Dollhouse (that Joss Whedon TV series)

[Sarevok]

Anyone following it so far ? What is your opinions ?

My personal thought is it is surprisingly good. There is good continuity between episodes at same time there is no hint of contrived events to setup finishing acts to story arcs. I am not yet fan of any of the dolls myself but find the operation of the dollhouse organisation itself fascinating to watch. Basically the whole level of byzantine politics. intrigue and all the tacticool mission stuff by the organisation personnel has kept me watching. The dolls are just like camera, they are not much interesting at same time they don't get on my nerves. They let me focus on the bigger story being played out. Basically if you turn brain state to low power mode Dollhouse is quite fun to watch as a nice televised "rar scenarior" of what would happen if humans could be programmed like computers.

[charlemagne]

I'm following it, but I don't really know why. There's several things I don't like about the series:

- Whedon can't write original characters. Everyone is a cardboard copy of either another Whedon show character or plain simple unoriginal and done to death.
- The whole concept of storing whole personas on harddisks, copy&paste building them on a computer and swapping them around is a bit too over the top for a show set in "now" for my taste. Wouldn't have a problem with that if it was set "now + 20 years" or something, but I guess that would've blown the budget.
- I don't like that the supposed lead character isn't even a real character.
- It feels a bit wrong that from the very beginning we've only seen a glitching "lead doll". Echo hasn't been working right ever. It would've been nicer if we saw a couple of episodes of how the Dollhouse is supposed to work normally, and then have Special Agent Helo do something to make Echo start glitching.

[Anarchist Bunny]

I watched the first episode and haven't been arsed to watched the rest. I probably will, if just to give it a chance beyond the pilot(which are usually crap anyways) but it just seems apparent to me that Joss is not going to waste his A game on Fox again, besides it was doomed from the start because they put it into the Friday Night Death Slot. For years we've seen Fox take a show on the bubble and toss it there so the rating tank and they can off it outright. The fucking Osborne's variety shit gets an American Idol lead in, but any show they have with potential will get shrugged off a good night so that Fox can justify making something cheaper.

[Thanas]

What's ironic is that Dollhouse and T:SCC are the cheapest scripted dramas on Fox.

[PREDATOR490]

I have been watching it rather steadily. So far the majority of Whedon's work has been exceptionally good and interesting. Granted, some of it isnt really fit to become a decent long running series which I think Dollhouse really falls down on the same as Firefly.

Seeing Echo / Dushku is appealing. I liked Faith in Buffy more than Buffy herself during her appearances and this series seems like an attempt to make a Faith spin off that fans wanted from Buffy. On the one hand Dushku has the looks but realistically she dosent strike me as being able to carry a series like this on her own.
I dont see this series reaching a second season from the rather weak premise they have to go on.

How am I supposed to care about the dolls or associate with them if they are constantly being changed by wipes and the only thing we see IS those false personalities ? There is no genuine character underneath these dolls except vague hints which literally does make them cardboard characters with no depth. The ones with actual depth are the tech guy and the Boss lady.
To be honest, Dollhouse would probably do better as the setting for a genuine or porn movie. The latter being the most obvious use for good looking programmable people. Which incidentally is something this kinda of premise would be used for anyway, the show already indicates this is the situation so the 'drama' is rather lacking when your watching a show about a high tech method of prostitution.

[Venator]

I've watched it on my own time, but I've kept up to speed with it... it's not the greatest thing to ever grace TV, but it's interesting.

Episode 6 in particular was head-and-shoulders above the rest quality-wise; it could just be a show that needs time to mature, but I can see it getting old fairly fast.

In number seven we get to see all the "real" characters (not the Dolls) on some kind of extreme mind-altering drug... which isn't a great plot, but I'd recommend watching that far just for the hilarity of the execution.

[Peptuck]

First episode was "meh."
Second episode was "hey, this is pretty good."
Third episode was "meh."
Fourth episode was "hey this is pretty good."
Fifth episode was "oh shit I like this show now."
Sixth episode was "goddammit now I'm stuck on this show you bastards."
And from that point on things have held steady.

[JediToren]

The first few episodes were average, but the show has started to pick up in the last few episodes, mainly its Helo's story and his struggle to expose the Dollhouse that is interesting. I've also found Echo's handler to be a pretty interesting character in that he doesn't entirely approve of what the dollhouse is doing. We'll see where it goes.

[Sarevok]

Speaking of Helo I liked his scenes with Romo Lampkin (the same actor appeared in Dollhouse). Tamoh who plays Helo, looks and acts so similar to his other show I was expecting him to accuse Lampkins actor of defending Baltar. Talk about being typecast into confused tough guy with emotional soft side lol.

[Netko]

Or the actor lacks range to pull off anything else... Anyhow, I pretty much agree with what everyone else is saying. The premise is a bit dubious, however the last few episodes have made me a watcher for the foreseeable future.

Plus Echo and especially Sierra are hot and there are those shower scenes that show the max for network TV. Yeah, its gratifying my inner teenager, but so what - its not that I expect this show to have deep philosophical points despite the network apparently promoting it as such.

[Venator]

Or the actor lacks range to pull off anything else...

In this case I don't really see that he had too much of a choice; the role was for someone dedicated to bringing down the Bad Guys and saving the damsel in distress, no matter what his higher-ups, friends, or the law had to say about it. The fact that they cast an actor who's best-known role was personifying "honour before reason" in grimdark setting was just poor coincidence.

If you want to see Helo in a totally different light, play Need For Speed Carbon - he's the smarmy, two-faced, underhanded, quasi-gangsta main villian .

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I've only seen one episode, and I do enjoy the concept. From what I've heard though, the first few episodes, Fox was still trying to fuck with Whedon's creative control, so he deliberately turned down the quality and was fully prepared to let the series crash unless they gave him what he wanted. Thus about fourth episode on, he began pulling out all the stops.

Granted, this comes from talking to other people who've watched the show, so I don't have a scrap of actual proof behind it.

[Thanas]

Meh. Dollhouse is largely boring IMO - especially the latest episode, which should have drama written all over it - but somehow, the pace felt to slow, the directing could have been better and whoever said Eliza Dushku can hold a candle to Summer Glau is an idiot.

[Dread Not]

From what I can tell I enjoy Joss Whedon's work a fair bit more than a lot of the members here, so I'm rather surprised that the opinions on this show are mostly ranging from "meh", to "pretty good", considering I found it to be a big pile of shit. I watched the first four episodes and have not been the least bit impressed. There was the scene in the first episode where Echo falls over on her motorcycle during a race, and then after she picks herself up and is just about to speed off again, she takes off her damn helmet! And then as if that wasn't enough, there was the episode where agent Ballard goes to the abandoned building, gets shot in the gut, and then manages to whip the shit out of three goons before having an ambulance haul him off where he then flatlines. Those two scenes in particular reeked of network television bullshit, although that is not to say there weren't plenty of others ("They're called breasts, and yes they are exceptional!" ) However...

First episode was "meh."
Second episode was "hey, this is pretty good."
Third episode was "meh."
Fourth episode was "hey this is pretty good."
Fifth episode was "oh shit I like this show now."
Sixth episode was "goddammit now I'm stuck on this show you bastards."
And from that point on things have held steady.

Is there actually that great an increase in quality? I really wanted to like this show so perhaps I should give it another shot. I gave up after episode 4 where a story about a heist managed to bore me into a coma.

[Venator]

Episode six throws a couple plot hooks at you, then pulls on them with the vigor of a fishing-themed dominatrix. Unfortunately, it's not followed up in #7.

[Losonti Tokash]

But it is picked up again a bit in 8, along with some things introduced in 7, which probably has the most character development for the actives so far. For obvious reasons.

[TheLostVikings]

Is there actually that great an increase in quality? I really wanted to like this show so perhaps I should give it another shot. I gave up after episode 4 where a story about a heist managed to bore me into a coma.

Like already mentioned, fox basically ordered the all of the first couple of episodes to essentially be pilots, each one of them having to reintroduce the basic premise all over again, not having any drastic changes etc. And according to the same interviews that revealed that they also did their usual heavy handed meddling in the individual episodes.

Episode 5 was a pretty big leap in quality imho, but not amazingly so either. Still you ought to at least check it out, if it's still shit to you then this show probably wont be to your taste.

(and hopefully it will continue to get better, because otherwise it's going to be shitcanned asap)

[Dooey Jo]

- The whole concept of storing whole personas on harddisks, copy&paste building them on a computer and swapping them around is a bit too over the top for a show set in "now" for my taste. Wouldn't have a problem with that if it was set "now + 20 years" or something, but I guess that would've blown the budget.

Not necessarily, if you consider that most of "now + 20 years" will probably look surprisingly similar to "now + different hair styles".