. Also that Echo and Ballard have spent ten years being hot again cold again. So bored of this. Like, during that battle scene I called from the music that someone was going to die, and I expected it to be Victor, because, uh, honestly? I care about him more. I never thought I would say that, I thought Victor was boring for a long time, but he never annoyed me the way Ballard did and since I was digging the tech head story and the fact that Priya and Victor were having grown-up love-does-not-conquer-all relationship problems I really expected that the show would try to hit me where it hurt. Instead of Ballard. Where it bored me. Dude, also, Echo absorbing Ballard's wedge? BLAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. How old was that thing, even? Yuck.

Topher: what the fuck. I, seriously, he can't feel guilty about being a puppet/slavemaster extraordinaire, no, his guilt has to be I DESTROYED THE WORLD guilt and to top it off it has to have THEY KILLED SOMEONE IN FRONT OF ME EVERY DAY I WASN'T SMART ENOUGH trauma. I. Just what. What. His trauma has to be the biggest specialest trauma in the world? Isn't that like, the fucking definition of manpain?

The reversal on Alpha was fun, though. Like I remembered that they'd been working with him, per Epitaph One, but when he pops up right behind Echo with a menacing line about digging to hell it's all AGH WHAT THE FUCK and then she hugs him. Also the one thing I liked about Ballard's death was Alpha asking how long ago that was and Victor being like, "Uh, about ten minutes," and Alpha winces. Heh. I quite liked how he was trying to be zen but totally wasn't right in the head and could take people out like a mofo at the drop of a hat and kept mentioning his other personalities. He is clearly not as special as Echo, he is not as well integrated (see more on this argument below)!

I am kind of shocked that I have come to like Alpha but it might be because he's the polar opposite of Topher: Topher is a wooooooooobie with manpain so enormous that he must both SAVE THE WORLD and commit suicide to appease it, whereas Alpha may have somehow earned cred with our heroes but he never got woobied, the edge of danger and crazy never came off him, and while he is tempered by now seeming to have some conscience and being troubled by what he's done, he's not going to save the world, he recognized this was bigger than he was capable of. So... while I find myself wary of forgiving all his past violence, I don't feel that the narrative is trying to make me do so, so I am better able to find him interesting as a character. While with Topher, I am like, EPIC WOOBIE MANPAIN? DIAF, KTHNX.

I wish there had been Whiskey in the house. I don't actually understand why Whiskey faded and no one else did;
echan thinks Ballard, Echo and Alpha are all special cases and everyone else, imprints fade. That seems... unlikely to me. I mean, Ballard is special by the nature of his construction, being an imprint of himself. Echo is special because apparently she's just physiologically special, and was picked for that. Alpha wasn't picked out to be special, he was just a dude they dug out of prison. What are the chances that he is actually the same kind of physiological special as Echo, and even if he is, why didn't Rossum identify him as such and tap him instead of creating Echo? But so, Whiskey. I wish Whiskey had been wandering around the dollhouse. I mean, she and Alpha could have been *anything.* They could have been fruitcakes fallen in bed with each other. They could have been angry hateful I-work-with-you-because-I-must with each other. I suppose it could even have turned out that Whiskey's absence was not eaten by killzoms as implied but she went crazy and tried to kill Alpha because apparently this is what she does with her problems now (I still think Whiskey was not being anyone's secret agent when she killed not!River, I think that was her vengeance on Topher), and Alpha shoved her in a closet somewhere. I wish Alpha's favor request had been "Can you fix Whiskey? I think I broke her."

Actually, I am now inducting that into my private canon.

The timescale doesn't work for how long it's been since Mag and Zone and Echo II left LA for Tucson, that Alpha showed up and started collecting dumbshows for their own safety and had the dollhouse up and running etc by the time they got there. This was clearly an episode compression issue. If their journey had been a couple of episodes, waylaid by killzoms at every turn, out of gas every five minutes, etc, and then the plot had taken more episodes (an episode for busting Topher out, an episode for getting in touch with Victor, maybe even a whole episode on the road back with the tech head tank) then the time scale would feel right. As it is, I'm going "LA to Tucson and back? That's... even with being captured in Neuropolis, that's like, three days?" There was also too much time implied since "Reno," if Reno had been A-plot to a Mag-and-Zone travel episode, it would have made the time scale work *so* much better. Gah. Of all the nits, I think that one's gonna bug the crap out of me the most.

So: In my world, tech heads aren't evil greedy assholes who betrayed them; Alpha wants Topher to fix Whiskey because he broke her; and yes, I will take Mag the lesbian. Though I am kind of what the fuck at her getting her legs shot up. Just no.

All in all: headdesk. BANDAID ON THE APOCALYPSE.

[Originally posted on Dreamwidth. |
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apocalypse, dollhouse, manpain, narrative railroading, spoilers, meta

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