For a little while (Dollhouse)
Regarding Joss Whedon’s show Dollhouse, for the past three years there has been much ado about… nothing? The fans were ambitious when they first learned about Whedon’s latest project, then they were upset about what FOX tried to turn it into. Later on they were glad that it got renewed for a second season, and eventually sad-but-not-surprised that it got canceled.
All those facts contributed to what Dollhouse is now: a nice show, but nothing more. Whedon has proven many times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Firefly that he can do so much more. Make us roll on the floor laughing, make us cry our hearts out… Unfortunately Dollhouse was not a show that provoked any of these emotions. It was instead a show that provoked thoughts about where our current evolution of technology will lead us, but not really much more.
The biggest problem Dollhouse has is it’s lack of Whedon’s trademark humor. Though the topic of the show isn’t really suitable for lots of humor, I guess this is what the fans missed most about it. Whedon hasn’t done much “serious” work yet, and I daresay that he’ll need another try or two until he can establish something mindblowing-not-funnny.
Dollhouse also suffered from a few select bad actors. Eliza Dushku did better than expected and eventually even stopped reminding me of Faith. But her abilities as an actress have limits. The most obviously worst actor of the show though was Fran Kranz. He was incredibly annoying throughout the entire first season and a little less annoying during the second (much much improved when he lost his mind). Tahmoh Penikett is somewhere in the same league, I never even liked him on Battlestar Galactica either.
Much better actors were the previously relatively unknown Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman. Both delivered without a doubt some of the best performances in the show, and we can only hope that someone in that evil Hollywood place will have noticed their talent and give some great leading roles to prove themselves.
Since the ungracious bastards at FOX canceled the show, we fans also had to suffer from a completely botched season finale. When watching both finales, the present and the future one, it’s damn obvious that Whedon had to compress two seasons worth of story into two episodes. How sad to imagine what great seasons those could have been. But nothing new to Whedon fans – what FOX did with Firefly was undoubtedly worse (no finale at all).
FOX is probably the most horrible network in the US. Not only do they screw with Joss Whedon all the time, they are also complete idiots when it comes to their other shows. What they’re still doing with House is questionable – they obviously know that they can make the most money with this show, but the more they realize that, the worse the storytelling becomes. Just think of that horrible mess they made with House’s Team. They apparently don’t dare to get rid of Cameron and Chase because then the fans might be disappointed. But now that the fans are all so used to 13, Forman and Taub, they don’t dare to get rid of any of them either. I predict another couple of seasons of coming and going and general messy storytelling. Hopefully they’ll at least resolve the sexual tension between House and Cuddy or Wilson when the final finale of the show comes – which will probably take at least another 3 years.
I usually try to avoid network shows anyway, they always lack in daring storytelling and much needed brutality and profanity. HBO and Showtime shows are so much more authentic to real life – think of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Dexter or even True Blood. Odd that I should write that, because currently I’m more inclined to watching BBC shows. Sometimes a little bit of Britishness is a nice change from all this American consumerist hypocrisy 😉
I just checked to see if my comment would be valid and yes, Dark Angel, my old favourite, was Fox. I didn’t realise it was Fox who cancelled Firefly, now reading this it seems to be a habit of theirs. How are they still going if they screw with good shows so much?…
Dollhouse is not my favorite Whedonverse, but it grew on me (as did Fran Kranz^^). I’ll really miss the Dolls. Especially Enver Gjokaj. His performance was outstanding. What a great actor! He made me drop my jaw on more than one occasion.
That pretty much sums it all up. I found season 2 somehow disappointing and intriguing at the same time, but the Epitaphs were really cool: They should’ve made Epitaph One the first episode of s1, telling the story in flashbacks or something.
I can’t say that I understand your problem with Kranz, although I did notice that every other actor on the show played Topher at least for a few moments while Kranz never got to impersonate anyone.
@charlie Good show != cash cow. Most of Fox’s regular audience don’t want to puzzle out complex story hints or be engaged in highly emotional conflict situations. They just want to be lulled into a mindless stupor so they can avoid thinking about their sad lives. Or rather, they are the single biggest consistent advertising target. Those people are what Fox’s customers want, and what they’re getting, of course. This is the reason for the considerably higher quality of premium cable.
Isn’t it disappointing to see another project with great promise go down the drain? We need a better distribution model for TV shows — bittorrent just doesn’t cut it. American and British TV producers need to get their heads out of their asses, fast (and all the others still need to practice producing viable content in the first place). I can’t be the only one who’s willing to pay or even watch a few seconds of commercials per episode, but the only two shows I know of that actually let me do this are either very low profile/budget (The Guild) or still don’t get it completely right (South Park).