Tv fest

[chani]

I shall write a review of BSG finale later or tomorrow (I may need to watch it a second time and it's a 2 hour thing) but for now let's talk about Terminator: The Sarah Connor's Chronicles and Dollhouse.

I didn't expect John to have guessed about Riley's background so soon. I thought he knew she was hiding something but would find out about her being from the future after her death when facing Jessie. He's turning into an interesting character. I can see the potential leader now. The flashes from Jessie's future make you wonder whether John is still alive or has somehow merged with Cameron. Did Derek kill Jessie in the end? Looks like it's open to interpretation and the writers saved the possibility to have her back. Not sure the submarine storyline works though. I had some problems finding Jessie credible as a XO. As for the T1000 or T1001 (do we exactly know which model it is ?) refusing to join them...it's something I had been waiting to see since they introduced the character of Catherine Weaver. I hope we'll get another season for I now find the John-Henri /Catherine dialectics quite intriguing. So has Cameron stopped killing birds?

And now let's speculate about Joss' new baby.

I don't think the point of the episode was in the obvious twists. I mean, Mellie turning out to be an Active wasn't that big a surprise. sister_luck  and I have figured it out in the first episode, we couldn't have been the only ones. Same with Sierra's rapist. Her handler was the best candidate and we knew from a previous episode that bad vibes were coming off from that guy. So I really don't think that Joss' intent was to fool the audience.  I even think that the twists were actually there to conceal other things and distract the audience from something else. And yes it was the best episode of the series so far. More Tahmoh, either half-naked or not, Sierra and Victor and less Eliza is definitely the way to go! ;- ) By the way I loved the fight scenes. I could watch Tahmoh fight for hours...especially the first fight scene against the security guys. I know he must have a stunt but I also know he's been practicing martial arts for years and it shows. I'm pleased to see him flesh Paul out. There's something twisted and brutal in him that Helo never had for instance.

As for the writing, first off, I really loved the interview stuff and how the people in the street were used as a greek chorus.

Secondly  there's the rape minor plot. It led to an interesting discussion between Adele and Hearn, and later between Adele and Dominic.  Is there a difference between what Hearn did to Sierra and what happens to dolls during an engagement when they have sex with the client? Sierra's distress seems to prove that there's indeed a difference. No matter how fake a personality is during the engagement, the person she/he is then still has free will, and perhaps true feelings, while Hearn used his triggering power over his Active to turn Sierra into a sex toy who wouldn't struggle. Also at the end of the episode, Adele said that Mellie does love Paul Ballard. 

 I also enjoyed Echo's new engagement and what it meant. What was the guy's name? Mynore? It sounded like Minear but it can't be Minear, can it? Anyway Echo's role as his wife, Rebecca, was well done. The "porn" joke was funny and for the first time I think that Eliza did deliver the lines. So this time she was basically hired to play a dead wife, a ghost. I must say that I found the ending scene, after she stated it was "not finished", quite touching...well in a twisted way –after all the engagement wasn't complete indeed, the missing part being, the sex!  Compared to what happened to Sierra it didn't seem so wrong. Also Mynore's fantasy of "playing house with his wife" echoed Victor pretending that he and Sierra were married.


I also thought that the conversation between Paul and that rich guy was meaningful and could be foreshadowy. What do we know about Paul Ballard? He said he was married once upon a time. He is really obsessed with Caroline (the look on Tahmoh's face when he saw her was perfect)and he does have that fantasy of rescuing the girl, and perhaps of having her falling in love with him eventually. Mynore touched a nerve when he told him so, just like Mark Shepard's character did when he called Caroline a whore. Paul obviously decided to kiss Mellie and slept with her in order to make a point, to prove himself that Mynore was wrong. Could Paul be a client of the Dollhouse without actually knowing it? Could he have chosen to have his own memories wiped in order to live a complete fantasy? Perhaps he never was a FBI agent to begin with. Perhaps he's chasing a ghost from his past thanks to a new personality that has been imprinted. I know it sounds a bit Total Recall-like but who said that the only fantasy one might have is to hire a doll to use? Isn't becoming someone else a fantasy too? Something in Paul's past might have driven him to want to be turned into a knight who would never give up until the mission is done. He would be a sort of doll himself then, as well as a client. It would explain why Adele never demanded that Ballard should be killed. The client must be satisfied, and as long as Ballard hasn't saved Caroline, the engagement is not finished. I like the idea of a fantasy within a fantasy, a plot within plot. Paul as a client could be also suggested by his having sex with an Active. Of course Adele not asking for Paul's death might simply show that she isn't that bad. 

At last, there's the question of the possible insider, if what Echo told Paul is true. We saw Topher leaving his work place to talk to Boyd, and we're supposed to think that someone might have sneaked in and altered Echo's print, but, knowing Joss, it could be a mislead. If Paul is indeed a doll/client himself, Adele might be behind the info Echo gave him. And there's also the fact that Hearn was threatened to be sent in the attic. Does it mean that handlers might be dolls too or was "attic" just an euphemism for death? By sending him to Mellie, Adele killed two birds with one stone, she got rid of him and gave Paul something confirming what Echo told him.

This is getting really long but I also wanted to say that I found Sierra/Victor really cute and the actor who plays Victor does a good job.  
 

Comments

[khaoschilde.livejournal.com]

I must say I enjoyed Dollhouse this week and could see Joss' humor in it. I smiled many times. He is good at making secondary characters interesting and it showed in this episode. Though I haven't yet invested enough interest into knowing the characters names. Overall, I think this episode did a lot to restore my faith in Joss and interest in the show.

Terminator has me interested again. I really like the angsty nature of it and the relationships developing between metal and skins. John Henry is winning me over more as things progress as well. His interactions with erm... I can't recall the ex FBI guys name, but their interactions are fun to see how the whole Skynet personality might change. I also have a thing for bad guys with child like traits like say, Hyde.

You've got some great thoughts on the shows.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I also have a thing for bad guys with child like traits like say, Hyde.

Really? No way ! ;- )

I am not sure that John Henry will turn out to be love though.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Could Paul be a client of the Dollhouse without actually knowing it? Could he have chosen to have his own memories wiped in order to live a complete fantasy? Perhaps he never was a FBI agent to begin with. Perhaps he's chasing a ghost from his past thanks to a new personality that has been imprinted. I know it sounds a bit Total Recall-like but who said that the only fantasy one might have is to hire a doll to use? Isn't becoming someone else a fantasy too? Something in Paul's past might have drive him to want to be turned into a knight who would never give up until the mission is done. He would be a sort of doll himself then, as well as a client. It would explain why Adele never demanded that Ballard should be killed. The client must be satisfied, and as long as Ballard hasn't saved Caroline, the engagement is not finished.

Oooh, I hadn't thought of that "goes off to ponder".

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I may be completely wrong of course, but speculating on a Whedon's show used to be such a fun when BTVS was on, if Dollhouse keeps giving food for thoughts I might find the fun again.

PS: Of course I should have typed "Something in Paul's past might have drivEN him to want etc" in the bit you quoted. *sigh*

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Man on the Street felt so different from the previous episodes - I was pleasantly surprised that it actually lived up to the hype. Even K, who only stuck with Dollhouse because I wanted to see it, really enjoyed the episode.

It was complex, layered, and the metaphor of playing house didn't feel like a didactic anvil like so often in the previous episodes. And most importantly, the pacing was right, the right amount of slow and fast scenes, talky scenes and action scenes.

Lots of good acting, too!

It made me happy. As to your speculation: I don't think you need to be a Doll to live out your fantasy. Paul Ballard became a real-life cop to help others in need because that makes him feel good about himself.

And while I did suspect Mellie to be November all along, I wasn't quite sure what was going on until she was activated by phone. I was genuinely worried for her for a while.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I loved how the interviewed people reflected the audience's possible reactions. For instance the blonde girl who thought it could be beautiful was voicing a feeling that the last scene between Joe Mynor and Echo might inspire. And there was some humour too.

No you don't need to be a Doll to live out your fantasy but I don't understand the reason the Dollhouse people would spend so much energy and money (so far two dolls have been engaged) around Paul Ballard when it would be so easy to get rid of him if he really were a threat. It isn't a moral thing because they don't mind other people to be killed. Either the person inside (Adele I think) is using him against their own company, counting on his determination and skills, or he is actually a client.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right. Ballard must have some purpose to the Dollhouse, as a client, as someone who can be used either against the Dollhouse or even for the Dollhouse somehow. I don't think he'll be revealed as a client though from what we've seen it's entirely possible.

I think he'll be made complicit (he already has become personally involved: with his relationship with Mellie he has 'used' one of the dolls though without knowing it.) and will end up in a similar position to Boyd. Adelle has a plan for him and if she's not Alpha's co-conspirator someone else within the Dollhouse has another plan for him.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

No matter how fake a personality is during the engagement, the person she/he is then still has free will, and perhaps true feelings

I tend to think so too, but it's not been proven. We've seen the Dollhouse use post-hypnotic triggers on people, and it's possible that they program Actives with a compulsion to have sex with the clients. I don't think they do that normally, though. As we saw with Rebecca!Echo, when Ballard burst in and broke the mood she lost all possible interest in sex with her 'husband'. If she had post-hypnotic conditioning that wouldn't have made any difference; she'd have no choice but to jump into bed with him.


I found the ending scene, after she stated it was "not finished", quite touching.

I'm surprised the Dollhouse people didn't freak out. Echo isn't supposed to retain such detailed subconscious memories of her last engagement, is she?


Could he have chosen to have his own memories wiped in order to live a complete fantasy?

Great minds think alike. :-) I actually don't think so - at least, we've been told that Dolls can only be imprinted for a short time and giving them the same imprint repeatedly is dangerous. (At least I think we've been told that. It might have been in the unaired pilot instead...) Mind you, it could be that the reason they don't imprint people permanently is because it makes them impossible to wipe their brains again afterwards, the new personality is too strongly embedded. So if someone is to be a permanant Active, that wouldn't matter.

But then there's Mellie. I wonder; is she proof that actually, you can be an Active for a long period of time? Or does she spend most of her time in the Dollhouse, and they program her up and rush her over to Paul's house so she can be waiting on his doorstep only when they find out he's on his way home? Or is she not an Active at all, but a real person who's had commands implanted in her brain by a different application of the basic Dollhouse technology?

The idea that he might be a client himself is an interesting one. I wonder if it's a bit too twisty for a Joss/Fox show, though? It might seem too much like an "And then I woke up!" reveal for the final episode.

I think, really, it's the parallel that we're meant to be seeing. Here are all these Dolls with programmed lives, and there's Paul Ballard, supposedly the real, genuine human, and he's living just as much of an artificial fantasy role as Echo is. I think it's meant to question the nature of our own identity, and whether there's anything more to a person than the sum of our thoughts and actions.


the question of the possible insider

Or insiders, plural. All with different agendas. :-) Remember, the people who sent Paul the message in this episode claim to have no connection to Alpha, although they seem to know he's been in contact with him already.

"The Dollhouse deals in fantasy. That is their business. But that is not their purpose."
"What is?"
"We need you to find out."

Adelle seems to genuinely care about her Dolls and thinks that what the Dollhouse is doing is a good thing. I wonder if she knows about this secret agenda? If so, does she support it or oppose it? If not, is she the one trying to get Ballard to discover what it is?

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I'm getting more and more curious about the Alpha thing. Two dolls, Victor and then Mellie, passed the info to Paul. Echo didn't seem surprised at all when Paul mentioned the person who had informed him until the, she simply denied it was the same person who added the new parameter in her imprinted Faith-like personality.

It makes you wonder if Alpha isn't actually part of the whole scheme someone has set up. He could still be an Active with an engagement instead of being some rogue doll, and therefore programmed to do what he does concerning Echo and Ballard.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Echo didn't seem surprised, but was that because she already knew, or because she'd been programmed to just pass on her message and not get distracted by side issues?

My latest guess on Alpha is that they were trying out some new technique on him - connected to the Dollhouse's "real purpose" - and it went wrong.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

True. It wasn't the usual deal of behaving like a real person through an imprinted personality, she was more robot-like, like Mellie when the phone call switched her onto fight mode. I suppose that her passing on the message messed everything else that would make her sound like a human being. Echo's programme has been corrupted.

Anyway Adelle must know who give Paul the info about Caroline.