More about Dollhouse

[chani]

Just a few thoughts on episode 3 of Dollhouse before signing off to have a relaxing bath.

I wasn't impressed by parts of the writing that I found extremely heavy, especially the dialogues between Rayna and Echo when she whined about being a "factory girl", "not being real", "being everyone's fantasy " blablabla or Rayna's lines when she asked Sierra to switch off fan mode onto her real self-mode and Sierra was at a loss. Echo's lines were lames too either when she mocked the fan's servility or when she lectured Rayna about taking her life in her own hands. *rolls eyes* Come on couldn't they use less anvil and be a little more subtle with their parallels and irony?

I prefered the irony of Viktor telling Paul that the Dollhouse was a myth but he wished there were actually a Dollhouse because if so he could sign in. By the way I wasn't spoiled but I had seen the promo poster and promo photos and from them it was obvious that Viktor was an Active too. However I liked how the twist was done, Victor's dollness being sort of nonchalantly revealed as Topher goes on with his work. I liked the line I mentioned because Viktor was genuine. Yes he had been programmed to fool and mislead Paul Ballard, but when he said that, it sounded "true" and it reminded us that those dolls did sign in, had motivations in their previous human life that made them chose to be used as dolls. Perhaps some part of the real Viktor was speaking through the doll he had become.

But how desperate someone must be to accept such a deal? It raises interesting and controversial questions on slavery, and how being a slave somehow implies some sort of complicity, a certain state of mind to begin with*. I guess it was the whole point of the Rayna storyline with her crazy fan and of Echo telling her that she let them make her the fantasy girl she wanted to kill off, but I found it more elegantly done with Viktor's little line I paraphrased above.

 I also liked the scene with the two handlers who don't get along at all.

And I liked Sierra. I found her much more believable than Echo, but to be fair it could be because the actress doesn't have as much screen time as Eliza.

Oh and I like the idea of back-ups, its layers and twists. Echo played a backup singer but she was there to protect Rayna so she was rather a security extra; Boyd is determined to protect his girl as well, he does have her back all the time, staying in the shadows but ready to help if needed; Sierra was sent as the backup Active but ended up being kidnapped and then rescued by Echo; Rayna turned out to be her worst enemy, adanger for everyone. And I guess that what we see Topher do everytime is backing the files up when an engagement is done.

This makes me even more suspicious towards Paul's neighbour of course. I don't think it's a coincidence we've seen  Echo and Sierra interact in the same episode we saw Viktor and Paul's neighbour meet up. 
 
Poor Paul. He is the only one who is alone without any backup. I liked the fight scene though.

* By the way this reminds me of Konchalovsky's film The Inner Circle, which is a study in political naivete. Konchalovsky's main point is that Ivan, the lead character, embodies the Russian soul which helps to understand how stalinism could succeed and turn so many people into slaves. Ivan epitomized the willful suspension of disbelief that rides shotgun alongside the cult of personality. Ivan's hero worship blinds him to the clenched hand in front of his face; even when Beria takes Ivan's wife, Anastasia as his mistress, stealing her from underneath Ivan's nose, he believes only what he wants to believe. And, in Konchalovsky's view, while Stalin may be a monster, Ivan is the kind of self-deluding fool who allows his monstrosity to flourish. There's complicity, he suggests, in accepting the party line.  

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Oh and I like the idea of back-ups, its layers and twists

ANd I really liked the idea that those two ladies seem to be retaining some knowledge in spite of the "mind wipe". Their little meeting was the most interesting part of the episode IMO.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Not sure they retained some knowledge of the mission, just knowledge that they were friends in their child state. It was an echo to their first scene together. I saw it as two children who have learnt not to share stuff with the adults around, who have their own world.

[lijability.livejournal.com]

I think this episode pointed to something. Who do we know are dolls and who are real people? Were Pauls assailants dolls? And just who at the dollhouse is a doll and who isn't? I like "Fred" [Winifred Burkle] also playing the Doctor - Dr Claire Saunders; but is Dr Saunders a doll? Wouldn't it make sense for anyone who works at the Dollhouse to have absolute loyalty to the Dollhouse to be built into their psyches by their technology? So we would have the Dolls leading the Dolls (and later the revolt of the Dolls against the Dolls?).

One thing you might have missed that seemed significant to me was when Sierra and Echo walked by each other in their 'plain' mode in the Dollhouse. Sierra went to talk to Echo and Echo shushed her up - likely because some of their handlers were nearby.
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"Dollhouse" (7 episodes)
Ghost (13 February 2009)
The Target (20 February 2009)
Stage Fright (27 February 2009)

Gray Hour (6 March 2009)
Next US airings:
Fri. Mar. 6 9:01 PM Fox

True Believer (13 March 2009)
Man on the Street (20 March 2009)
Echoes (27 March 2009)
...

[lijability.livejournal.com]

Meant to add..... that in that moment Echo seemed to be completely out of her "wiped" character. It was as if she knew what was going on. Maybe it was just E.D. forgetting she had to act like she didn't have a care in the world.... or maybe it was something else.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Maybe a little bit of both.

I guess they are making a point of showing that Echo is becoming more and more aware, and that dolls are not that malleable–they are still persons even in the "tabula rasa" state, more childlike than robot-like and like any kids they might have secrets they want to hide from the adults (the handlers). However E.D's acting lacked subtlety at that moment. I found Sierra more credible again.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I didn't miss it but it wasn't the most interesting thing to me. It was one of those obvious things, you know.

[crazykidben.livejournal.com]

Stumbled onto your post but wanted to let you know that I liked it. You've raised some interesting points.

I'm most intrigued by the dynamics between Echo and Boyd and Echo and Sierra. While Echo and Boyd's relationship is very deliberately visible--the fact that he cares for her whereas Sierra's handler is only there to do his job--I like the way Echo and Sierra's blossoming friendship has been subtly building.

My understanding of Sierra as "back up" was that she was sent in as Rayna's number one fan to intentionally piss off Rayna's stalker and get him to kidnap Sierra. This way the handlers could track his location since they were able to track Sierra. It raised the stakes on how unethical the Dollhouse can really be.

This opened up another layer in the dynamic between Echo and Sierra, as their sentiment at the start of the episode--when Echo caught Sierra and said they were friends--was mirrored while in the field when Echo looked at Sierra being held hostage on the monitor while saying something along the lines of "She's my friend. Friends help each other." It seemed more like this was directed more at saving Sierra and less at following the mission's objective.

If I'm not reading too much into the little exchanges, this would further expand on Echo's ability to remember things: she was able to recall that Sierra was her friend, either through memory or her subconscious, and managed to rescue Sierra while also completing the mission to prevent Adele and the other head honchos at Dollhouse from realizing what she had done.

Or maybe I'm just insane.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I don't think you are insane, I think the writing intentionally echoed their first scene together, or rather that it was deliberately ambiguous when Echo looking at the screen said "she's my friend. Friends help each other." I'd rather have had Echo not say that line actually and yet help Sierra. The echo would have been less obvious, and thus more subtle, but I suppose that making Echo repeat lines like that suits her name and gives her that robot-like talk recalling that her behaviour has been programmed.

Also perhaps those little lines that she keeps repeating represent a bridge between her blank state and her doll personas, words that break out of the Dollhouse, words that might de-trigger her eventually, freeing her, unlike the word "treatment" that makes submit.

As for her not following the mission's objective, well, in a way she did help Rayna too whom she was programmed to help, as Madame Boss (can't remember her name) pointed out in the end, soyt he line worked for both Sierra and Rayna. She killed two birds with one stone.

Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment by the way!