Writer: Joss Whedon
Director: Joss Whedon
Grade: B
The Bad
-I wouldn’t say that Eliza Dushku can’t act her way out of a paper bag, but she’s far from being a great actress with the kind of range needed for this role. Her Eleanor Penn, in particular, was not terribly impressive. I think some of the blame for that can go to the fact that physically, she was like a bad Sarah Palin joke (though at least Boyd acknowledged it), but the bottom line is, Joss wrote the character, and she didn’t work on the screen.
-Eleanor Penn’s connection to the “ghost” character seemed a little farfetched. Seriously, out of all the personalities they have to pull from, Topher picks one that just happens to have a past history with the man who kidnapped the daughter of one of their clients?
-I hope Adelle Dewitt is given more interesting things to say in future episodes, because all she did was spout trite BS clichés in this one. "Nothing is what it appears to be." "Actions have consequences." And something about the situation being "complicated" to Boyd. Maybe it was deliberate (to indicate that she puts on a phony face for work or something like that), but I was rolling my eyes and thinking, “Wow, really? No shit!” in every single scene she was in. The actress is not bad, and she deserves to have better words to say.
-Topher is gross. Which is okay, but he needs to become more than just a Warren/Baltar cocktail if he’s going to be interesting. His little speech to Boyd about the balance needed to create a personality also felt stilted. In fact, it felt like exactly what it was: a bunch of ideological exposition.
-The boxing metaphor as part of Paul Ballard’s introduction was pretty lame—this was written by Joss Whedon rather than by some random hack, correct?
-Dichen Lachman, who plays Sierra, seems like an even worse actress than Eliza so far. Her first few line deliveries were atrocious—even I could do a better reading of “Is she injured?”
The Good (or the Not-So-Bad)
-While I wasn’t impressed with Eliza, she wasn’t as bad as I expected. A lot of people seemed to feel that the dance scene at the beginning was too reminiscent of Faith, but the character only felt like Faith to me until she started dancing. There was a joyousness to the character’s dancing that never really came through with Faith—Faith was dark and self-destructive even when she was doing the sexy dancing. This character was also much sweeter and more naïve than Faith ever was.
-The boxing scene may have been clichéd, but I can’t complain about shirtless Tahmoh Penikett. At least we got some equal opportunity objectification.
-There is room for improvement. This IS Joss Whedon we’re talking about, not some hopeless hack. The premise is a bit shaky, sure (I actually find it shaky more on the science side than the “Why would anyone use the Dollhouse service?” side), but I can overlook that if the characters and themes and overall exploration of issues become interesting. Which could happen.
Other Stuff
-A lot of people seemed to hate the dancing scene with Eliza’s ass hanging out. Aside from feeling slightly squicked at Joss being the director and thereby the one to objectify his young friend Eliza, it worked for me. The show is at least partially about objectification, and there it is, perfectly embodied: the male gaze, the female body as an admired object, the woman wholeheartedly engaging in the game. That scene is what network suits think “sexing it up” means, and that girl is exactly what some hopeless dolt with more money than he knows what to do with would think the "perfect woman" is. I trust Joss’ feminism enough to see the sick joke rather than be offended. It’s kind of hard to do a meditation on objectification without engaging in it on some level.
-During the first memory erase flash sequence (I need a nickname for this quick…), we actually saw stuff that went further back than the three-day “engagement”: some high school stuff, a dark scene that looked like it was in a basement, a backyard party, a girl looking at a photo album, and finally, mom bending over the crib. I’m assuming these are part of the “life memory” Echo was given for the engagement.
-I’m guessing that Echo’s Eleanor Penn personality imprint failed because seeing what happened to Sierra was a significant event that was not erased before the new imprint was applied. The usual stuff the dolls go through—checkups, showers, massages, etc.—aren’t particularly memorable, but seeing Sierra in so much pain was essentially a trauma, one that Topher didn’t think to erase before putting her through another imprinting process.
-Boyd’s admonition to Dewitt to “Let Echo help this girl” really meant “Let Eleanor Penn help this girl,” or at least the part of Eleanor who was kidnapped. Boyd understood that imprinting this woman’s personality into Echo meant that she had a second chance, and that was important to him. The bottom line is that this girl committed suicide because she couldn’t escape from the horrors of her past, but through Echo, she got some closure. What does that mean? How empty is it, considering that the girl is still dead? It feels meaningful to me, but at the same time, I don’t think it really counts as “helping people” ala Dewitt’s party line. Saving Davina was a much more concrete form of “helping,” but that almost didn’t happen.
-Why did Dewitt bother with appeasing Boyd? It certainly doesn’t redeem her, because it doesn’t change the fact that without his interference, she would have allowed and twelve year old girl to be raped and murdered. That’s not wiped away by letting Boyd talk her out of it. The point is, she was willing to let it go, so why did she let him have his way? Were her reasons professional or personal?
-As for the ending, I’m guessing the naked guy is Alpha and the dead people are Caroline’s parents.
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