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 wolfkinBlockedParent2022-06-04T23:33:22Z
If you can buy-in, I maintain it's a fun ride. The fight choreography works for TV. It's got a pretty interesting Sci-Fi concept. But Dollhouse is a show that's tough to recommend. Primarily because of it's concept. Something they lampshade in the first season and they constantly drop in is that for a show that sleeves personalities into bodies and yet needs to protect the bodies. It sounds like prostitution with fancy words. And basically it is. If WW84 caused you to throw up a little in your mouth and you seriously rate that film negatively purely because of the narrative shenanigans surrounding Chris Pine. Then just stay away from Dollhouse.
What this show does well is showcase great actors doing great acting. You won't see this level of acting again until Orphan Black and even then I think I'd put some of these dolls a little ahead of the impressively consistent Tatiana Maslany. The casting is just phenomenal. An impressive amount of new talent considering how many Buffy the Vampire Slayer actors ended up in this show.'
It's just a shame it never ended up anywhere. The show is about a company that sells their agents out to you with whatever persona you want programmed in. But .... why? It starts off trying to showcase all sorts of uses like getting an expert negotiator or a fun girlfriend, or n outdoorsy girlfriend, or a body guard who doesn't realize they're a body guard, or thief or an old girlfriend. The idea that people would pay for these things makes sense. But the idea that people would pay ludicrous amounts of money for them just doesn't make sense. You can pay a girl to date you for half that money and just user a portion of that to ensure discretion. Programming someone to be your best friend and unexpectedly motivated to protect you isn't that much better than just hiring a body guard and having them pretend to be your friend. The show goes through great pains (some of the time) to stress to value of authenticity. These people don't pretend they become. Thankfully the show doesn't drag on about that point but by not doing so it fails to actually close the loop and justify WHY this technology should exist in this world.
But if you are willing to let that go.. it's a fun enough ride. I enjoyed it so much I've seen it three times basically. Dollhouse is a really fun show. It has some great epilogue episodes that expand the fiction. Great actors and great acting. And a pesky little problem with it's central premise.