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Joss Whedon's Dollhouse
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Joss Whedon's Dollhouse
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For a certain subset of TV fans (of which I am definitely one), fewer words bring more excitement than “created by Joss Whedon.” Even so, I’ll admit having some trepidation about Whedon’s newest show, Dollhouse. After watching the pilot I’d say my fears were somewhat well-founded. The concept is kind of interesting (hot people are “wiped” clean of their personalities so that rich clients can pay to have said hotties reprogrammed to do, well, whatever). There are definitely some Whedon-esque touches, like outbursts of quippy dialogue and lots of tough-but-fragile characters who probably have great tales to tell us about why they are so damaged. It seems like there’s an Abrams-y vibe to the proceedings, too, as if at any moment Sydney Bristow is going to burst through the doors and kick some ass (wow, now I’m just thinking about how awesome that would be). The “Dollhouse” even comes with its own nerdy tech genius (miss you, Marshall) and Amy Acker (to be fair, she was on Whedon’s Angel before Alias).
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To be honest, I spent a good part of the hour playing “hey, I know that guy!” Aside from Acker and, of course, Eliza Dushku (still looking “five by five,” Faith), the show also features BSG’s Helo (Tahmoh Penikett, who proves he is kind of annoying on land as well as in space), and Olivia Williams (she runs the “Dollhouse” and seems kinda evil, though, in fairness, she might just still be really pissed about Bruce Willis haunting her). Dollhouse is also apparently where minor characters from 24 go to die — it took me a bit to figure out that Dushku’s “handler” is played by the guy who played Walid Al-Rezani, the poor sap in season six who is accidentally sent to faux-Guantanamo and tortured or something. Also, in a much more exciting cameo, the pilot’s one-off bad guy was none other than Hector Salazar (the less intelligent of the Salazar brothers, the one who mostly just gets tricked by Jack and yells “Clooooooowdia”).
After I stopped yelling “Cloooowdia” at the TV and focused on the actual show, I realized that it has potential. My problem, I think, is with Dushku (please don’t kill me, Faith!). So far, I just don’t buy her performance, and it didn’t really make any sense to me that when a rich client asked for a tough negotiator to deal with a kidnapper, he would be sent the chick from Tru Calling. Said rich client even says as much, when he asks why they didn’t send an older, “fatherly type, like Edward James Olmos.” The blatant grab at BSG fans worked for me, but it only made me want to replace Dushku with Katee Sackhoff that much more.
I will watch next week, if only in the hopes that Ryan Chapelle and Behrooz will show up. Seriously, though, Whedon has proven to us with Buffy and Firefly that giving him a chance to do his thing usually pays off. The first season of Buffy was very uneven, and the second and third seasons turned out to be the some of the greatest TV ever. So, I will try to wipe my doubts about Dushku and hope that Whedon’s magic starts working soon.
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