Dollhouse: Ghost [series premiere]
By fred | February 14, 2009
(S01E01) This is it, the debut of genius Joss Whedon’s latest creation, Dollhouse. And yes, that took place on Fox on a Friday night — two things that don’t really scream for victory, nor bring up good memories. But let’s not worry about this too much and focus in the show itself, it’ll be better for everyone I think. Okay, let me just add a little something still, I can’t help myself.
Fox executives have said that they would air all 13 episodes of the show, so that should be good news. I say “should” because while I’m sure we were supposed to take it as a “we will give the show a real chance and give it time to develop and grow” that’s not how I perceived it. I may be wrong, I sure hope I’m dead wrong on that one, but every time I read what they were saying, it felt to me like they weren’t saying it all.
More precisely, like the beginning of the sentence, the part they weren’t saying out loud but thinking in their head, was something along the line of “despite the show being canceled” — Every time it felt like that, like they already had made up their mind about the future of the show, and not in a good way, and to see them justifying the Friday slot and the lack of post-Idol boost for the series premiere because sci-fi shows would be harder to sell and not get a very wide audience or some shit, and yet give Fringe - which is clearly sci-fi – a permanent post-Idol slot, and the same for Lie To Me, which is far from being a good show…
Anyways, let’s head back to this actual episode, and Dollhouse itself. Now, I think this was a fairly good episode, so nothing bad but alas nothing great either. It’s a real shame really, because I know Whedon is better and can do better than this.
Some things worked in this episode, but the concept wasn’t really sold for the better, and cop trying to sell the idea that people always want more, more exciting, more perfect, so for instance not an actual negotiator expert with years of experience but someone who thinks is just that for the day ? I don’t buy it. I mean, as long as we’re talking Eliza Dushku as your perfect girlfriend in a very sexy little dress, I don’t need any explanation or anything, I just wish I had the cash for it.
But if your daughter had been kidnapped, I’m guessing you probably want the real deal, the actual guy (or girl) who’s really been doing this her whole life, not implanted with said life one hour ago. And it felt a little big of a coincidence that the memory they used just happened to be of a girl who had been previously kidnapped by one of the guy here, I mean what are the odds?
And the deal with the cop tracking the dollhouse was really not well handled I thought. I’m sorry to say this, because I’m a Whedon fan, but it felt thrown in in the middle of everything without real purpose but try to explain things to the audience. Adding to that the lack of mythology or of that well-known Whedon style/humor, and there are reasons to be disappointed.
Full disclosure: It’s time I confess something though. Earlier on I said I knew Whedon could do better, and I meant that. Literally, not I think or I believe, I know he can do better than this, much better. I know this, because Tyler knows this. because I happen to have read the actual script of the original pilot, Echo, the one Whedon first wrote but that the network said not to know what to do with it, leading to Whedon – of his own will of course – deciding to rewrite a brand new episode.
