Dollhouse Renewed

After being in Devon for a week, I didn't have a chance to watch the Dollhouse finale until yesterday and then I wake up this morning to find that the show, previously thought to be dead in the water, has been renewed by Fox for a second season.  The surprise move by the network that previously cancelled Firefly is supposed to have come because of the strong online viewing figures and the hoped-for strong DVD figures.  The series is set to return in the autumn with a thirteen episode run, each of which will be cut down to 42 minutes rather than the slightly longer episodes in series 1.  This is said to be one of the ways in which Joss Whedon will be reducing costs on the show, although there's whisperings that some of the cast might be axed.  Please not Sierra.  Or Victor.  Or Adelle.  Or Whisky.  Especially not Whisky because I don't think I can stomach TV without Amy Acker in it.

So Episode 12.  The final episode unless we're counting Epitaph One, the post-apocalyptic "coda" episode that will only be available on DVD.  Bloody good wasn't it?  I had a few minor quibbles.  Mainly Alan Tudyk, who I love and adore and was so good in the previous episode, didn't really shine here.  After all the build-up to Alpha, now we finally get to meet him he's not as fun to watch as I'd hoped he would be.  That final chase sequence, with Alpha dangling Caroline's identity "wedge" over a railing and her chasing up the stairs to catch him wasn't really dynamic enough and was poorly directed.

These two episode aside, this was a stellar episode and it does now feel that we're nearly there, that Dollhouse has almost fulfilled its early potential.  I've been championing Eliza throughout the show's run, although a lot of critics have pointed out what they believe to be her limited acting abilities.  What's thrown people is that the show's concept seems to offer an acting showcase for one actress when, as the past six episodes have shown, Dollhouse is much more of an ensemble piece.  There have also been precious few "actorish" moments, y'know, all the tears and drama stuff that you might expect from a show where the supposed lead plays a different character week in and week out.  She's been quietly convincing in every episode, particular as the blind woman in True Believer, Patton Oswald's dead wife in Man On The Street and as a middle-aged woman in Haunted.  One of the show's major story arcs has been the derailment of nearly all of Echo's assignment.  She doesn't get the fun Alias moments like Sierra, or the suave James Bond-ish moments like Victor in A Spy In The House Of Love.  I digress.  Anyway, Eliza's great.

The finale also did a good job of tying up loose ends whilst also creating new stories and rearranging its story elements to a sufficient degree to make us want to know what happens next, much like Angel did at the end of season 4 with Home.  One thing that I'm thankful for is that Paul Ballard seems assimilated into the Dollhouse.  His hunt for the Dollhouse was beginning to get tiresome and at least now he's inside, he can have relationships with characters other than November.  We've also got a sentient Doll, Whisky.  I was intrigued by her statement "I know who I am", her decision not to look at who she was before she entered the Dollhouse and her question to Topher, "Why was it important that I hate you?"

Other things that were generally awesome:

Composite Echo.  The moment when we witness all of Echo's previous personalities assimilating was a big pay-off to all of the procedural episode we had to slog through at the start of the season.

Sierra coming onto Paul Ballard.  Big lulz there.

Ballard's sacrifice for November.  This was perhaps the first moment in the entire run where I was genuinely moved and who else was expecting him to save Caroline?  The use of Beck's cover of Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes, was a nice touch.

"I'm not anyone because I am everyone."

Dollhouse Episode 7 - Echoes

Carrying on from last week's brilliant Man On The Street, this is another compelling, complicated episode. A strong narcotic developed by the Rossum Corporation has been infecting students at a local university, causing them to lose all their inhibitions. DeWitt puts Victor and Sierra on the case, as security personnel and sexy disease expert respectively. Meanwhile, Echo is on assignment with the same guy we saw in the first episode but when she sees the university on the news she begins having flashbacks to her life as Caroline, who attended the same university.

Much of the episode is comprised of flashbacks. We learn that Caroline was an animal rights activist who, along with her boyfriend, broke into the Rossum Corporation's secret lab and uncovered a heap of information about experiments that they had been doing on humans for the Dollhouse. We also discover that Caroline's boyfriend was killed by Rossum's security guards and that this somehow led to Caroline being initiated into the Dollhouse.

Meanwhile, the narcotic begins having a funny effect on Topher (later Pantless Topher) and DeWitt and Mellie/November is withdrawn from active duty. We also get a glimpse of a new potential active, Sam.

All in all this was a solid episode, and the first one that's really blended drama and comedy together effectively. Olivia Williams was hilarious in her drugged state and there were so many quotable lines in her exchanges with Topher. We also got to learn a bit of Caroline's backstory and a suggestion of how she came to live in the Dollhouse - what happened in the two years between Caroline's break-in to the Rossum Corporation and her internment in the Dollhouse? DeWitt has been almost protective towards Echo for several episodes now and I hope we get to see exactly why this might be. The show finally seems to have found its feet after some major stumbles. Let's hope it continues the momentum.

Dollhouse Episode 6 - Man On The Street

Okay, so this is what we've been waiting for. Dollhouse finally delivers on its promise and delivers what is easily its best episode to date courtesy of show creator Joss Whedon.

The episode begins with Ballard tracking down a potential Dollhouse client, Joel, an Internet billionaire. When Ballard tracks Joel down he finds him with Echo, only of course she's not Echo here. She's Rebecca, happily married wife of Joel who, hilariously, suspects that her husband is involved in pornography. Whilst Ballard is busy getting rid of Joel's security taskforce, Boyd nips in and whisks Echo back to the Dollhouse. Ballard then sits down and has a nice chat with Joel who, it turns out, is hiring out Echo to live out a fantasy he had of his dead wife coming home and finding out he'd made it big with the money and bought her a house. Ballard is quick to point out that this would be pretty touching were he not also using Echo for sex as well.

Ballard then does the not-very-sensible-perhaps-in-retrospect thing of telling Millie everything he knows about the Dollhouse. Millie, the girl who waits at her door with a dish of homemade lasagna waiting for the rattle of keys in a door, takes everything he says at face value. Shame that, unbeknowst to Ballard, DeWitt has a hidden camera in his appartment that's recording his conversation with the trusting Millie.

Meanwhile, back at the Dollhouse itself, Sierra has an unusual reaction to Victor, screaming when he touches her shoulder. After examining her, Dr. Saunders reveals that Sierra has had sex since her last assignment. Boyd, in full-on policeman mode, finds a blind spot in the network of cameras across the Dollhouse. Victor is taken off active duty, only for it to be revealed that it is, in fact, Sierra's handler Hearn. Just as Hearn asks Sierra to "lift up your dress", Boyd comes out of the shadows, throwing Hearn throw a glass door. Boyd's rationale for allowing Victor to be blamed for the assault on Sierra is that Hearn needed to be "flush" with his success before he would try anything again.

DeWitt offers Hearn a way out from The Attic (said with enough import to make us assume that this is a Very Bad Place). She places a photo of Millie on Hearn's lap, telling him that she needs to be killed and that she doesn't require a "clean kill". DeWitt also tells Topher to prep another identity for Echo, revealing ominously that it's time she and Ballard had "a second date".

The action then cuts back to Ballard and Millie, who have just finished having mind-blowing sex. They decide to get some Chinese food to fortify themselves for the next round. Whilst Ballard is in the Chinese restaurent, which is oddly (i.e. conveniently) empty, he's attacked by Echo. They have a badly edited fight in the oddly (conveniently) empty kitchen and then a slightly better edited fight in the street outside. Now for the twist. Echo has Ballard at gunpoint and reveals that there is a Dollhouse. Not just one but several around the world with ties to government and major political organisations. She reveals that the Dollhouse has someone on the inside who altered the parameter of her imprint in order for her to give Ballard a message: allow the Dollhouse to believe they've won. It's too big an organisation to fight in this way; a more imaginative approach is required. Echo tells Ballard that whilst the Dollhouse won't want to kill an FBI agent, they won't hesitate to kill anyone close to him.

Right on cue, Hearn enters Ballard's appartment and attacks Millie. The phone is ringing and we assume it's Ballard, who's racing back home in true hero fashion, but it's actually DeWitt, who says something about there being three flowers in the vase. It's a trigger. Turns out Millie is a sleeper agent who kills Hearn without batting an eye. DeWitt, after seeing on her hidden camera thingie that Hearn is dead, deactivates Millie just in time for her to run into Ballard's concerned man arms. Ballard is put on suspension from the FBI and DeWitt believes that she's done a good job.

A lot to take in here. After five disappointing episodes, it seems that this is where the show was heading all along. Plenty of twists, some of which I didn't see coming, and some good acting from everyone across the board. The focus was less on Echo and more on the ensemble, which is definitely a good thing. This isn't to denegrate from Eliza Dushku's skills as an actress - I actually think she's given a very solid, unshowy performance week after week - but the show as a whole feels a lot more coherent now. It feels not only like it's going somewhere but that it's able to engage with its more complex questions about morality, good, evil, the usual Joss Whedon favourites. It wasn't totally unlike Alias, not that this either is a bad thing, unless of course it's Season 4 of Alias...

There were lots of little things to enjoy here too. DeWitt's distinction between playing a "good hand" and "a bad hand very well" was marvellous and perfectly delivered by Olivia Williams, who seems to be coming into own now after her rather clipped and terribly English delivery in the first few episodes. Of course, I just love her in Rushmore and Miss Austen Regrets so I could be biased.

Of course, anyone who saw Dichen Lachman as Katya Kinski on Neighbours will love her unconditionally.

Trademark Whedon humour was to be found in abundance, in particular the phrase "moral spankitude", and I liked the captions of LA people discussing what they thought about the "urban legend" that is the Dollhouse.

All in all a great episode and hopefully a sign of things to come, if Fox don't cancel it.