Dollhouse 1.02 "The Target"

[hazelk]

According to various reports this episode was the one that saved the show from being cancelled in mid-development hell. This was the show FOX wanted to make. See hot girl. See girl run. See girl fall. See girl hurt. See girl turn. See girl win. Wipe girl’s mind and rinse-wash-repeat. It’s the ultimate CSI SVU procedural with added soap opera catharsis, a demographic double.

It was slickly done. Much smoother than the pilot episode at integrating its flashbacks and exposition dumps into a single A plotline and giving a more rounded characterization of Langdon and Topher and their possible motivations. Ballard was written as a contender this time round and the security guy, Dominic, revealed as misogynist in chief. The women remained largely ciphers and, as in the kidnapping plot last week, evil was something that random psychopaths commit, no audience complicity outside that constituency implied.

The creepier sections of the show and the parts that give me hope that it’s aiming for more than FOX wants to give aren’t the ones where bad people do bad things but the standard engagements. The motorcycling babe who shucks off the helmet and gives unprotected love, the beautiful woman who can see the real man behind the heavy. All these common or garden fantasies but what if they could be real and to whom? Having the Dollhouse so illegal and exclusive rather pulls the show’s punches by implying that these are privileges only billionaires might abuse but I suppose you can’t really be Never Let Me Go bleak on TV.

There are reasons to keep watching. The mutually protective bond they made between Langdon and Echo was very effectively realized. It was, however, explicitly set up as an artifact, we saw them both being programmed. But they both feel it. Does that make it less real? The other thing I thought was quite subtle was seeing Echo put together scraps from her programming to create something new. When she used Topher’s script to take over Boyd’s role it wasn’t simple echolia, she was using those borrowed phrases to make her own meaning. Similarly, when she mimicked Richard’s salute to the security chief. In her doll-like state she’s not only not supposed to remember things from her engagements but also to have any opinion about what people say to her. In that context the salute compares Dominic with the guy who tried to kill her (but who she fought back against). Even if the higher order recall of those events has been erased from her mind it’s as if her body retains something of the experience. And has views.

Comments

[abrakadabrah.livejournal.com]

I'm a little worried about all the targeted misogynism. Like they have to get in a certain amount each week. And Reed Diamond's part has seemed one dimensional to me so far, which is a shame, because he can easily work in more than one dimension. There are male dolls, too, so why not show what the male dolls toss up in other men and women.

Anyway, I've found that grating - hoping we don't have to have a dose each week to make sure we get the point.

Otherwise, it seems like there's the basis of a very complex show there, once we get past building the foundation. So far I find Topher the most intriguing.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I think the backstory on Reed Diamond's part was that he originally just hired for the pilot but they liked him enough to make him a regular. So he could be the Spike of the series but with Spike's love-hate relationship with women that would hardly preclude a little misogyny being in the mix:-)

More generally with the set up they have it would seem odd to me if it didn't bring out the misogyny along with the racism and the class issues. You have the dolls living lives as pampered as those of Hollywood actresses under the studio system, with equally tarnished backstories and just as little actual power. It's a potential breeding ground for all kinds of envy/resentment/fear and thinly veiled contempt shading into hate.

Topher sees the dolls as lab rats or whatever the writerly equivalent is (I think he's a very dark satire of Joss himself). Dominic may just have specific issues with Echo/Caroline ranging from her being a security risk to his being in league with alpha but what pinged me as misogyny was how he expressed himself with the pushing into her personal space and the whole "you're nothing, your opinions don't matter" thing.

[abrakadabrah.livejournal.com]

but what pinged me as misogyny was how he expressed himself with the pushing into her personal space and the whole "you're nothing, your opinions don't matter" thing.

Well, yeah - that was th obvious misogyny. And it's the third time we've seen one of the male characters throw that stuff at Echo. It happened twice in Ghost, when she was in character.

Thanks for the info about Reed Diamond. It's nice to see him turn up here - he had a really interesting character in Homicide. Looking forward to him get more complex.

Oh yeah - all of Joss' nerds are dark satires of himself. Even Warren - who built the robot who did everything that Warren had programmed it to do.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

You have the dolls living lives as pampered as those of Hollywood actresses under the studio system

A very insightful comparison - which reminds me how Eliza and Joss thought up the idea for the show in the first place! The comparison isn't so much Actives = prostitutes, as Actives = actors. (With the subtle hint of Actives = actors = prostitutes, of course...)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Old Hollywood is one of my many obsessions (proud owner of not one but two Judy Garland Biographies) , which may be why it was the first thing the Dollhouse made me think of. But it's also people prostituting themselves or being trafficked or enslaved or having their identities appropriated or broken down into pieces and reassembled at will ( I actually find that concept more squicky than the memory wipes per se). All the things that people with power can do and worse that if you had power you might want to because arguably we do it already. Every time we watch a movie or read a book and wish it could be real.

[quinara]

Does that make it less real?

I think one way this show could make me very sad is if it becomes all about Echo reclaiming Caroline’s identity and forgetting about all the others. Constructed though they are Echo does in some sense give them life and I think it would be an interesting question to ask at what point someone becomes a human, and to what extent the ethics differ between removing Caroline’s personality and removing, say, Jenny’s.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Yes exactly. Where do they get these personalities from and whether whole or composited what makes them less real than any other collections of memories and emotional tendencies. What I like best about the premise are the hints at the idea of personalities as self-assembling entities that will begin to form regardless of what you try to do to suppress them. Also if Echo were to build some kind of self as a Doll would that self have any less right to exist than Caroline's frozen memories when the five years is up.

[quinara]

Also if Echo were to build some kind of self as a Doll would that self have any less right to exist than Caroline's frozen memories when the five years is up.

Oh yeah, it’s sort of the question of how much they are the same person really, with everything wiped clean. If Echo found a way to let just a small part of Caroline’s personality resurface would it be within her rights to stop there and say she doesn’t want to change any more?

[abrakadabrah.livejournal.com]

Also if Echo were to build some kind of self as a Doll would that self have any less right to exist than Caroline's frozen memories when the five years is up.

Also there's the question of what if she likes that other self better. Because, it has become through the circumstances it has been forced to live through more heroic and more able to engage with life. etc.

[yourlibrarian]

It was, however, explicitly set up as an artifact, we saw them both being programmed. But they both feel it. Does that make it less real?

No more so, I would say, than two people in an arranged marriage who end up caring for one another.

The other thing I thought was quite subtle was seeing Echo put together scraps from her programming to create something new.

She's a fanwork in progress!

In that context the salute compares Dominic with the guy who tried to kill her (but who she fought back against).

Yes, that was a nice touch.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

She's a fanwork in progress!
It actually reminded me of a thing my kids used to do (still do to an extent). They were very slow to go from using single words to building sentences and like many autists much of their early speech was simple echolia - repeating phrases, often quite complex ones, that they'd heard other people use or on TV. So one of the big breakthroughs we saw (heard) was noticing that although they weren't making their own sentences they were using these copied ones in context appropriate ways.

Echo and Caroline

[klytaimnestra.livejournal.com]

I think Caroline is dead, and I don't think the show is going to be about retrieving her. I think however, given what we've seen in three episodes now, it's going to be about how the essential Caroline - who was heroic - is going to keep on being expressed in every incarnation; she is always going to find a way to put together her programming and make it something more.

In episode 2, she was programmed to be the perfect date - that is, ALMOST as good as the guy, but never QUITE as good. But she got past that. I liked that.

Not as fond of the third ep though, which seemed heavy-handed to me.

Re: Echo and Caroline

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of Buddhist about identity so I'm not sure of there is an essential Caroline but there are patterns and tendencies that write themselves even when the writer is absent.

The third episode makes me think of Inca Mummy girl, the central conceit of a MOTW mirroring the hero's condition should have worked on paper but never came to life and the best parts are all in the peripherals.