It's time for a resurrection

[chani]

for Dollhouse and Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles for it's likely that these tv shows won't get another season. Joss himself is quite pessimistic about a possible season 2 for Dollhouse and TSCC's final episode looked like a series finale.

It saddens me for I've come to like TSCC despite some stuff that bothers me, and the last two episodes of Dollhouse were good, not perfect but clever the way Joss can make a tv show clever, you know. *sigh*

First off, the episode had a good title. BTW the house of love sounds like the name of an Asian brothel! But it fitted in Sierra's engagement and it echoes Boyd's comment on "prostitution".
Secondly its structure that tells the story from four sides or the four main dolls' point of view(Echo's at the beginning and in the end, Victor's, November's and Sierra's) was well done.

I liked how the dolls reveal stuff about all the people around them. Through Victor, wonderful Victor (the actor is just so brilliant), we learnt a lot about Adelle. I liked how the concepts of pimp/client/doll got turned around. But there was more. There were little details connecting everybody and playing with things that appear, things that could be, things that might be...A doll could hide another one as Paul found out when Mellie switched onto November mode; a client could hide another one, like Mrs Lonely hiding Catherine hiding Adelle Dewitt;  a handler could take the place of another handler;  a spy might conceal another spy too... 

Sierra's sexy shoes echoed Adelle's line about wearing them; Roger, not knowing he was Victor the doll, imagined that he could be a client or made a doll after Catherine/Adelle because she was perfect. The reversal thing was a bit heavy, the irony was obvious but there was a more subtle reversal going on. Echo's wip was echoed by Catherine's foil. BTW the fencing scene looked like an illustration by example of Echo's speech from the opening scene. Adelle, the usual dominatrix, needed to let it go. Victor/Roger played Echo's role. When job got tough Catherine trusted Roger...to hug her, to handle her. Nothing was real but Catherine did trust Roger with her life. Adelle seemed to play the role of the client but her true fantasy was to be a doll. Caring Victor was perfect. BTW his taking care of her seemed echoed by Echo's initiative and Adelle's last line about Echo protecting the Dollhouse.
Also in a way her talking to Roger about the Dollhouse reminded me of Echo or November "discussing" the Dollhouse with Paul. The cleverness made me forget the sooo cliche way the end scene was shot (yes I mean sheet being always there between the bodies, Adelle hiding her breasts afterwards,  the usual silly stuff you always see on American mainstream networks when it comes to sex scenes).

Through Echo's we got bits about all the Dollhouse team–nice Doctor Saunders remains a sort of mystery though– and the final revelation about Dominic (my less favourite part of the episode btw). He was a spy but was he the inside person who has been passing messages to Paul? 


"Born to run" was really entertaining despite its flaws. The show doesn't always satisfy me intellectually but it works on an emotional level. That finale worked even though I much prefer the way Lost deals with time travel (by the way "What happened happened" was the rule on which the first Terminator movie was based ages ago). The Cameron/John scenes could have been better written(yes that sex scene that wasn't really a sex scene except that he was on top and inside her...), but the actors did their best and delivered. 
I liked the eel being part of the T1000 and rejoining the Weaver body eventually. I liked how the show kept playing with religious hints...Catherine Weaver's "our son" was spot on. Ellison should have been more shaken by the revelation about her not being human but well...they were in a hurry. Both John and John-Henry were born to run, and they both cut the cord here. Catherine followed her god-son. The parallel with Sarah who kept saying that her son was dead still worked. Except that Sarah stayed behind. She was already renouncing in jail. Did she let him go eventually, as any mother must do someday, or was she somehow abjuring the John Connor religion, thus foreshadowing the ending? I didn't like seeing that boy Kyle again but I enjoyed the idea of breaking the myth of John Connor the Messiah with a future where his name meant nothing to nobody. The ending scene pulverized  the very core of the Terminator movies and of the tv show (since it was no longer a Sarah's chronicle) but it was daring.

At the end of the day I think they found a finale that worked very well to end not only the season but also the show, in case it is cancelled. After this finale a third season is possible...with Summer playing a real girl this time, the girl Cameron's body was made after, Allison, the girl whose memories wonky Cameron had (or did she mistake data for memory because she was damaged?). It could even have a slashy subtext about the relationship between John and John-Henry if the latter has somehow made Cameron's chip part of himself. It could be interesting to see John torn between the body (Allison) and the chip he both loves! 

I would like to see that, but I find this episode satisfying as a series finale as well.

 

Comments

[harper47.livejournal.com]

I truly hate it when showrunners who know their show is probably going to be cancelled just leave the fans hanging on the slim hope it will sway the PTB. So that's why I loved the Terminator finale. This probably won't be renewed but it ended so magnificently. I'm so happy they did that. It worked on every level for me - all the call backs to the past (shoot out at the police station, the T1000) all those things just all come together beautifully. I will miss this terrific show but I won't be frustrated and angry coughRobThomascough about it.

I'm not sad about Dollhouse because I just truly don't like the casual way they treat people as sexual objects on this. It's rape no matter how they play with the concept of choice. These people didn't sign up to be used as sex objects I'm sure and I just find this squicky. I thought I wouldn't mind but I do so as much as I like Victor, I just can't enjoy this.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Yes it's good to have a a true ending and this finale provided one indeed.

I kinda like that Dollhouse doesn't shy away from the sexual side of the engagements. I think it's a good way to show that those people (the Dollhouse staff, the clients)are true predators, in spite of everything, despite all their good reasons and excuses, despite the fact that they aren't necessarily evil people–what they do is wrong. Also I think it's precisely the point of the show, the dolls were vulnerable women and men who didn't fully understand what they got themselves into when they signed up, who didn't want to see the reality, the slavery that would ensue, because they were running into some sort of fantasy escape.

I like how Joss explores human weaknesses here, and the writing can be brilliant.

[harper47.livejournal.com]

I get that the sexual aspect doesn't bother a lot of people. It's just not something I want to watch.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

the fencing scene looked like an illustration by example of Echo's speech from the opening scene.

I couldn't appreciate the symbolism myself because I was just constantly cringing and saying "They should be wearing fencing masks! They should be wearing masks! They'll have an eye out!"


that sex scene that wasn't really a sex scene

On RPGNet there was some debate over whether that was the least sexy sex scene ever, or the most sexy vivisection scene ever...


the idea of breaking the myth of John Connor the Messiah with a future where his name meant nothing to nobody

Although this could still, theorietically, be where it begins... John Connor became the leader and inspiration of the Risistance when he helped Derek and Kyle escape from a labour camp, didn't he? Maybe that's about to happen now, only John is rather younger than we all suspected...

I didn't realise until thinking about it later that night, but the reason the character Summer played was petting the dog in the final scene was to prove she's human, not a Terminator - Allison not Cameron, in other words. Nicely subtle.

I wonder if installing Cameron's chip in Cromartie's body means that John Henry IS now Cameron in terms of personality?

Sadly, I've a feeling we'll never know. :-( Unless the T:SCC team decide to copy Joss and write Season 3 as a comic book. :-)

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Although this could still, theorietically, be where it begins... John Connor became the leader and inspiration of the Risistance when he helped Derek and Kyle escape from a labour camp, didn't he? Maybe that's about to happen now, only John is rather younger than we all suspected...

I guess it could happen indeed, but this John is still a kid, much younger than we were told in the Terminator mythology, so basically they changed the future.

I didn't realise until thinking about it later that night, but the reason the character Summer played was petting the dog in the final scene was to prove she's human, not a Terminator - Allison not Cameron, in other words.

It's funny because the clue struck me immediately and first I thought it was a bit feeble, making a point like that with a convenient dog petting! Later I realised that they could have kept the ambiguity, with a dogless scene but, even more than the audience getting she was actually Allison, John had to see that she was NOT his Cameron. After all he ran after John Henry because of her. The scene was all about him, about his emotional reactions to the people showing up around him and about the loss he felt, about everything falling apart or so it seemed.