Hi Reader(s)!
If you haven't seen Dollhouse skip this one. Watch the show instead. If you have, and liked it, enjoy vicariously. If you have, and didn't, this Bud's for you, asshole.
There are lots of reasons you might put forth for why you didn't like the one or two episodes you saw of Joss Whedon's new Dollhouse. But let me suggest that most of your negative reaction actually has nothing to do with the 'technical' concerns you think you have, or the 'structural problems' you think you've noticed, or the 'limited range' of the lead actress, or the writers' 'tin ear' for dialogue...these are largely self-justifications, I think. I know this is a graceless tack to take, but I'm dead serious about the following criticism-of-critics, who (after all) tend not to know much if anything about how to structure TV stories, how to act for television, how to reproduce the rhythms of dialogue in a unique poetic language, or what the economics of high-tech prostitution might look like. I realize, too, that this probably sounds like fannish defensiveness - you don't like a Joss show? There must be something wrong with you!
You didn't like the first few episodes of Dollhouse. Well, let me suggest the main reason why:
There's nothing satisfying about it, by design.
In other words, I'm guessing that you don't like it because you don't know what to like.
(I am quite possibly objectively holier than all y'all thou.)
Every vector of possible satisfaction for the viewer has been poisoned, from the outset, by the show's premise. That doesn't mean the premise is bad - the premise is extraordinarily fertile - it just means that you (we) don't get to do your (our) normal routine of using borrowed jargon to rationalize your visceral satisfaction. Not the clunky mannerisms of academic criticism, nor the easy cynicism of what passes for 'media criticism,' nor the pop-schlub pidgin of newspaper/magazine critics and their Internet kidz.
The premise of the show is: What if a group of pimps - who happen to be neuroscientists - could erase the memories of whores who happen to be well-paid, extraordinary well-taken-care-of volunteers, and could use this power to effect amoral change in various economic strata? What would it take to suspend judgment toward such an operation, toward the whores, the pimps, the clients, the team of scientists and programmer-types who make it all possible? What sort of person would avail him- or herself of such an organization's services?
What kind of cop would become obsessed with shutting it down?
The complexity of the political allegory - depicting the quite literal return of individual and collective memory and desire heretofore repressed for economic reasons, the power of spontaneous organization to overcome institutional stricture, etc. - should be enough to overcome one's suspicions that Dollhouse is made in ignorance, with exploitation in mind, etc. And the writerly pedigree should cause one to think twice before assuming that the show's plots have been glibly chosen, its lines tossed off.
But I don't actually have to defend the show on those grounds; if it's well made and well-wrought, it'll stand on its own.
Here's my critical stance: It is not made to be liked. Nor to satisfy.
(I'm satisfied with my reading of the show, you know.)
Dollhouse asks the same questions of its characters as it does of its viewers; the unusual thing about the series is its total ambivalence toward the answers. One difference between Dollhouse and other (let's say...) antifoundational stories it that Whedon's questions are well-posed, i.e. it's clear what questions we're being asked, and the questions are complex and meaningful and pragmatic (unlike, let's say, 'Is there an outside-the-text?' or somesuch).
The security guard (Boyd) is sympathetic but his role is Male Protector of Helpless Female Who Nonetheless Can Not Help. He hates himself, doesn't know why he puts up with this shit. You can latch on his decency - but his job is indecent and he knows it. He's the primary father in the show, and variably effective in that role. He does evil.
The Madam is of course a Madam, a cold bitch by the looks of it, and whatever second thoughts she has about what she does, she runs whores and lets 'em die if necessary. Yet she's the primary mother figure in the show - and quite possibly effective in that role. She does evil.
The lead character, Echo, is barely a human being, doesn't even know to defend herself when endangered. And each week she's put in the position of victim, and finds her way out of that role, and gets to enjoy none of her victories. They're meaningless - they're not even hers. She works for the Bad Corporation like the rest of them.
The FBI agent is bugnuts, and wants to help kidnapped girls, and is a fuckup, and has no sympathy for anyone, and he's being lied to, and is a sap, and doesn't know how to work with people.
The Russian is a lie.
The Asian is a lie.
The obnoxious nerd is an obnoxious nerd, and hyper-competent, and sadly compensating, and clearly crazy, and a mind-raping pimp who happens to be the sole Artist Figure in the story - that's where his god complex comes from. He does evil, and knows it, and doesn't stop.
The characters with self-knowledge do evil, and the ones without it are pawns. The deck is stacked.
How could you possibly enjoy this story? There's no blinking arrow saying 'This Is Right.' Order is provisional, law is ad hoc, love is electrically-induced, pity is corporate, memory is false, the good guys are nuts, the bad guys mean well, and everything the lead character knows about her personality the viewer also knows.
She's going through the same thing we are. To the extent our moral outlook on the characters differs from hers, it's because we are judgmental and unfair and self-centered. That's the hazard, right there: we are self-centered, and can't pin that on anyone else in the storyworld.
Naaaaaaasty.
Atop which: the obvious Male Romantic Lead and the obvious Female Romantic Lead are separated by the inconvenient fact that the goddamn FBI guy hasn't shared a single scene with anyone from the Dollhouse (well, sorta). How can such a sexy show be utterly devoid of romance? Why would Joss Whedon do this to us who LOVE HIM SO MUCH. Why.
(I think I'm very smart.)
I don't particularly enjoy the familiar melodramatic inner structures of the episodes, in part because I'm conditioned to cringe at explicit genre cues (ahem grad school), in part because the very falseness and generically pat quality of the stories is a lie, that's the whole goddamn point of the show, and like any little boy I don't know how to be lied to. But I've loved every framing story, every flashback, every tangent, every glimpse into the Dollhouse itself. When Eliza Dushku looks like a woman acting-but-not-acting a part, I'm reminded that Echo is precisely that.
I trust Joss Whedon; the man has changed American culture for the better, and writes like a demon, and is burning this one at both ends. He knows what he's doing. I think you don't like the show because you also know what he's doing, and you don't like it. Your rationalizations are your own.
Give the goddamn thing a chance. Meet yourself. [And oh by the way, in case you didn't notice: Dollhouse isn't Buffy. Your expectations, embarrassingly, are your own too.]
[A bunch of new eyes on this one, thanks Mr Epstein. Hey TV-scripty types: more on related subjects here, here, here, here, here, here, sorta even here.]
I'm not sure who the target audience for this post is. It's unequivocally awesome so far. Is this directed at a previous edition of yourself?
Posted by: saurabh | 02 March 2009 at 06:08 AM
I guess you're not reading the reviews! Which is good. The critics have been very, very ambivalent about the show.
This idea of the 'target audience' is, however, interesting to me. Or would be if I had any idea what the hell it meant. I went into some kind of manic fury last night and didn't really think too hard about it. I like to imagine I have many nemeses arrayed at laptops throughout the land, having incorrect opinions. :)
Posted by: Wax Banks | 02 March 2009 at 08:18 AM
So for instance, I read posts and articles complaining about how the show isn't funny like Buffy, wondering 'What happened?' to Joss Whedon. Which is just fear of things changing, nothing more, but that shit is invariably wrapped up in pseudotechnical language made to seem the complainant - the fearful one - appear in command of some material, some vocabulary, some way of thinking. Whether academic language or posturing. Fuck, I'm getting worked up again!
But OK, I confess: I did work out some resentments about my own former criticism-is-daring masturbatory puffery in this post. And revising this novel is killing me, so I feel the need to lash out, and an 'If you only knew how hard storytelling was' post, however disingenuous and (literally) fantastic coming from an idiot like me, seemed like the right way to go about it at the time.
Aaaaargh!! Also, Hi Saurabh.
Posted by: Wax Banks | 02 March 2009 at 08:24 AM
This has always followed Joss Whedon around--not merely Joss Whedon, of course, but it's true that basically every time he tried something new a whole legion of people dismissed it immediately in comparison to his earlier work. Sometimes the criticisms were legitimate, but much of the time it's just an unwillingness to deal with changes to the reassuring format. In Buffy alone we have the disintegration of the Scoobies' friendship, the low-chemistry Buffy/Riley and the morally ambiguous Buffy/Spike relationships, Willow's lesbianism and Willow's evil, Dawn, Buffy as a deliberately nonfunctional, autocratic leader in season seven, which fans still talk about it as if it were a failure of writing for Buffy to give hollow speeches rather than an explicit writerly choice. I mean, it's not true that every decision Whedon has ever made was a good one (there are the Angel season four problems, and the bungling of Willow's magic issues in mid season six via the magic crack house, which reduced her character's complexity rather than increasing it), but there is a lack of effort generally to understand these choices, and it's frustrating.
On a related note, the fans ran amok and several were actually calling for an apology from Jane Espenson for her last Battlestar episode, primarily because...Ellen Tigh acted like Ellen Tigh and says and does some vindictive and petty things, and did not act as a perfect godlike being with all the answers the way she did when trying to convince Boomer to get her away from Cavil; and also, because the show was "soapy" and because Jane dares to insert jokes into a Battlestar script. It may be my own Espenson-love coming out, but it seemed as if these guys took their own frustration that the narrative did not satisfy them by offering morally and narratively simplistic solutions (Ellen's a good guy now, watch her solve everything!) and then assumed that that was entirely the writer's fault, as if the writer was trying to give them exactly what they wanted and had failed.
Anyway. I've enjoyed Dollhouse tremendously so far, even though the actual stories of the week don't interest me very much except as they relate to the show's ongoing themes. What particularly impressed me in the aired pilot (much, much better than "The Train Job") were the onion-like layers within layers of abuse: there's the kidnapped girl, Echo's abuse-victim implant, Echo herself, and Eliza, all "forced" in some way or another to live through this emotional turmoil. And the litle girl is found in a white fridge on its side not long before we see the first shot of Echo entering willingly into her white bed cubbyhole in the floor.
Posted by: William B | 02 March 2009 at 09:56 AM
William - I'm with you 100% on the awkwardness or unbelievableness of these plot turns (Angel Season Four is fun, but seems to have been bent way out of shape by Carpenter's pregnancy - particularly compared to the airtight Season Three), and your mention of Buffy Season Seven warms my heart, as those S7 big speeches seemed to grow straight out of the same isolation/self-loathing that was always Buffy's biggest fear (going back to her vampire transformation in S1's 'Nightmares'). Your sense of Dollhouse seems spot on to me too - the whole thing is in part a fictionalization of Dushku's work in Hollywood, exploited from a young age ('by choice' - ha), and the fact that each week's inner story is basically a Hollywood melodrama/potboiler should signal to viewers that there's satirical/subversive work going on in the series.
I've given up on Galactica for the moment - couldn't finish S4.0 actually. I'll return to it in time. The overheated grandstanding that's always characterized the show just sort of wore me down after a while. But I can well imagine criticisms of the sort you describe being lobbed Espenson's way - audiences think they know what to expect from her scripts, but she's quite good at her job and came up as a writer under a couple of masters, not least the meaningful-reversal-mad Whedon himself, so if she's giving an unexpected or unsatisfying Ellen(!) I'll assume there's a reason for it.
Yikes, late! Gotta run. Summary: Good eyes, I agree 100%.
Posted by: Wax Banks | 02 March 2009 at 10:14 AM
And just as Echo is Eliza, the geek programmer is clearly a dark version of Whedon, like Dr. horrible was--verbally he is on the same wavelength as Xander and Wash. In fact it just occurred to me that Wash's death may have signaled a deliberate decision for him to stop presenting himself in a flattering light; Xander is pretty far removed from his original self, and since Wash the most obvious Joss figures have been Billy and Topher. (Plus I remember someone, though I don't remember who, pointing out that many recent Whedon villains are actually sadistic artist types--like the demon in OMWF making characters sing their guts out or the opera manager/owner forcing his ballerina who happened to be Summer of all people, pre-Firefly but still, into repeating the same performance again and again for his personal pleasure.... The guy clearly has an ambivalent attitude towards his own work, and Dollhouse has this even more than everything else before and that is so weird/exciting isn't it?)
There's also the legions of fans who label "The Zeppo" a poorly written, hackneyed episode which pads a poorly-explained apocalypse with some unrelated Xander material. "But I want to know what that heroic thing Giles did at the end was!" Sigh.
Re: Ellen: oh, so that may have been a spoiler then. Whoops! I just assume everyone else is as caught up as me, which I probably shouldn't.... (But hey, didn't Jane start work writing for that other Ellen? The mind reels.)
I did quite like Battlestar 4.0 actually, though I wouldn't lie and say it's not filled with overheated grandstanding; a lot of it makes sense if you view the characters as only now actually dealing with years of built up trauma, with their Cylon-ness or Earth-obsession or cancer or religious awakening becoming the focal point of years of pent up emotion. It's kind of a mess, and lots of things happen without apparent consequences, but many of the individual pieces and choices and episodes are brilliant. The Demetrius stuff with Starbuck was unsatisfying besides Sackhoff's intensity and some of Anders' material, and the development among the (non-final five) Cylons are rushed to the point of incomprehensibility, but most of the characterizational stuff with the Final Four dealing with their lives changing, and Laura (and Bill!) dealing with her cancer's return, and Baltar's finding in his new religious direction some actual way to deal with his guilt, albeit still in a self-centred way, work; and Jane's two scripts in 4.0 are some of my favourites of the series. Season 4.5 is so far very up-and-down and problematic but with some moments of brilliance; watch out for Gaeta's story, which I've found very moving, especially the way the Gaeta/Baltar story plays out--it's a weird semi-unrequited love affair that began playing out in the miniseries. (Only semi-unrequited, because Gaius loves the fact of his adoring fans, after all.)
Apparently Jane is going to be the showrunner for Caprica which bodes well I think, and plus Michael Taylor is working on it and he wrote many of the show's best episodes (well, "Razor," which wasn't amazing though not bad at all, but "Unfinished Business" and "Taking a Break from All Your Worries"), plus many of the best Trek episodes back when he and Moore were working on it.
Posted by: William B | 02 March 2009 at 11:14 AM
Heh - I'm already spoiled, no worries. And the other Ellen is the reason I put in the exclamation mark. :)
I'd watch Roslin and Adama read the phone book together. They're my favourite onscreen couple. Which is probably partly about my own family-love issues but whatever!!
Posted by: Wax Banks | 02 March 2009 at 11:26 AM
When Eliza Dushku looks like a woman acting-but-not-acting a part, I'm reminded that Echo is precisely that.
I have no problem with the meta-, but what bugs me about her performance is that it's nested one too many levels: Dushku looks like a woman acting-like-a-woman-acting-but-not-acting, because (ironically) she can't really act. Whedon's normally better with his one-trick actresses, but even as Faith, Dushku demonstrated a knack for leaden deliveries of fine dialogue.
Posted by: SEK | 02 March 2009 at 12:45 PM
It just occurred to me--obviously Whedon is Boyd, too. "Why am I working for these guys when I said I wouldn't? I'm here to protect this girl from the machine right? I'm not the one exploiting her at all--I am better than everyone else here, right?"
I haven't had any problems with Eliza's acting, but to be honest I'm not a very good judge of acting, so....
Posted by: William B | 02 March 2009 at 01:56 PM
Everything you're saying makes sense, and I want to believe it.
The only piece of evidence pointing away from this theory is that, if the show doesn't get really engaging really damn soon, it's going to get cancelled before everyone catches on to the subtext. Whedon's had enough cancellations and threats of cancellation to know that. Whedon's capable of creating a show that's engaging as hell from minute one while still pushing a rich and challenging subtext -- Dr. Horrible being the best recent example. So I have trouble with the idea that Dollhouse is all going according to plan, unless the plan includes losing the majority of potential viewers in the first month.
Posted by: Russell Borogove | 02 March 2009 at 02:42 PM
Ah, I was wondering when you'd comment on this show. I knew it was coming sooner or later! I don't actually read any of your Whedon posts but Lord knows they have been numerous and voluminous.
I'm not overly familiar with his stuff - caught a handful of Buffy episodes back in the day and thought they were entertaining but never got into it; watched the entirety of Firefly on Hulu recently and liked it quite a bit - enough to be disappointed that they only finished the one season - but Whedon seems to produce quality on the whole and his fans are certainly, um, passionate. But I am a far cry from a Josshole.
I've watched all 3 eps of Dollhouse and while I want to like it (mainly to give myself an excuse to watch Dushku for ~40 min. a week) I find myself increasingly annoyed at how silly much of it is.
I love the premise and the moral questions. I have no problem with the acting in general. The writing and plots so far - aside from the pilot, which was actually quite good - have been absurd. The latest episode was ridiculous; the 2nd one had an interesting basic plot (Alpha hires out Echo through a 3rd party in order to kill her - but didn't he let her live before? Very cool) but a pretty laughable execution.
It's too early to judge and I'm going to continue to watch because it intrigues me more than it turns me off so far (there are some very cool/interesting plotlines and moral questions going on), but I hate saying "this is ridiculous" to myself when I watch a show. I want to be able to enjoy my TV in blissful ignorance, even if it's silly. Although I suppose if the show is "not made to be liked or to satisfy" then Whedon's doing a bang-up job, but will probably have trouble keeping this thing on the air.
Posted by: MRhé | 02 March 2009 at 09:25 PM
I can't think of any show I've watched and enjoyed in the past few years that didn't make me say "this is ridiculous" at some point (although admittedly my viewing choices are weak - no HBO). I was pretty put out with my current favorite (Lost) for almost a year; I'm willing to endure "this is ridiculous" for the occasionally sublime.
Posted by: saurabh | 07 March 2009 at 12:23 AM
My lady friend has awesomely caught up with 4 seasons of BSG in the past 3 months so that we could watch the finale together, yet we dedicate more breakfast- and midnight-talk to the possibilities of Dollhouse, even though we aren't fond of the monster-of-the-week execution of the premise.
We continually have spontaneous questions like, "Why do you suppose Boyd fell in with the company? What could convince Ballard to become a handler once he finds the Dollhouse? Is an Active's greatest asset to clients their trustworthiness (explaining the midwife scenario)? What will Echo feel like if her 'contract' legitimately concludes and she looks in the mirror to find she's aged 5 years overnight? Do you think they'll ever give Echo Caroline's personality to throw off Ballard? Who will Echo become as these shards of leftover personality coalesce over time? Will Caroline cease to be relevant as a personality to go home to?"
Would you rather have a cheesy premise with excellent execution (BSG-ish), or an excellent premise yada yada? I think television storytelling is ripe for a new way to reveal the larger plot AND sell its soap week-by-week. The repeated metaphor style (a la "high school is hell") has yet to take off in Dollhouse and may never -- my disbelief is suspended more easily by weekly demons in the Hellmouth petri dish than by a progression of EXTREME!! situations.
Senor Banks, you are a new favorite Internet brain. Thanks.
Posted by: Jeff Burright | 10 March 2009 at 02:36 PM
...or maybe the emperor is just naked.
Posted by: Pam Atwell | 10 March 2009 at 03:38 PM
There's also the legions of fans who label "The Zeppo" a poorly written, hackneyed episode
Really? There are?
Posted by: Wrongshore | 10 March 2009 at 03:59 PM
Thanks to those who've commented; it's heartening and plain cool to see people responding to one another (especially given my own pathological inability to respond to comments from peers, cf. most recent episodes of 'Conversations With My Therapist' starring Wax Banks).
Pam:
Maybe. Wanna bet against Joss Whedon?
Posted by: Wax Banks | 10 March 2009 at 04:08 PM
It's not that I disagree with your analysis, in fact I find it intriguingly dead-on. I like your read of the show. What I have a problem with is your 'voice' in the article. Most of the time, when someone employs this particular type of argumentation combined with this level of esoteric language (and not always correctly, in my opinion) it isn't to create a convincing argument, but instead the combination serves to bludgeon the reader into submission. This argument isn't meant to be read, understood and agreed with on its own merits. It's meant to intimidate with a purposefully convoluted vocabulary so the reader is forced to agree with the supposition.
Your critique of critiques is smart, but put that critical thought into a frame of plainer speak.
If this were a paper in an undergrad philosophy class, I would give it a B-/C+ based on unclear language alone.
Posted by: Plato | 10 March 2009 at 04:19 PM
>Wanna bet against Joss Whedon?
Always.
Posted by: Scot B. | 10 March 2009 at 05:06 PM
Given his track record I'd advise against it. I mean, duh.
Posted by: Wax Banks | 10 March 2009 at 08:39 PM
What are the unclear parts, out of curiosity?
Posted by: Wax Banks | 10 March 2009 at 08:40 PM
I loved the pilot, the only one Josh has written and directed, I do believe. Echo playing out the triumph of a long-dead person over that person's fears was an extraordinary device. I thought the show would be more like that.
However, if it had been, it would have been even more contrived, because how many earlier personas can keep lining up with their former trials?
I'd like to see one story, though, where Topher chooses a persona he's been building for a particular job, and it turns out the persona was trying to break loose and was consciously adapting itself to Topher's likes so that it could get out. An evolutionary process, in other words. Perhaps that's what Alpha is, who knows?
Anyway, the plots since then have been very hackneyed and smothered with mythology. I'm still liking the basic premise, though, and your points are well made. But in the pressures of the television world, a show isn't going to last if it doesn't satisfy its audience.
Posted by: bolo | 11 March 2009 at 05:40 PM
I agree with Plato, except I don't think the problem is plain-speaking; the problem is that you're disallowing all kinds of discourse but your own (media criticism, academic criticism, 'pop-schlub pigdin'), and it becomes particularly problematic when you insist that people who have problems with the show have problems with it because they don't "get" it. Fundamentally, I agree with you about Dollhouse--although I'm not willing to give Joss Whedon a pass on the dreck of the week-to-week plots simply because he's Joss Whedon (I think I'd say that the premise of the show is great, but the execution is lacking)--but your reader, this reader, is resistant to the way your argument is framed.
Posted by: Cicero | 14 March 2009 at 01:56 PM