I chose the worst time to be a Joss Whedon fan. Before everything that was revealed early this year, I made it a goal of mine to watch all of his shows before his newest show (which he left before it premiered). Anyways, I only binged were the shows he had direct involvement with, which excludes Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since he only worked on the pilot. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly are two of the greatest shows of all time while Angel is a solid spinoff with an amazing finale. So you could say Whedon made enough of a name for himself to be a big deal in TV. Well, his fourth offering is one of the weirdest concepts that made it past a pilot order.
I saw a trailer for this back in 2009 or 2008 and I immediately thought the series was about robots who are asked to use different personalities, some kinky and some lethal (Westworld would use that premise, though I can't say it's good). However, it turns out it was just humans who allow their bodies to be violated. You may say if they sign contracts allowing this to happen, is it really a non-consensual? Not if the people who sign up are blackmailed into joining and never realize who's done anything physical to them. Well, after creating amazing lores in both horror, fantasy, and science fiction, Joss Whedon created a series about a techno cat house and it feels more like a kinky joke but in reality, Whedon was attempting to make his next best drama with a very limited premise.
And this isn't like Treme, a series from an established writer/producer that doesn't rival their previous work but contains enough merits to be watche, even an entertaining mess like The Romanoffs has enough of a glimmer to see it all the way through. This was just dull and a letdown compared to Whedon's first three shows and to be honest felt foreign to those works with exception of colorful characters like Topher Brink who speak the Whedontalk. Whedon came up with this when he spoke to Eliza Dushku about possible projects and to be honest it only felt like he made as a gift for her and nothing more.
Performance wise, Dushku isn't versatile enough to play Echo. The role that requires a performer with chameleon-like abilities in transforming into any character every week. Dushku was terrific on Buffy and to be honest she's usually just the badass supporting character in what she stars in. It is fun to see Whedon regulars like Alan Tudyk and Amy Acker as contrasts to who they portray in previous Whedon projects. Olivia Williams is a complete joy to watch, she's a boss who's cruel as hell and merely cares about the work than the individuals who carry it out (shit that sounds like Joss). Fran Kranz might be the best thing to come out of this since Whedon gives him the best character with a funny persona, I was glad he and Whedon would reunite again for The Cabin in the Woods and Much Ado About Nothing. Harry Lennix is pretty damn good, however Whedon destroys his character once he started closing up shop, leaving viewers dumbfounded by what this series was leading towards. And to be honest, Lennix does represent one of Whedon's biggest weaknesses, his lack of diverse characters. Besides Charles Gunn and Inara Serra, he rarely shows much interest or ambition for his characters of color. Lennix played my favorite character, and I felt cheated by Whedon's out of the blue character turn. Oh and Helo from BSG plays an FBI agent who doesn't go by the book, which I can live without.
In terms of the pacing, S1 is a complete drag with only a few highlights here and there but none of them made me say "Wow, it just took a while to turn good." S2 does improve on some mistakes from the freshman run, once there's a conspiracy to make Wesley Windham Pryce president, but this storyline is immediately abandoned once Fox cancelled the series and notified Whedon to wrap everything up, leaving some storylines feel forced, for example in Lennix's ending. The best episode of S1 (and to be honest the series in general), is one that didn't even air and was set in the distant future after an apocalypse, which shows how the concept of Eliza Dushku being an object of any rich guy's desire wasn't enough for viewers to stick around. What makes Whedon special as a creator is that he creates new lores and mythologies that have enough ground to travel to create a multiple season run, this merely has a concept with ideas that are either boring or purely episodic, leaving fans of the Scoobies and the Browncoats disappointed by how limited the world of Rossum and the Dollhouse is.
Although I'm a fan of Whedon's work, I won't re-watch this series. I'm bound to re-watch Buffy (probably back to back with Angel) and Firefly someday. Why? Because they're so damn good, both proved TV is a landscape of wondrous worlds we have yet to discover, Dollhouse is just one we never asked to visit.
Review by DeletedBlockedParentSpoilers2021-04-10T02:05:02Z— updated 2021-04-24T18:59:57Z
I chose the worst time to be a Joss Whedon fan. Before everything that was revealed early this year, I made it a goal of mine to watch all of his shows before his newest show (which he left before it premiered). Anyways, I only binged were the shows he had direct involvement with, which excludes Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since he only worked on the pilot. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly are two of the greatest shows of all time while Angel is a solid spinoff with an amazing finale. So you could say Whedon made enough of a name for himself to be a big deal in TV. Well, his fourth offering is one of the weirdest concepts that made it past a pilot order.
I saw a trailer for this back in 2009 or 2008 and I immediately thought the series was about robots who are asked to use different personalities, some kinky and some lethal (Westworld would use that premise, though I can't say it's good). However, it turns out it was just humans who allow their bodies to be violated. You may say if they sign contracts allowing this to happen, is it really a non-consensual? Not if the people who sign up are blackmailed into joining and never realize who's done anything physical to them. Well, after creating amazing lores in both horror, fantasy, and science fiction, Joss Whedon created a series about a techno cat house and it feels more like a kinky joke but in reality, Whedon was attempting to make his next best drama with a very limited premise.
And this isn't like Treme, a series from an established writer/producer that doesn't rival their previous work but contains enough merits to be watche, even an entertaining mess like The Romanoffs has enough of a glimmer to see it all the way through. This was just dull and a letdown compared to Whedon's first three shows and to be honest felt foreign to those works with exception of colorful characters like Topher Brink who speak the Whedontalk. Whedon came up with this when he spoke to Eliza Dushku about possible projects and to be honest it only felt like he made as a gift for her and nothing more.
Performance wise, Dushku isn't versatile enough to play Echo. The role that requires a performer with chameleon-like abilities in transforming into any character every week. Dushku was terrific on Buffy and to be honest she's usually just the badass supporting character in what she stars in. It is fun to see Whedon regulars like Alan Tudyk and Amy Acker as contrasts to who they portray in previous Whedon projects. Olivia Williams is a complete joy to watch, she's a boss who's cruel as hell and merely cares about the work than the individuals who carry it out (shit that sounds like Joss). Fran Kranz might be the best thing to come out of this since Whedon gives him the best character with a funny persona, I was glad he and Whedon would reunite again for The Cabin in the Woods and Much Ado About Nothing. Harry Lennix is pretty damn good, however Whedon destroys his character once he started closing up shop, leaving viewers dumbfounded by what this series was leading towards. And to be honest, Lennix does represent one of Whedon's biggest weaknesses, his lack of diverse characters. Besides Charles Gunn and Inara Serra, he rarely shows much interest or ambition for his characters of color. Lennix played my favorite character, and I felt cheated by Whedon's out of the blue character turn. Oh and Helo from BSG plays an FBI agent who doesn't go by the book, which I can live without.
In terms of the pacing, S1 is a complete drag with only a few highlights here and there but none of them made me say "Wow, it just took a while to turn good." S2 does improve on some mistakes from the freshman run, once there's a conspiracy to make Wesley Windham Pryce president, but this storyline is immediately abandoned once Fox cancelled the series and notified Whedon to wrap everything up, leaving some storylines feel forced, for example in Lennix's ending. The best episode of S1 (and to be honest the series in general), is one that didn't even air and was set in the distant future after an apocalypse, which shows how the concept of Eliza Dushku being an object of any rich guy's desire wasn't enough for viewers to stick around. What makes Whedon special as a creator is that he creates new lores and mythologies that have enough ground to travel to create a multiple season run, this merely has a concept with ideas that are either boring or purely episodic, leaving fans of the Scoobies and the Browncoats disappointed by how limited the world of Rossum and the Dollhouse is.
Although I'm a fan of Whedon's work, I won't re-watch this series. I'm bound to re-watch Buffy (probably back to back with Angel) and Firefly someday. Why? Because they're so damn good, both proved TV is a landscape of wondrous worlds we have yet to discover, Dollhouse is just one we never asked to visit.