Dollhouse Fridays at 9pm on Fox
Joss Whedon has created some of my favorite pieces of media including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the great spin-off Angel, the doomed Firefly, the awesome feature film Serenity and everyone’s favorite straight to the internet evil super villain musical: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. Last month came the debut of his latest potentially doomed project Dollhouse. It is about a secret facility called the Dollhouse which houses men and women called Dolls who have programmable personalities. Rich people pay to have their fantasies come true with a doll programmed specifically to their needs. There is also a subplot involving an FBI agent who is attempting to track down and expose the Dollhouse for what it really is.
Every Friday night for the last six weeks, I have been watching the new episodes of Dollhouse. Right now, you may be thinking to yourself, “I’ve got better ways to spend my Friday night than watching a television show”. Well, I do not and until this week I was feeling pretty upset about it. Episodes one through five felt extremely disjointed. There were great moments (some really awesome action sequences like the human hunting in episode two) but there were also awkward moments (every time Eliza Dushku tries to act like anyone who is not Eliza Dushku) and none of it seemed to coalesce into the high caliber entertainment experience that I have come to expect from Mr. Whedon. This became increasingly frustrating until episode five. In episode five, the subplot with the FBI agent, Paul Ballard, hunting for the Dollhouse finally seemed to be going somewhere. Immediately following the episode’s satisfying conclusion, Fox aired a trailer for episode six. While the preview used a lot of fancy marketing trickery, I luckily am able to sum it up in one simple sentence: “Tune in next week and be amazed as the show finally gets good!”
For once, the marketing department did not lie. Episode six ditched the awkward moments in favor of some serious plot exposition. We were shown how the outside world feels about the idea of the Dollhouse. We got to know the character of Paul Ballard a little bit better and started to see a reason for his unwavering determination to find the Dollhouse. We found out why Joe Hearn (the doll ‘Sierra’s’ handler) seems like such a jerk all the time (mostly because he is one). Finally we were shown a major surprise in the plot which promises to come into play in later episodes. I searched Twitter for peoples’ reaction after the show ended and a lot of them wrote things like “I knew it!” I am not afraid to admit that I did not ‘know it’. This plot twist was actually surprising! Finally my Friday nights are not being used in vain, Joss Whedon is back! If you haven’t already, you can check out new episodes of Dollhouse Friday nights on Fox. You can catch up with back episodes on hulu.com.
