Dollhouse 2x09: Stop-Lost and 2x10: The Attic
Combined but not very long review for these two episodes. I don't think it's spoilery to say that I wasn't terribly impressed, unfortunately.
You know that feeling, when you're reading fic, where a story feels fresh and exciting and new, but then, as it carries on, you rather abruptly come to the realisation that the author is writing the same story they've written several times before (or just the same story that everybody else has written)? Well, that's kind of the feeling with Dollhouse that I got in these last two episodes. Stop-Lost felt very episode-of-the-week, but an episode of early-season Buffy rather than Dollhouse, where highly divergent and mad things do happen on a week-by-week basis. (It's funnier how I'm happier with magic in general causing these things rather than a specific piece of technological kit.) And maybe I'm just too aromantic and cynical for these ZOMG THEY'RE MAKING AN ARMY/Love and a pesky curse defanged me Conquers Groupthink As The One True Expression Of Individuality plotlines, but I have to say that I didn't get into Dollhouse for forty-minute action sequences peppered this sparingly with thematic relevance. Nor for Echo essentially becoming the god-like, overpowered Omega I though we were always meant to rally against back in the day...
To be fair, this episode did have Darth DeWitt's power walk down the corridor. That was extremely amusing. But it does feed into what I found actually made me a little bit angry in The Attic - ie. the fact that we learn, apparently, that yet another evil organisation has been created by those dastardly British (though of course when you read British, you should imagine upper middle class English people who sound like they're from London, because they're the only people who live on our islands). I mentioned back in my review for 2x01 that I felt that episode had more than its quota of evil English people (and what I didn't mention was how depressing it was to read/see (I can't remember) an interview with Tahmoh Penikett in which he reckoned Jamie Bamber had 'the perfect accent' for a gun-runner), and that was definitely reprised here, though possibly worse was Clyde's bizarre re-enactment of the First Slayer playing the scary black person with a knife (WTF?). (And, in addition, I have to say that a lot of The Attic felt like it was stitched together from various Buffyverse dream sequences. Structuring an episode around Echo saying 'I have to find my friends' is really not a way to go about things if you want it to sound original. The subtlety of the 'mental-suck' horror Topher described back in Season 1 seemed to have been completely sacrificed for mad Wonderland japes.) On top of that there is DeWitt's characterisation, which is so assimilable to Spike's, Giles' and Wesley's that it's not even funny - apparently 'British' people all start out posh, but have this core of ruthlessness and darkness inside them (o hai, Council of Watchers) and solve all their problems with binge drinking like the backwards, hubristic louts they really are inside (no doubt still dreaming of their Empire). I imagine Joss didn't have that great a time at Winchester, but I'm really sick of it.
Agh, I want to like the show again. I want Whiskey back and the nuanced conversations rather than another fight sequence and an effing montage to indie music.
One thing I did like: Echo's argument that she wanted Victor to stay because she needed him, set in contrast to Sierra being sad for him. It's moments like that that keep me from losing all hope that the writers are working with more than one layer of meaning, even as the fake-out with DeWitt feels a bit like Spike and the soul all over again and makes me want to yell at the writers that DRAMATIC IRONY IS YOUR FRIEND, NOT YOUR ENEMY!!
Oh, someone argue with me and make me realise how clever the show is actually being. I could be convinced that I'm just too tired and cold at the moment to see the intricacies of what's actually going on.
Sorry for the rant.
You know that feeling, when you're reading fic, where a story feels fresh and exciting and new, but then, as it carries on, you rather abruptly come to the realisation that the author is writing the same story they've written several times before (or just the same story that everybody else has written)? Well, that's kind of the feeling with Dollhouse that I got in these last two episodes. Stop-Lost felt very episode-of-the-week, but an episode of early-season Buffy rather than Dollhouse, where highly divergent and mad things do happen on a week-by-week basis. (It's funnier how I'm happier with magic in general causing these things rather than a specific piece of technological kit.) And maybe I'm just too aromantic and cynical for these ZOMG THEY'RE MAKING AN ARMY/Love and a pesky curse defanged me Conquers Groupthink As The One True Expression Of Individuality plotlines, but I have to say that I didn't get into Dollhouse for forty-minute action sequences peppered this sparingly with thematic relevance. Nor for Echo essentially becoming the god-like, overpowered Omega I though we were always meant to rally against back in the day...
To be fair, this episode did have Darth DeWitt's power walk down the corridor. That was extremely amusing. But it does feed into what I found actually made me a little bit angry in The Attic - ie. the fact that we learn, apparently, that yet another evil organisation has been created by those dastardly British (though of course when you read British, you should imagine upper middle class English people who sound like they're from London, because they're the only people who live on our islands). I mentioned back in my review for 2x01 that I felt that episode had more than its quota of evil English people (and what I didn't mention was how depressing it was to read/see (I can't remember) an interview with Tahmoh Penikett in which he reckoned Jamie Bamber had 'the perfect accent' for a gun-runner), and that was definitely reprised here, though possibly worse was Clyde's bizarre re-enactment of the First Slayer playing the scary black person with a knife (WTF?). (And, in addition, I have to say that a lot of The Attic felt like it was stitched together from various Buffyverse dream sequences. Structuring an episode around Echo saying 'I have to find my friends' is really not a way to go about things if you want it to sound original. The subtlety of the 'mental-suck' horror Topher described back in Season 1 seemed to have been completely sacrificed for mad Wonderland japes.) On top of that there is DeWitt's characterisation, which is so assimilable to Spike's, Giles' and Wesley's that it's not even funny - apparently 'British' people all start out posh, but have this core of ruthlessness and darkness inside them (o hai, Council of Watchers) and solve all their problems with binge drinking like the backwards, hubristic louts they really are inside (no doubt still dreaming of their Empire). I imagine Joss didn't have that great a time at Winchester, but I'm really sick of it.
Agh, I want to like the show again. I want Whiskey back and the nuanced conversations rather than another fight sequence and an effing montage to indie music.
One thing I did like: Echo's argument that she wanted Victor to stay because she needed him, set in contrast to Sierra being sad for him. It's moments like that that keep me from losing all hope that the writers are working with more than one layer of meaning, even as the fake-out with DeWitt feels a bit like Spike and the soul all over again and makes me want to yell at the writers that DRAMATIC IRONY IS YOUR FRIEND, NOT YOUR ENEMY!!
Oh, someone argue with me and make me realise how clever the show is actually being. I could be convinced that I'm just too tired and cold at the moment to see the intricacies of what's actually going on.
Sorry for the rant.