5 ms·

I'm a little surprised Dollhouse didn't rank higher. It's really a wonderful, extended meditation on the nature of identity, wrapped up in a sci-fi, transhuman

I'm a little surprised Dollhouse didn't rank higher. It's really a wonderful, extended meditation on the nature of identity, wrapped up in a sci-fi, transhumanist, pre-apocalyptic shell, with a liberal dash of feminism. Fran Kranz, Olivia Williams, and (last, but not least) Enver Gjokaj are standouts among the excellent cast. I do, however, recommend watching the first pilot from the DVD set rather than the actual pilot episode that aired. It takes a couple episodes to get going, but once it does, it's truly amazing.

jhou2 10y ago
iirc, the "Save Dollhouse from Cancellation" campaign started before the first episode even aired. It still got cancelled.
SwellJoe 10y ago
I hated Dollhouse, despite being a nearly obsessive Whedon fan. I loved Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, and also loved Dushku and Acker in their roles on earlier Whedon shows. I kinda forced myself to watch it based on my love of all of Whedon's other shows, and the hope that, like Buffy, it would find its stride in the 2nd season. But, no, it was just bad. I didn't make it through the second season.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  I'm glad I'm not the only one. I obsessed over Buffy (which I consider a guilty pleasure as I wasn't the target demographic of teenage-at-the-time girls), and enjoyed Angel to a lesser degree. Firefly absolutely blew me away, and was a starting point for several of its actors who have become successful in the years since. I've followed those actors into the shows they went on to do, with the exception of Nathan Fillion in Castle, which I found too cheesy for my taste. But Dollhouse...the cast was great, the story was intriguing even if a little derivative, but somehow the show fell flat for me. I found myself struggling to watch it and gave up about 10 episodes in. I still have the first season DVD on my Amazon wish list but it's been on there since December 2010 and I still haven't brought myself to buy it, despite its price dropping below $10 several times in the past. Maybe one day I'll pick it up and try again, but there's so much good TV out today and so little spare time to watch, I may never get around to it.
  - eggy 10y ago
    My ex-wife and I watched Buffy when it premiered in 1997, and she was pregnant with our first child. We loved it! Time flies: My daughter got into it and did several weeks of marathon watching with her friend when she was 17 in 2014. It didn't hold up for me when I watched a bit of one episode again, and I was definitely not in the demographic for the show by a stretch at that point ;)
    - ghaff 10y ago
      At least for me, there's a certain "you can't go home again" element to TV series--especially ones running over a number of seasons. You typically watch and enjoy them at the pace that they aired and in the context of the culture at the time and where you are at the time. This is changing with the splintering of mainstream culture, on-demand binge-watching etc. But it certainly applies to originally broadcast series. There's also just so much new content these days. It's really hard for me to imagine devoting 100 hours or whatever to either rewatching or watching for the first time some 1990s vintage TV show.
      - vidarh 10y ago
        With many shows like Buffy it also change so much over time. The early episodes are not far off "monster of the week", but then you get a lot of things towards the end with e.g. Buffy's death, and resurrection (and the subsequent "d'oh" moment on realising that they should have considered maybe, just maybe she was actually happier dead) that are a lot more complex and intelligent. It's easy with long running series to remember the characters and events they way they were towards the end of the series, and get a bit of a shock when going back and watching the beginning..
        ghaff 10y ago
        Although I wrote elsewhere that I have limited patience for shows taking too much time to find their "voice," it's certainly fair that some shows do start out tentatively and only grow into memorable series after a season or so. For example, I'd argue that both Star Trek TNG and DS9--especially the former--were much stronger later in their runs. Of course, there are probably even more series that start out fairly strong but limp on well past their sell by date or just lose the plot so to speak.
thom 10y ago
Dollhouse was premised on the idea that Eliza Dushku could convincingly play a different character every week. I do not think it worked very well.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  I can imagine if they rebooted the show, Tatiana Maslany could pull it off without a hitch. It's basically what she's doing in Orphan Black, but she's playing those multiple characters two or three at a time in one episode.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  I'd say that's more of a feature than a bug. I was far more interested in Echo than any of the implanted personalities.
krylon 10y ago
A fair amount of the time, Dollhouse seemed to me like it had been rushed into production without the time to think of better per-episode plots (as opposed to the longer story-arc). Which always made me a little sad, because the underlying theme is awesome. On the other hand, I agree that the cast was incredible. Even when some of the "little" plots were weak, they made the show very much worth watching to me.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  Definitely. Season 1 was mostly "let's see whose ass Echo is going to kick this week." Unfortunately, I'd say about half of the first season was basically wasted on throwaway episodes. Season 2 felt rushed in general, because it was rushed. Had the show gotten the 5 or 6 years it actually needed to develop itself, it would have been far better.
Animats 10y ago
Dollhouse was a good idea, worth one season. Another season would have struggled with variations on the theme. This is a problem with high-concept drama; don't wear out the concept. That's also true of Firefly, although it might have gone two or three seasons before being brought to some kind of conclusion.

jhou2 10y ago

iirc, the "Save Dollhouse from Cancellation" campaign started before the first episode even aired. It still got cancelled.

SwellJoe 10y ago

I hated Dollhouse, despite being a nearly obsessive Whedon fan. I loved Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, and also loved Dushku and Acker in their roles on earlier Whedon shows. I kinda forced myself to watch it based on my love of all of Whedon's other shows, and the hope that, like Buffy, it would find its stride in the 2nd season. But, no, it was just bad. I didn't make it through the second season.

morganvachon 10y ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I obsessed over Buffy (which I consider a guilty pleasure as I wasn't the target demographic of teenage-at-the-time girls), and enjoyed Angel to a lesser degree. Firefly absolutely blew me away, and was a starting point for several of its actors who have become successful in the years since. I've followed those actors into the shows they went on to do, with the exception of Nathan Fillion in Castle, which I found too cheesy for my taste. But Dollhouse...the cast was great, the story was intriguing even if a little derivative, but somehow the show fell flat for me. I found myself struggling to watch it and gave up about 10 episodes in. I still have the first season DVD on my Amazon wish list but it's been on there since December 2010 and I still haven't brought myself to buy it, despite its price dropping below $10 several times in the past. Maybe one day I'll pick it up and try again, but there's so much good TV out today and so little spare time to watch, I may never get around to it.
- eggy 10y ago
  My ex-wife and I watched Buffy when it premiered in 1997, and she was pregnant with our first child. We loved it! Time flies: My daughter got into it and did several weeks of marathon watching with her friend when she was 17 in 2014. It didn't hold up for me when I watched a bit of one episode again, and I was definitely not in the demographic for the show by a stretch at that point ;)
  - ghaff 10y ago
    At least for me, there's a certain "you can't go home again" element to TV series--especially ones running over a number of seasons. You typically watch and enjoy them at the pace that they aired and in the context of the culture at the time and where you are at the time. This is changing with the splintering of mainstream culture, on-demand binge-watching etc. But it certainly applies to originally broadcast series. There's also just so much new content these days. It's really hard for me to imagine devoting 100 hours or whatever to either rewatching or watching for the first time some 1990s vintage TV show.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      With many shows like Buffy it also change so much over time. The early episodes are not far off "monster of the week", but then you get a lot of things towards the end with e.g. Buffy's death, and resurrection (and the subsequent "d'oh" moment on realising that they should have considered maybe, just maybe she was actually happier dead) that are a lot more complex and intelligent. It's easy with long running series to remember the characters and events they way they were towards the end of the series, and get a bit of a shock when going back and watching the beginning..
      - ghaff 10y ago
        Although I wrote elsewhere that I have limited patience for shows taking too much time to find their "voice," it's certainly fair that some shows do start out tentatively and only grow into memorable series after a season or so. For example, I'd argue that both Star Trek TNG and DS9--especially the former--were much stronger later in their runs. Of course, there are probably even more series that start out fairly strong but limp on well past their sell by date or just lose the plot so to speak.

thom 10y ago

Dollhouse was premised on the idea that Eliza Dushku could convincingly play a different character every week. I do not think it worked very well.

morganvachon 10y ago
I can imagine if they rebooted the show, Tatiana Maslany could pull it off without a hitch. It's basically what she's doing in Orphan Black, but she's playing those multiple characters two or three at a time in one episode.
pmiller2 10y ago
I'd say that's more of a feature than a bug. I was far more interested in Echo than any of the implanted personalities.

krylon 10y ago

A fair amount of the time, Dollhouse seemed to me like it had been rushed into production without the time to think of better per-episode plots (as opposed to the longer story-arc). Which always made me a little sad, because the underlying theme is awesome. On the other hand, I agree that the cast was incredible. Even when some of the "little" plots were weak, they made the show very much worth watching to me.

pmiller2 10y ago
Definitely. Season 1 was mostly "let's see whose ass Echo is going to kick this week." Unfortunately, I'd say about half of the first season was basically wasted on throwaway episodes. Season 2 felt rushed in general, because it was rushed. Had the show gotten the 5 or 6 years it actually needed to develop itself, it would have been far better.

Animats 10y ago

Dollhouse was a good idea, worth one season. Another season would have struggled with variations on the theme. This is a problem with high-concept drama; don't wear out the concept. That's also true of Firefly, although it might have gone two or three seasons before being brought to some kind of conclusion.