Joss Whedon's Dollhouse Deathwatch: Day One

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Dollhouse series premiere airs tonight on Global at 9.00 et/pt.

Comments

[montoya.livejournal.com]

More importantly, why is HBO not going after Whedon? He seems like an obvious choice, because he's got this cult following, which may not be enough to meaningfully contribute to the marginal value of a soda pop ad, but certainly is enough potential new subscribers to HBO to make it worthwhile.

[schizmatic.livejournal.com]

You know, I've probably brought this up in the past here on James's LJ, but on race, I will always give Joss mad props for acknowledging on Angel that, you know, there are non-whites in Southern California.

[cofax7]

To be fair, Fox always misrepresents the show in the marketing. Apparently SCC is about John the hero and Cameron the hottie...

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I have heard at second or third hand that not all the 'dolls' are female. If so would that change your opinion?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It's better than Sunnydale, which doesn't seem to have any non-whites except when the vamps bus some in, but Angel's big demonstration of LA's human [1] diversity was what, the gang of Blackula killers in the first and second seasons? And their leader Gunn has to choose between being cannon-fodder for Angel or having contact with his buds?

1: Mind you, this could be another example of White People are Oblivious to Supernatural Threats. Maybe most of the blacks and hispanics who would have lived in LA took a look at the local demon population and decided that pretty much any town that didn't have an indigenous population of things that would eat them would be a better place to live.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I think some of the promo shots confirm this.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, they should have done THAT forever ago.

[(Anonymous)]

But the Dollhouse is run by a woman. So it's /a woman/ treating women as playthings and tools. That's /totally/ different.

[(Anonymous)]

According to Wikipedia, of the regular characters, there are 2 dolls and both are female. The are several regular male characters, but none of them are dolls. There was supposed to be a male doll main character, but wiki says he was changed to a Russian mobster.

Of course, there could be some minor male dolls.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollhouse_(TV_series)#Characters

-dayslongago

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

30 episodes of Supermarionation action, courtesy Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_90

[nojay.livejournal.com]

There's an anime series "Gunslinger Girl" which has girls (nearly prepubescent) treated as mind-controlled tools by some not very nice people who are also the Good Guys. I don't like it but I'm impressed by it as a series in that it exposes a lot of the problems of such a setup unflinchingly. The actual plot is less important, the Bad Guys are pure cardboard but the girls will make you weep for them and the worst of it is they would never understand why.

Warning: this is a very bloody series, if you decide to give it a look.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

The magical Los Angeles with no Hispanic people in it gets "mad props?" Really?

[thette.livejournal.com]

Your icon is brilliant.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

The WashPost slammed it.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Hmm, pretty much what I expected.

It was well-executed in spots, but so squirm-inducingly unpleasant in several different ways that I don't think it convinced me to watch any more. And the bumpers and promo spots just made it worse.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Did anyone else wonder when Echo went into her "You Will listen to me because I am the Expert" routine if her shadowy masters wanted their client and daughter wacked for some reason?

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

I believe Whedon was contracted to do one more show for Fox. Indeed, the idea for Dollhouse came about when discussing this with Eliza Dushku, who was similarly contractually limited. I think he's free after this one.

[asyouknow-bob.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there was something seriously wrong with the Dollhouse premiere, and I find that I don't care enough to analyze just what the central problem was.

[asyouknow-bob.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was wondering why the guy threw aside the sniper rifle, to instead chase the bad guys with his handgun.

[affreca.livejournal.com]

"Smokin' hot SF babes" that look identical.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The premise was just fundamentally misconceived. The ickiness of it might actually work in the context of a feature film, where the focus is "how the hell does this setup happen and how do we kill it with fire?" But for an indefinitely continuing series, where it's the hook for quasi-anthology stories like some sort of pervy Quantum Leap, it's just too much.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Sniping is clearly either an encounter or daily power.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

There were two male dolls shown in the closing shot.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Unless she's a doll running "ruthless madam".

The sad thing is the last non-doll died in an elevator shaft accident back in 2002 and the whole place has been running on automatic ever since.

[secritcrush.livejournal.com]

They are only there so there can be co-ed group showers.