“I can’t remember – was it ever explained in the last episodes WHO was sending the information out to Ballard from within the Dollhouse via Echo’s and November’s programming?”

(Tried to post this yesterday but the posting didn’t go through)

Yeah, check “Spy in the house of love”. (*SPOILER*) Dominic is an NSA agent, did the reprogramming, and ends up being caught and sent to the attic. (*END SPOILER*)

I also really don’t like the “This isn’t just about imprinting personalities, but making other people be you” thing that was started by Haunted.

Not the best episode ever. It’s OK, but I’d say that if it had been one of the first five, then it would have been one of the better episodes, but compared to the series as a whole, it was fairly middling.

Very similar to Firefly- the ep they showed as the “pilot” was more lame and unfocused than the original Joss had made.

Virtually every review I’ve read of the unaired Dollhouse pilot finds it a huge improvement over what was aired. Is there a faint hope that Fox might learn from this? To trust Joss, and more importantly, to give the audience a little credit? To trust us, too? Because their meddling really messed with the flow of the show.

Interestingly, in the special features of the DVD, there is a bit where Tahmoh (Ballard) is confused at what point in the timeline he is acting in- because they filmed the episodes out of order! Joss is explaining the sequence of events to him- ditching the pilot actually confused everyone, as they weren’t sure what was being jettisoned, and what was being left in the mythology of the show. Joss was sort of apologetic at how Tahmoh’s character was being revised on the fly.

Interesting that the segment with Adelle talking to the client ended up in Epitaph One.

I can’t remember – was it ever explained in the last episodes WHO was sending the information out to Ballard from within the Dollhouse via Echo’s and November’s programming?

The first scenario worked in Threads pretty believable as well, and comically in A Boy and his Dog. Although most films/shows that follow that route can be a tad goofy and hard to accept like you said. 2019, After the Fall of New York for example.

They give you the entire “plan” for the show in 49 minutes. The fun now will be watching them furiously trying to backpedal and call this one possible future or some such gubbins. Still being an Apocalypse junkie I enjoyed it.

However, it was a bit claustrophobic since it takes place pretty much entirely within the confines of the Dollhouse. If this is what Joss means by how season 2 will look, it means the budget cuts are going to be drastic and very rarely will we see any location shooting as we did in season one. That’s going to be VERY claustrophobic VERY quickly.

My next question would be: is it Joss’ intention to weave back and forth from the present to the dystopian future? If so, he’d best be careful. This is one area where you can completely screw up – ask Josh Friedman. It’s nearly as bad as using time travel.

It would be far more preferable to keep everything in the present but give hints of how such a dystopian future could occur based on people’s actions in the present.

Also, there are two kinds of dystopias one can produce. You could call one the “disaster future”, where most people are dead or zombies or whatever, there is no economy or society per se, and there is little resources the heroes can draw on to survive. The other is the “cyberpunk” future where things are basically worse than they are now but there is still technology, some sort of economy (even if it’s all black market), and some sort of society, and the heroes have options other than scrounging for food and water. Not since the Mad Max movies have I bothered to be interested in scenario one, since they generally treat the future as hopeless. Scenario two is the only future I bother to consider watching. As a Transhumanist, I consider scenario one to be unacceptable, while scenario two is actually probable and pregnant with possibility.

So I would hope Whedon isn’t heading for scenario one, although Epitaph One certainly looked like it.

Finally, I thought the Caroline in Epitaph One was very different from the Echo we saw throughout season one, and much preferable. And it was nice to see Amy Acker without the scars.

Although, it is probably true that the Dollhouse audience are all Joss Whedon’s die-hard fans, or the vast majority. So i can understand why the network wanted something like the aired pilot rather than the original one.

On the other hand, Epitaph One was bloody fantastic! It was interesting, well-written, spoilery… it had everything a Whedon fan would expect. And i want more like that!

I’m not a Whedon basher. I thought Firefly fans had a point.

Dollhouse? Not so much.

Despite that, you’re still good people.

@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.

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.

Loved the episode. Agree with all your points completely. It’s one hell of a teaser for Season 2.

Couldn’t agree with you more on “Epitah”

~Lanie~

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.”