Marching out of step
Huh, judging by the ep reaction posts, my brain does not work the same as everyone else's.
I've been mildly enjoying Dollhouse so far - I wasn't particularly blown away by it, but I found it quite nice diversionary viewing. I actually liked the fact that the identity replacements allow for a different kind of ep every week - I saw a lot of people commenting that it inhibited investment with the characters, but there was just enough there for me to get increasingly involved with them and for me to be interested in their motivations. I wasn't really giving a damn about the FBI agent, but I found the various Dollhouse folk intriguing in their different ways, and I liked the slow build of Echo's memory coming back / persisting across wipes. I also really liked (in artistic terms) Sierra's rape, because I found it entirely believable and it pointed up some of the issues about keeping people in that childlike state.
This week, on the other hand... everyone on my flist seems to be saying 'Finally! A good ep!', but it left me a bit cold. It was quite interesting seeing the different reactions to the drug, and I loved the 'I am very British' line (and generally had a lot of fun watching Adele in that scene). I also liked seeing the tiny glimpses of dolls' memories and being left with the question of which things belonged to them and which to the imprinted memories. But overall, I probably enjoyed this episode the least out of the whole season so far. I think a large part of my issue with it is that it just felt rushed - I wasn't interested in getting that huge infodump about Caroline's backstory. I was enjoying seeing fragments of information about her come out, and now that I've been provided with a whole lot of key stuff I feel a bit meh.
The other thing which I'm finding much less interesting is the whole 'bigger picture' scenario which the show is obviously working up to. It was clearer than ever this week that the Dollhouse is supposed to be a sort of conspiracy within a conspiracy and that just hiring out dolls is the least of their activities. Which... I just can't bring myself to care about that much. I always feel like a bit of a bad Browncoat, because I have a similar response to Serenity - for me, the big Blue Sun / Miranda reveal was the least interesting thing. What really pushes my buttons with Joss Whedon shows is the character development, and I much prefer episodes which are about that. I think one of the really successful things in Buffy was that the big picture was actually really basic - she's a vampire slayer, she has no choice - and everything else just riffed off that and deepened it. Similarly, during the course of Firefly, we were given quite a basic scenario - Serenity's crew against the world - and all the reasons and complexities behind that were being given a very slow build. I did really enjoy Serenity, but I've never liked it as much as Firefly, because it didn't (couldn't) capitalise on Joss' great strength as a writer, which is to exploit the slow, piece-by-piece narrative and character development which is possible in TV. This ep of Dollhouse has a similar failing for me.
ETA ALSO, I was irritated by the way that as soon as they broke into the lab, Caroline was all 'Oh, woe, the poor puppies, can't we keep them?' while her boyfriend was the one that noticed the scientific smoking gun. Not that compassion for animals is a bad thing, but it fitted badly with her driven attitude earlier, which was more about making a discernible impact. It also made me feel ickier about her boyfriend's patronising 'that's my girl' stuff - I get the he was supposed to be proud because she was so principled, etc, but it came across like a pat on the head. Grrr, Joss, your gender issues are showing.
In conclusion: my media tastes were apparently formed by 19th century novels. Oh well.
As regards that other show I watch - the one with the pretty boys - I am pretty much in agreement with my flist about the latest ep. The more MotWish eps of SPN always make me happy.
Bah, this post is totally a procrastination exercise, but it seems my flat still needs hoovering. I also have to finish my current coding assignment, review some documentation, write a challenge fic and post another fic (not all today, just in the near future). And I'd like to sleep for about another ten hours. I can has extra holiday, plz?
I hope your Sundays are going well!
I've been mildly enjoying Dollhouse so far - I wasn't particularly blown away by it, but I found it quite nice diversionary viewing. I actually liked the fact that the identity replacements allow for a different kind of ep every week - I saw a lot of people commenting that it inhibited investment with the characters, but there was just enough there for me to get increasingly involved with them and for me to be interested in their motivations. I wasn't really giving a damn about the FBI agent, but I found the various Dollhouse folk intriguing in their different ways, and I liked the slow build of Echo's memory coming back / persisting across wipes. I also really liked (in artistic terms) Sierra's rape, because I found it entirely believable and it pointed up some of the issues about keeping people in that childlike state.
This week, on the other hand... everyone on my flist seems to be saying 'Finally! A good ep!', but it left me a bit cold. It was quite interesting seeing the different reactions to the drug, and I loved the 'I am very British' line (and generally had a lot of fun watching Adele in that scene). I also liked seeing the tiny glimpses of dolls' memories and being left with the question of which things belonged to them and which to the imprinted memories. But overall, I probably enjoyed this episode the least out of the whole season so far. I think a large part of my issue with it is that it just felt rushed - I wasn't interested in getting that huge infodump about Caroline's backstory. I was enjoying seeing fragments of information about her come out, and now that I've been provided with a whole lot of key stuff I feel a bit meh.
The other thing which I'm finding much less interesting is the whole 'bigger picture' scenario which the show is obviously working up to. It was clearer than ever this week that the Dollhouse is supposed to be a sort of conspiracy within a conspiracy and that just hiring out dolls is the least of their activities. Which... I just can't bring myself to care about that much. I always feel like a bit of a bad Browncoat, because I have a similar response to Serenity - for me, the big Blue Sun / Miranda reveal was the least interesting thing. What really pushes my buttons with Joss Whedon shows is the character development, and I much prefer episodes which are about that. I think one of the really successful things in Buffy was that the big picture was actually really basic - she's a vampire slayer, she has no choice - and everything else just riffed off that and deepened it. Similarly, during the course of Firefly, we were given quite a basic scenario - Serenity's crew against the world - and all the reasons and complexities behind that were being given a very slow build. I did really enjoy Serenity, but I've never liked it as much as Firefly, because it didn't (couldn't) capitalise on Joss' great strength as a writer, which is to exploit the slow, piece-by-piece narrative and character development which is possible in TV. This ep of Dollhouse has a similar failing for me.
ETA ALSO, I was irritated by the way that as soon as they broke into the lab, Caroline was all 'Oh, woe, the poor puppies, can't we keep them?' while her boyfriend was the one that noticed the scientific smoking gun. Not that compassion for animals is a bad thing, but it fitted badly with her driven attitude earlier, which was more about making a discernible impact. It also made me feel ickier about her boyfriend's patronising 'that's my girl' stuff - I get the he was supposed to be proud because she was so principled, etc, but it came across like a pat on the head. Grrr, Joss, your gender issues are showing.
In conclusion: my media tastes were apparently formed by 19th century novels. Oh well.
As regards that other show I watch - the one with the pretty boys - I am pretty much in agreement with my flist about the latest ep. The more MotWish eps of SPN always make me happy.
Bah, this post is totally a procrastination exercise, but it seems my flat still needs hoovering. I also have to finish my current coding assignment, review some documentation, write a challenge fic and post another fic (not all today, just in the near future). And I'd like to sleep for about another ten hours. I can has extra holiday, plz?
I hope your Sundays are going well!