Reaper and Dollhouse

[meganbmoore]

Note:  I consider Dollhouse spoilers to be a public service.

So, I just watched the first episode of Reaper, and am deeply confused.  People actually willingly watch more than one episode of that?  On purpose?  That may have been the most singularly awful pilot episode of something that I've ever seen.  Then again, I tend to hate the Michael Myers/

Comments

[chaos_harmony]

Wait, I thought he punched her to knock her out because she was about to kill Echo or something? Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the scene.

[meganbmoore]

I'm going by what I've been told, so I could be wrong. I'm not masochistic enough to watch and find out. Doesn't change the fact that the foundation for the "romance" was a man punching a disabled woman in the face.

[potatoko]

No, that's right, she was trying to kill Echo. Next episode she punches him in the face for trying to trick her into fixing Caroline's wedge. And they are pretty cute, you know. He fangirls over her research papers, and thinks it's awesome she has a dead arm because it makes her like a hot female version of John Cassavetes from "The Fury".

And, considering that it happens in the 11th episode, killing her wasn't fridging- this isn't so Topher can angst, at any rate; it was because we cared about the character. Emotional manipulation, but not fridging. I think they killed her because someone had to die, and everyone else had shown up in "Epitaph" already, so their options were limited. It also fits in with The Big Reveal pretty well.

[meganbmoore]

I don't particularly care what plot justifications they came up with for yet another reason to justify men abusing women.

[potatoko]

Well, I didn't think you would, but in the interest of context, lol.

[meganbmoore]

The context is that, regardless of the dressing they put on it, they presented a "cute" romantic relationship where the foundation was a man hitting a disabled woman, and then they killed her as soon as she'd served a plot purpose.

[potatoko]

That's doing an injustice to the character, I think; for all she was in it for a short period of time Bennett was interesting and reasonably well developed. She got offed because the show is ending and they wanted dramas. No time is spent on Topher's reaction- her death is not about him, it's about her, which is different from fridging.

Well, I'm not trying to annoy you, lol. I accept your judgement of this show and for the most part I agree with it; I just don't think Benett was fridged, nor do I think her relationship with Topher was really besmirched by the fact he hit her to prevent her from murdering his friend.

. . . that being said, what eventually happens to mellie/november . . .

[chaos_harmony]

Actually, I think the foundation was Topher fangirling her research more than anything else - he hero-worships her from afar, they meet in person and hit it off, they kind of get this whole Young Sociopathic Nerds In Love thing going, and then she's all, "I'm going to kill Echo!" and he's all, "Oh, shit." Honestly, if someone - even if that someone was disabled, and even if we were attracted to each other - was about to kill my friend, I'd probably knock him/her out too. And I do agree with potatoko that her death wasn't so much fridging as it was drama-mongering, which IMO, is a different beast.

That said, I recognize that my read of the series is pretty different from yours - especially re: Topher - so that probably colors my thinking.

[meganbmoore]

The point is that all that is the excuse the show came up with for yet another scene justifying violence against women.

Frankly, finding Topher likable or sympathetic, or buying into his blatant woobification, is pretty much incomprehensible to me. But then, I never bought into how it's so painful and/or sympathetic to be a rapist and/or slavetrader, and that's the ship this show sails on.

The last episode I watched was anough to alienate me from ever trying anything associated with Whedon again. He can keep his rape and abuse fantasies away from me.