Last Tuesday on a 45 minute train ride home, I pulled out the iPhone and began watching Dollhouse’s unaired 13th episode, Epitaph One. The train arrived with about 5 or 6 minutes of the show left and I sat in the train station and finished it off. I don’t know how I could give it any higher praise than that. I really wasn’t expecting anything much of it which is why I didn’t watch it on the train ride out (I confess, I watched a breezy episode of The Closer).
It winds up seeming ironic that FOX never aired the episode, because in my opinion it was the best episode of Dollhouse by a wide margin. If you lined up all the Dollhouse episodes in a 100 yard dash, for me, this episode beat its closest competitor by at least 50 yards. It blew the field away. It was a great hour or at least close to 50 minutes of television. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been as compelling as a stand-alone episode because understanding some of the Dollhouse mythology was definitely important, but I really enjoyed the episode.
I’m going with the theory that Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen who wrote the episode were tasked with writing a series finale and did a wonderful, wonderful job of it. Everything was going according to script too. I think the forecasted script must have been: 1.) FOX wasn’t going to air the 13th episode, 2.) FOX would cancel Dollhouse, and 3.) the DVD would come out, and fans would absolutely rave about the episode and damn FOX for cancelling the show and extending the legacy (perhaps purely mythological) that Joss Whedon always gets screwed over by FOX.
And everything was going exactly according to plan until FOX screwed the whole thing up by renewing Dollhouse. I’m already wondering about over/under 1000 “Dollhouse was cancelled because FOX screwed up and never aired Epitaph One! Damn you FOX!” comments within the first three days of whenever Dollhouse is ultimately cancelled.
FOX could head that off at the pass too. What a remarkable thing it would be if they actually, you know, aired the season two premiere of Dollhouse as a two hour special that had Epitaph One in the first hour. Sure, for that to happen FOX broadcast’s sibling Fox Studios would likely need to give their sibling the episode for free. Blasphemy, I know, but they probably should do just that. Even among fans of the show, some very significant portion will never have seen Epitaph One. Why not give the loyal fans, even the ones who didn’t spring for the DVD a treat. It’s not like FOX would have to announce they were doing that until the DVD had been out for six weeks…
I’m not a Whedon fanboy, and though I saw every episode of Dollhouse, I wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan of the show either. It could be that my reaction is exaggerated because I didn’t really have high expectations, but you can mark me down as a huge fan of Epitaph One. It was a great episode.
Meanwhile the Internet will fill up with posts about what does it mean for season two that Epitaph One even exists at all? I’ll leave it for others to navel gaze over that, my navel gazing preference is to ponder whether the ultimate series finale can come anywhere close to topping Epitaph One.
The bar has been set pretty high.
The DVD for Dollhouse season one, including the unaired Epitaph One goes on sale this Tuesday, July 28.
just saw Epitaph One a couple hours ago. It was definitely by far the best Dollhouse episode since Stage Fright. This episode was definitely risky in my opinion. They gave away so much so fast. I remember reading that Joss wanted this to work as a series finale if the show ended up being cancelled and thus we have this episode that is just packed with too many spoilers. I can’t imagine season 2 being before Epitaph One’s timeline. It just wouldn’t work because we know how everything would end up in the end. Definitely a risky episode and can’t wait to see how season 2 plays out. Forget about Man on the Street being a game changer for the series, Epitaph One completely throws everything off balance. Can’t wait to see what’s in store!!
Season 2 takes place after season 1 / long before Epitagh One and we will be back to “second half of season 1 style” Dr Saunders will only be in 3 episodes due to her commitment to Happy Town, Laurence Dominic is also heavily limited by his schedule, and Mille/November is actually coming back!
From another site, some recap of the Dollhouse panel at Comic Con:
Whedon was asked if the episode could be considered a “second pilot” for the series.
“I wouldn’t call it a second pilot but it is definitely a different vision and it will contain a lot of things about the characters and who they are and where they’re heading that people might not have seen or expected,” Whedon said.
There are a lot of developments expected more specifically for the character of Echo, portrayed by Eliza Dushku. When asked if it was somehow the case that the other dolls and the other characters in the show were somehow “projecting” onto Echo, Joss replied, “Yes, you’re very right to say that they’re projecting on her. A lot of her life, not just because she’s a doll, but also just in general, has to do with the fact that people become obsessive about her. But we are going to learn and starting in this season that they’re not wrong, that there is something truly special about her and that she is going to be a major in factor in what happens to Dollhouse over the next few years.”
Tahmoh Penikett’s Paul Ballard, an FBI agent who was focused on finding the Dollhouse and eventually did, (In fact, at the end of the first season he appeared to be joining the Dollhouse in some capacity) is another character facing some changes for the new season.
“We had always intended for Paul to find the Dollhouse and for his interaction to change because we didn’t want him to be like the reporter in ‘The Hulk,’ showing up too late every episode,” Whedon said of the Ballard character. “And now they’ve been working on him from the outside with November and his alliance with Echo is going to be really tested, because he’s going to be in there with her partially to protect her but also to find out what’s really going on. You know you can gaze into the abyss or you can actually live in it, it’s going to affect you. so we are going to see that while (Echo) is starting to grow, we’re going to see that everybody else really starting to come apart a little bit.”
“Dollhouse” is certainly a kind of abyss — without a doubt, it is the only show on television to so brazenly portray such ethically questionable and morally deep actions and situations. This is not lost on Whedon.
“I think with this show, I want to say to the people who have, you know, felt a connection with me, that maybe you want to back away and avoid eye contact,” he said. “That maybe there’s something horribly wrong with me, and this is my very poetical way of expressing that. I think of it as a work that actually frightens me at times in a way that my shows seldom got to. At the same time I have that sort of jolly love of everything that’s going on and have to be reminded that what I’m doing is reprehensible. So it’s a mature work in the sense that I grew up and went insane.”
Felicia Day is coming back in S2. Epitaph One I think is “suggestive”, meaning that it happens but is not the complete truth. Eye of the beholder…the “Could Be” future.
And dude. If you are going to watch the DVD: Original ep 1st, then 2nd, 4th; jump to ep 6, then watch it until the 13th. If you do that for me, I’ll stalk Bill like he stalks JBF like he stalks Joss.
buffywrestling – Personally I’d recommend the 5th over the 4th, and avoid the 1st, but in any case, isn’t it ironic that the problem with Dollhouse is that Fox actually showed all the episodes, and screened them in the right order, unlike a certain other Whedon show?
The Epitaph One future, is A future. Not necessarily the real one, just a posible one.
Actually the Epitaph One future IS THE future. What could be not real are possibly the episode’s flashbacks: memories are subjective, personal, thy are not THE truth, but a part of it, a vision of it. At least this is Whedon’s explaination.
I thought it was definitely the best episode. The other eps of the show I would give at least an A- are 7-9.
Generally, the first season was disappointing (especially in the end) but good. Epitaph One gives me the hope that S2 might be what I expect from the creator of Btvs.
Having watched “Echo”–the original, unaired pilot–and “Epitaph One” back to back, they present a really intriguing microseason of what might have been without network intervention, and although the second half of the season did produce excellent episodes, the two that were unaired pretty much blew the majority of what they did broadcast for season one right out of the water.
That said, I can see why the network demanded changes, because as a pilot, “Echo” had ‘cult audience’ written all over it. But it is kinda ironic that “Epitaph One” is exactly the type of thing the network was nervous about producing, considering it was used as a sales tool for a second season order.
“since Stage Fright”?
That was the worst episode of the series. Losing Amy Acker means I’m not interested in season two, especially if budget cuts means more Eliza and less of the supporting cast (which all act better than her.)
So funny because I do the same thing sometimes. Ride Caltrain 45 minutes to Mountainview every evening and finish watching shows in the station!
Couldn’t agree with you more on “Epitah”
~Lanie~
Robert I was wondering how did u watch the unaired episode. Was of available on the itunes store??
Guybrush:
Nope, it’s the future, Joss said so.
Loved the episode. Agree with all your points completely. It’s one hell of a teaser for Season 2.
The last thing anyone should worry about is anyone not seeing this episode. I have been confidently assured by multiple Whedon-bots that demand for the Dollhouse DVD is going to make the internet explode.
Do not be fooled by the fact that the Dollhouse DVD is currently number 140 on the Amazon sales chart. Get your online affairs in order, on Wednesday the internet is going to be gone.
Yes this was a great episode, but then Dushku wasn’t that much in it was she
@Anthony
“Nope, it’s the future, Joss said so.”
Only now is – what was was, and what will be can be changed, regardless of what joss said. This is a possible future, and the short term future can change that – regardless of what he wants to do now.
Are you kidding? Dushku’s a great actress!
Adding my nod here. Epitaph one was fantastic – if season one was convoluted and at times seemed aimless, this ep definitely renewed my interest in the show. I was left wondering, though, where do we go from here, knowing what’s in store, be it a decade into the future.
Looking forward to season two. Friday nights are heating up this fall!
so they have one roll over episode from last season? will it air along with the 13 episodes second season?
Dollhouse is the only TV show that will even approach the DVD sales of True Blood.
Twin Peaks, I say no. It’d be either The Office in September or Lost in I think December.