Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Dollhouse Episode 1 review

There's simply no avoiding the fact that the premise behind Josh Whedon's new show is the greatest fantasy brothel since Star Trek's Holodeck. A black market organisation called The Dollhouse that hires out mindless drones, imprinted with memories and personalities to order, and whose brains are handily wiped clean once 'used'. The fact that it's a rental service for the super rich rather than some shady goverment agency only reinforces the idea that the Dolls are simply fantasy playthings for hire.

It makes this debut (tellingly, not originally written as the opener) even harder to comprehend when Eliza Dushku's Echo is programmed as a negotiator for a kidnapping case. It's 'shtick of the week' TV; the concept apparently an excuse to launch into ideas at random. There's no reason why it shouldn't work - Quantum Leap proved that brilliantly. Here, however, the preposterousness of the set up makes it hard to suspend belief enough to buy Dushku as a menopausal psychologist trying to save a missing child. Something she attempts to potray by wearing glasses and sounding curt. All the time.

It's entertaining but while the mind games suggest interesting potential for future episodes there's a clumsy story telling here that doesn't bode well. Scenes hinting at Echo's childlike unprogrammed state becoming self-aware or the introduction of Alpha, an escaped psychopathic Doll, touch on an overall story arc but feel crudely slotted in. The supporting cast are similarly awkward, flat plot devices that stop just short of wearing their motivation on a T-shirt. Mainly because the script makes it all so painfully obvious. 

Chiseled FBI agent Ballar, for example, who's assigned to investigate the Dollhouse, is 100% surly genero-cop. The point that he won't back off is unsubtly hammered home by interlacing a scene of him being disciplined with shots of him boxing. As a piece of exposition it's slapped on like wet clay rather than finely crafted. A world away from the sparkle and wit of Whedon's previous shows. One episode in and the five year plan proposed by it's' creator already seems like an ambitious goal.

1 comment:

  1. Wait, so it *isn't* about a brilliant futuristic brothel? I'm out, at least until the inevitable cascade of fanfic.

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