So one of the series Rachel and I eventually settled on was Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, about a stable of mind-wiped agents who can be programmed with entire personalities and lives, according to whatever whim might cross the mind of a Dollhouse client. It's been a long time since I watched a TV show as regularly as we've watched Dollhouse, so now I can take great pleasure in actually talking about it. I know ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) madsamrackham and magogue watch; if I'm boring the hell out of everybody else, then tough beans.
Let's start out by agreeing with the general consensus I've seen so far among the fans of the show: It's an awesome series concept, it's a lot of fun, and there are still lots of bugs to work out. The first half of the season consisted entirely of these "mission-of-the-week" episodes, which felt largely pointless - they did introduce the series to some extent, but they certainly weren't playing to its strengths. The ideas we see later in the series are much more interesting, and make much stronger episodes... And in the meantime, we've got good build-up, an excellent supporting cast, and all the fun implicit in the series premise - seeing the agents switching from role to role, the squickiness of what situations people would actually hire Dolls for, and the mounting suspense as protagonist Echo inches closer and closer to overcoming her programming.
I think a lot of what I like about the show is that it focuses, not just on the process itself, but on everybody's reaction to it. What's interesting is stuff like: how can the Dollhouse staff bring themselves to treat people so callously? How far will the FBI agent hunting for the Dollhouse follow his obsession? What kind of people would use the Dollhouse? How would somebody who's been a Doll feel about it? All in all, it's a show with a lot in its favor, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested.
There are quite a few significant flaws, too, which bothered me through the series. The one's I'll bother going into are the ones I haven't seen repeated much elsewhere (though I haven't really looked into any online discussions, save for the notes at Asking The Wrong Questions, which led me to the series in the first place).
1. Many fans have said, quite rightly, that the clients are difficult to believe - we haven't seen enough clients who really want something they can't get without the Dollhouse. It can get much more twisted than it has so far (although the second episode, "The Target," at least helped set this off on the right foot). No less than that, though, I feel like some very obvious uses of the imprinting technology are being entirely ignored. Most particularly: imprints can reprogram anybody with anything. I'd imagine, then, that far more desirable than a high-priced, very sincere call girl, the most sought-after service would be getting yourself imprinted. People would want to turn themselves into whoever they most wanted to be. I'm amazed there's not even the slightest reference to this in the entire season - but everything points to it being entirely possible.
1A. An obvious corollary of (1) is that if "upgrading" yourself via imprint is possible, and desirable, than it only makes sense that the higher-ups in the Dollhouse have already done so. Wouldn't it make more sense to augment your boy-genius than to leave him as he is? Wouldn't it make sense to make your High Up Boss calm and unflappable and extremely resourceful? Of course, this opens up a whole can of worms, especially if its played for shock and "gotcha" value (Dollhouse is already on thin ice in this territory). But if its worked in more gradually, as a natural extension of the Dollhouse technology rather than a big surprise, it could be an interesting thread in the story.
2. Plot holes galore. Alpha, the demented escaped Doll, was clearly set up as the first season's macguffin right from the start, but they really took it too far. Pretty much everything that went wrong in the entire season was attributed to Alpha and his master plan - but the finale didn't justify a single thing of those. Even the teaser opening the two-part finale has you going, "Wait, what was that supposed to be good for? That doesn't even make sense" halfway into the episode. I hope we see less of that in the second season - I'd like to see more of Alpha as a character, less as the Conveniently Omnipotent Mastermind who moves along the plot for no good reason.
3. ...no. That's it, really. I'm pretty good with everything else.
In conclusion: neat show. I'd watch it, or at least the good episodes. And I'm looking forward to season 2, which hopefully will raise Dollhouse from the pretty-good to the really-great.
P.S.: I just want to mention I totally called the Whiskey revelation from the finale about twenty minutes into the first episode. Just for the record. |
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תובנה
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Jul. 7th, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
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I am not tired because I haven't slept enough; I am tired because I haven't drank enough coffee. |
My family and I are going to see "The Odd Couple" tomorrow at Bar Ilan University - anybody want to join? It sounds like it's a really great production, and tickets are cheap!
Get in touch with me if you're interested. Tickets are 35 NIS at the door, 25 if we manage to preorder (I'm working on how exactly to handle that, as the immediately available option involves PayPal, which requires an international credit card I do not have - but I should manage to work this out...). |
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Jun. 22nd, 2009 @ 09:12 pm
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LiveJournal's spellcheck doesn't recognize the word "blog".
Also the word "LiveJournal." |
| » The wonderful moral world of romantic comedies |
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So it turns out nobody bothered to notify me when it was decreed that the following is to be considered wildly romantic: between ten and zero days before your wedding, break up with your fiance.
Oh, not with the hero, of course. The hero's the one you're breaking off your engagement in order to be with. But the guy (or, more rarely, gal) who didn't sweep you off your feet - you know, the one you've actually known for more than a week, the one who hasn't been having awkwardly intimate moments with a complete stranger, the one who doesn't seem to decide on a whim that a relationship you've committed to cementing can be casually disposed of. What, marry him? Like you promised? Like you (presuming you are the intelligent, assertive, cocky protagonist you've been presented as) actually decided to and wanted of your own free will? Don't make me laugh. We're talking about true love here. As opposed to false love, or whatever the hell it was you had with the poor, less-attractive fiance you were with at the beginning of the film.
Almost always, the fiance exists for one reason, and one reason only: to create an obstacle to the romance, which much of the movie will be spent overcoming. The difficulty being that Hollywood relies, to an utterly astounding degree, on the audience's absolute refusal to ask "wait a moment, why should I care whether or not this couple actually gets together?". Or "wait, what's wrong with the guy you're already engaged with?"
There are two typical attempts commonly made to cover up the problem (if the script bothers to address it at all). They are:
1. The Fiance Is A Jerk
2. The Fiance Gets Somebody Else (So That's All Right Then)
Of these, the second tends to be just plain stupid. The fiance is usually a fairly minor character; if we were the least bit vested in his well-being, we wouldn't stand for the engagement being broken up in the first place. This is often reduced to a single line like "Meet my new girlfriend!" or "Hey, can I have your number?"
The first, The Fiance's A Jerk, could actually provide a fair approach. I'm not complaining about a fiance's right to change their minds here; if a protagonist (or a Real Person, too!) sees their fiance as a jerk, then breaking off the engagement is probably a good idea. Or, heaven help us for our reluctance to end engagements, delay the wedding a bit and try to work things out before doing something quite so drastic.
But:
A) All too often, The Fiance's A Jerk not at the beginning, when we need lots of conflict and tension. Then later, out of the blue, he's suddenly portrayed as being a Jerk - just when we need to justify the engaged protagonist casually discarding her matrimonial commitment.
B) It's very rare that there's any explanation why such an amazing person as the protagonist is portrayed to be winded up getting engaged to such a jerk - or why she suffered his jerkness earlier, but not now.
C) The engagement is never broken off for merely for its own sake - it's always breaking up with A in order to be with B. Well, here's a tip, all you movie protagonists out there who are reading my blog. Breaking up with somebody because you're unhappy with the relationship is A-OK. BREAKING UP WITH SOMEBODY IN ORDER TO BE WITH SOMEBODY ELSE IS A SHITTY THING TO DO. It undercuts the attempted implication that the breakup is OK because the original relationship was broken anyway, because the decision to break up is combined with the decision to hook up with the other guy. You can't honestly expect me to respect a "is this relationship healthy/wise/salvageable?" decision when its made with the hot new love interest breathing over your shoulder.
You'll notice this is almost never done with somebody who's already actually married. Cheating on your wife is still bad. Three days earlier, though? Oh, that's fine. Because clearly what differentiates between a still-in-the-air relationship and one that has loving commitment is whether or not the bride has already been filmed wearing a white dress, or has merely picked out the dress and the cameraman.
This drives me absolutely crazy - the thought that people go to these movies, watch these horrible, despicable relationships, and they think to themselves, "Oh! How very romantic!".
Jun. 19th, 2009 @ 05:15 pm
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| » בסוף החלטנו ללכת |
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Rachel and I will be going to see Merkaz HaMagshimim's production of RENT this coming Sunday. If anybody wants to join, we'd love to see you there :)
Jun. 17th, 2009 @ 03:48 pm
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| » עוד תחרות! |
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כן, שוב התקופה הזו - שבה אני מארגן תחרות כתיבה, ואז אתם כולכם צריכים לשמוע על זה כאן. אז, קודם כל, הפלאג המסורתי - אם לא הגיעו אליכם שלל הפרסומים האחרים, אנא סורו אל עמוד התחרות, ותתרשמו לרגע קל. הנושא הפעם: בתי סוהר. בפורום מצומצם זה, אני יכול להגיד שאני מרוצה מעצמי - בתי סוהר זה נושא מגניב, שמתאים בדיוק למה שאני רוצה להשיג בתחרויות האלו. שוב, אני אשמח לכל אחד מכם שיתעניין להשתתף - אני חושב שזה נושא שרובכם תהנו לכתוב עליו, וכל הגשה מוצלחת משפרת את התחרויות האלו בעשרות מונים. והדבר השני שאני הולך לעשות בפוסט הזה הוא להשוויץ. כי אני מבסוט. כי תעיפו מבט ב שרשור הזה בפורום הפונדק.רואים את זה? תוך כלום זמן, קבוצה גדולה של שחקנים, אף אחד מהם לא מישהו שאני מכיר - שכולם מתלהבים, מדברים, ומדסקסים ביחד לגבי התחרות. זו תנועה. זה עניין. זו קהילה. זה עוד לא איפה שהייתי רוצה שזה יהיה. אבל בדיוק בשביל ההתלהבות הזו, רבותי, אני מארגן את כל העסק הזה מלכתחילה. אז אני די מרוצה הערב.
נ.ב.: תכתבו לתחרות!
Jun. 3rd, 2009 @ 07:35 pm
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| » Amazon Memege |
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How does something like this get started? I don't know. But it certainly serves to amuse.
Additional reading: here and here.
May. 24th, 2009 @ 09:50 am
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| » Buffy (and other TV) |
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So Rachel and I, in our eternal quest for a TV series we'll enjoy watching together, are now turning our eyes towards Buffy. Why Buffy? Hopefully, because it addresses Rachel's love of humor and romance, and my love of good writing and ongoing plot/character arcs.
The thing is, from all I've heard, Buffy doesn't start out so great. I've heard that the series begins with a slew of teenager-y monster-of-the-week episodes, and I'm somewhat concerned I'm not going to make it past that.
So I put it to you, O great omniscient internet hivemind: when does Buffy start getting good? Am I allowed to skip right to then? How should a skeptic such as myself approach the series if I'm really trying to enjoy it?
And regardless, any other recommendations for shows we might both enjoy? I repeat the above list: humor and/or romance, good writing and plotting. Oh, and preferably a minimum of awkward humor/gratuitous lewdness. Yeah, yeah, V and others will make all the jokes you want in the comments here, but: I don't enjoy it. I'm fine with non-gratuitous lewdness, and I can accept the gratuitous type in very small doses. You may treat Friends or How I Met Your Mother as an absolute upper boundary, but my preference would be to stay far below that.
May. 17th, 2009 @ 11:21 am
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