I don’t know about the rest of you but I would trade doll house for new Firefly shows.

“@Boris – I’m going to put you up there with Dorothy. Unless you’d like to make an effort to understand the words I wrote first before writing a response to me critical of what I’ve written.”

The measure of “effort” being some sort of agreement? The only novel assertion that you seem to have made is that “Dollhouse is a dramatical version of the Milgram or Stanford Prison experiments.” Unfortunately, you didn’t bother to defend the coherence of this thesis or even suggest why it would be interesting were it correct.

You further mischaracterize my position with the claim that “Boris thinks I’m interested in philosophical issues concerning mind transference.” If you had “made an effort to understand the words I wrote,” you might have picked up on the fact that the basically animistic notion of “mind transference”–the central conceit of the program–was the last (and certainly least) of the philosophical hypotheses I advanced.

Yet you persist with the strange “toadie whiners” gambit, somehow proceeding to the notion that you’re perhaps being perceived as “elitist” (something I strongly doubt is the case). But you apparently are down with Maureen Ryan’s write-up. So, Dollhouse “grapple[s] with uncomfortable questions about power, exploitation, hypocrisy, selfishness and the lies people tell themselves so they can feel better about taking advantage of others”? This is the big deal?

What are the “uncomfortable” questions? Whether exploitation, hypocrisy, selfishness, and self-deception are problematic? These seem like pretty simple questions to me. In any event, what does Dollhouse have to offer on the subject? Is it going to guide the poor sods to whom none of this has ever occurred to some sort of understanding, assuming they white-knuckle it out to the end?

I do appreciate the decree that you’re “going to put [me] up there with Dorothy,” though, even I have a sense that the “Attic” reference (oo-ee-oo) may have been accidental.

everybody likes to think of themselves as the hero all of the time… even the villains.

If you think about it, many people work for giant corporations who do evil things in real life… How is that different from the situation with Adelle and Topher? Dollhouse is exploring the ideas that good people can have moral blindspots and do immoral things(for example… they may get a job working for a company who profit from slave labour)… does this make them evil, or just human?

The idea that any person is good all of the time is just plainly false… many of television’s “hero’ characters are just plainly unrealistic in my eyes… everybody (or almost everybody) does horrible things sometimes… I love that dollhouse isn’t taking the easy way out.

Well that’s just arrogant.

Fr all most of the cast are brilliant (Eliza, Harry, Amy, and Olivia are wonderful), I get kinda tired of being told by the fanbase (rather than yourself), how this program is for the intelligent and the reason its failing because of the general TV audience’s intelligence.

Poppycock.

It’s stuff like Instincts. Why would a father not hire a nanny rather than an Active? Wouldn’t his family and his in-laws notice this woman carrying his son around pretending to be his mother? Wouldn’t Adele object to her star Active being tied up in a long-term engagement? Etc, etc.

In fact, it’s the intelligent, those who can think for themselves who would be thrown out, not by the cast, but the material they’re given to use.

The writing staff seem to be in a hurry to make their all so important points and forget about suspension of disbelief along the way.

Mutant Enemy’s urges to emply everyone in their clique doesn’t help either. While Alexis is a supreme addition to any cast, several of the guest stars (Glau especially) are simply awful.

Maybe you’re the one who’s a little simple.

>

i love Fox but they are stupid. They never promote Dollhouse. What they should do is they should air promos for Dollhouse during one of their popular shows (such as Glee, House, So you think you can Dance) that way it can have a chance to attract more viewers. <

Wrong. Fox typically runs promos the nights before a show, and Dollhouse is no different, with promos running during Bones & Fringe last night. A Dollhouse promo also ran during "Lie To Me".

Fox gave Dollhouse a home when the ratings said otherwise. No matter what, the fans got episodes out of fox no other network would have provided. Hard to feel bad about that. I do feel bad the fans didn't show up..

@buffywrestling – this isn’t about “elitism”, it’s largely about interests with the exception of a minority who insist on claiming things about Dollhouse, and viewers of Dollhouse, that are manifestly false. But if I’m going to be attacked by someone with a response that shows neither comprehension of my own words, or comprehension of Dollhouse, that’s something I’m obviously going to point out. What’s the alternative?

Calling someone on making a bizarre, unsubstantiated, and clearly wrong claim about something isn’t unwarranted. If I claimed Leverage was clearly a show that cast insurance companies in a favorable light, portraying their refusal to pay out as somehow legitimate and fair, I’d expect people to point out I’m wrong in that. If I subsequently claimed that Leverage fans have no sympathy with cancer victims and want all cancer victims to die, well, I’d expect a robust response. I certainly wouldn’t expect a group of toadie whiners to follow up complaining that those criticizing me were claiming Leverage was “too deep” or “too funny”.

Dorothy’s response to me was both wrong and grossly insulting. It’s not elitist to point that out. Dorothy thinks Dollhouse glorifies rape and people who like it like it for that. Boris thinks I’m interested in philosophical issues concerning mind transference. I’ve never written or said anything of the sort. They’re wrong. Sorry if that comes across as elitist.

And I do agree that people will come off as “elitist” when discussing thier favorite show: They’ve seen more of it, they’ve discussed it at length & they are more deeply involved than a casual viewer. It doesn’t excuse them – and myself – but it’s a drawback of any persistant fandom.

I even made that same comment at whedonesque[dot]com towards the fan site http://www.whyiwatch.com – which I felt might have tried to counter the “titz & ‘polsions” of promotion by FOX Broadcasting too far into the opposite direction. “The Smartest TV You’re Not Watching” can easily be construde as “You’re a Dummy for Not Watching” because of the wording.

“I’m a tad baffled by the reactions to the show. I can understand not liking it.”

Are you sure about that?

squiggleslash says:
October 8, 2009 at 4:11 pm

“@Dorothy – perhaps you should accept that the central concepts of the show are beyond you”

I don’t care for the show. And I’ll certainly admit that I regret the 11 or so hours I spent giving it a chance. However, I have no problem just turning off the television. It’s the incessant claims that the show is “too deep” or “too dark” or “requires too much thought” (such as yours immediately above) that occasion my ire, especially given that the proponents of this position generally come off as having never given a thought to the well-worn philosophical chestnuts that sometimes manage to slop over the gunwales of what is at its core a turgid character drama.

If Dollhouse happens to cause one to think about epistemology or ethics or “metaphysics” or the possibility of transferring “consciousness” into a tree stump, that’s super. There’s still no reason to hold up the blindingly obvious and dash around chattering like Sue Lyon in “Night of the Iguana.”

- the xposure of Eliza doing a P/R tour (seriously, HALF of the interviewers didn’t even know that Dollhouse had premiered for a second season)

- the crtics getting onboard with the fan appreciation.

- the status of the broadcasting/DVD international deal for the second season. FOX Studio could very well shoot all the 13 eps of Season 2 even if the FOX Network decides not to broadcast them. Why? Because the show is able to sell overseas to cover the cost.

Take a gander at Mo Ryan’s write-up http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/10/dollhouse-joss-whedon-eliza-dushku.html#more

I’m a tad baffled by the reactions to the show. I can understand not liking it. I can, however wrong it may be, understand the “My favorite show got canceled and Dollhouse didn’t and that’s unfair and Dollhouse should go so…” mentality. But the “It shows people doing evil things, therefore it is evil too” thing, I just… I can’t get my head around that.

I’m not saying that people are wrong to find the subject matter queasy. After all, I think that’s exactly what Whedon wants. There’s a phrase I heard Terry Gilliam use once, “Cinematic rape”. He was discussing a scene in Brazil where a prisoner tries to escape from his guards, runs down a corridor, and bumps into the elevator, bouncing around like a ball in a pinball machine (with the elevator bell making suitable sound effects.) Just prior to this, we’ve seen what happens to prisoners in this complex (they’re tortured.) And so the reaction of the audience is to be watching this, start to laugh at the pinball act, and then suddenly realize that it isn’t funny at all and they’ve been made to laugh at something evil.

Whedon’s doing that, but Whedon isn’t just making viewers uncomfortable, he’s also raising some extremely serious and interesting issues at the same time.

So I don’t blame people for feeling uncomfortable watching it and not wanting to watch any more. But those that go beyond “feeling queasy”, who declare the show endorses evil are going beyond that.

I also wonder how many people would consider Victor a rape survivour as compared to the woman characters.

If you prefer the simplistic good vs evil of, say, NCIS, well, that’s why they make NCIS. Go watch that instead.

By March sundays could look like this
7:00 Til Death
7:30 American Dad
8:00 The Simpsons
8:30 Sons of Tucson
9:00 Family Guy
9:30 American Dad

With both 8 and 9 free on fridays, FOX can fill that timeslot with some combination of Kitchen Nightmares, Past Life, or Lie to Me. I think FOX will reserve the post Idol slot on tuesdays for a new Hell’s Kitchen season.

8:00 Kitchen Nightmares/Human Target (when Glee returns)
9:00 Lie to Me/Past Life

Some of us aren’t interested in twee little dramas that depict the world in crude, mindless, black and white terms.”

How edgy! I’m glad the rape of women allows you a chance to escape from the boredom of shows that, I don’t know, follow the boring old black and white routine of “rape is wrong.” This is exactly what is wrong with this show — too much pseudo-intellectualism attempting to cover up the very banal and everyday misogny of its premise.

***When life isn’t going great, would you sign over use of your body with the promise that you won’t remember anything from that time?**
No. That’s completely retarded.

It’s not that they ask hard question, it’s that the questions are stupid or have been done before in good sci fi in less boring fashion.

Some of us aren’t interested in twee little dramas that depict the world in crude, mindless, black and white terms. Dollhouse is a dramatical version of the Milgram or Stanford Prison experiments. Add that to its humor and drama, and you have a show with remarkable potential.

The real flaws with Dollhouse are not that some of the most sympathetic characters are doing some of the most evil things, it’s that the dynamic doesn’t always work. The show focusses on Echo, but Echo isn’t a character, and if her assignment isn’t interesting then the rest of the show starts to fall apart.

Yank all of them off the schedule, air House/Glee repeats there.

Air Brothers at 7:30 after football in Fall, air Til Death/Tucson at 7/7:30 in Spring, and air Dollhouse on Fridays, starting in either March or June.

Guess what, there are people that would. I think that scares people. Human Nature is to avoid things we fear, so not as many people watch Dollhouse. Those people don’t want to hear that, with all of the advances in technology, it is very possible people are creating the techbology used in the show.

Once the show’s moral issues are put aside, there are other, smaller questions that come up. The main question being” why”. That’s probably the other reason people don’t like it; Joss doesn’t just tell us why things are happening the way they do. He gives us time to guess.

Now, from all of the negative comments I’ve read here, people don’t like figuring things out for themselves.

I love trying to understand everything that happens in the show. I don’t watch much television because most shows that I’ve seen don’t leave me questioning. Seeing all of the negative comments and knowing that the show probably won’t last saddens me. If it gets pulled early, we’ll never know how some events from Epitaph 1 happened, and the oversea fans will probably have less closure than us here.

“It’s like the show is asking what is at the core of a person? What is left when most everything has been stripped away?”

So it’s some sort of exercise in self-awareness?

They did that for Eliza’s other loser show, Tru Calling after all. Even showed the unaired episodes Fox did show.

Anyway, just my thoughts on why I will be watching Dollhouse this Friday. I know realistically that this show may be canceled soon, but I am still going to irrationally hope that it sticks around. I like what I like, and I will continue to like it no matter how ‘uncool’ it is. I just thought I would chime in for the minority, and try to dispel the rumor that all Dollhouse fans are blind sheep.

I haven’t seen 2 yet, just downloaded it. But the synopsis didn’t sound good.

The initial overnights for Episode 1 of DH were 1.0/3 with 2.56 million. I forget what the adjusted totals were.

Episode 2 started at .8 but rose to .9 in the final numbers.

I haven’t checked the ratings for episode one, and I’ve just downloaded episode two to check it out. Apparently from the comment above, episode one got a .8? That sucks.

My take: They screwed up again. They should have blown out all the stops on episode one AND promo-ed the hell out of that, instead they just picked up where they left off (a couple months down the road), and quietly addressed some of their issues.

Not good enough.

I don’t see them recovering from this at all. They’re doomed. Just too little too late.

Only thing that irritates me is that we probably won’t get to see Summer Glau’s episodes.

Oh, well, Sanctuary is coming back on SyFy and episode one should be a corker given the cliff hanger in season one.