Dollhouse - season 2 (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Yeah, I don't think I really understood what the show was about the first go 'round. (and Fox did it no favors by airing it out of order) And I stopped watching after a few episodes. I liked its dirtiness; the first TV show I've seen to build on George Lucas' style of sci-fi. I liked the idea of central wealthy planets and the outer, poor colonies. But while there was no FTL, they got around their 'verse just as quickly as any Federation ship got around the galaxy. it's just a requirement of space shows: you can't deal with space distances and do good TV. It must have been canceled mid-season? The 13th ep was not a season ender.

 

[mattCR]

Yes, cancelled midseason, basically.. the storyline (which laid out fairly well in Serenity) was to be that the inner colonies were manipulating the outer colonies.. and whether or not rebellion would rise again.


They kind of explained that; light speed travel: not possible; not even near light speed. But rocketry starting from a space based point, possible.. and so yes, time between planets in the show was measured in "weeks" whereas, say, we figure months for a shot from here to the closest planets..

 

[DaveF]

I've seen the movie, a few years ago. My wife hasn't. We'll probably watch it this weekend. I assume it represents where the show meant to go over a five year series. I was confused the first several episodes of Firefly since the movie starts with River




being an elite fighting machine




and in the show she's just a messed up girl. The ending of the show started showing how she might go somewhere (besides crazy), but was a long ways off from there.


To me the show that accomplished what Firefly meant to was "Journeyman" -- a character drama framed in a sci-fi context. I think the cowboy themeing put me off a bit from Firefly -- it never felt quite right to me. But I'm not a fan of Westerns, anyway. If that's a style you like, then I can see Firefly being a breath of fresh air compared to sci-fi of the past 20 years.

Originally Posted by mattCR

They kind of explained that; light speed travel: not possible; not even near light speed. But rocketry starting from a space based point, possible.. and so yes, time between planets in the show was measured in "weeks" whereas, say, we figure months for a shot from here to the closest planets..

[geekery]Which is why all TV sci-fi is doomed to be Star Trekkian in its travel: the nearest extra-solar star is 4 light years from Earth. There is no "weeks" of travel from planet to planet without FTL. Serenity would have needed crew hibernation and decades to hop ports between colonies.[/geekery]

Unless this government is all within our solar system? Or some other region of space where the planets are chockablock on top of each other? I didn't get that, but perhaps it was mentioned at some point.

 

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by DaveF


[geekery]Which is why all TV sci-fi is doomed to be Star Trekkian in its travel: the nearest extra-solar star is 4 light years from Earth. There is no "weeks" of travel from planet to planet without FTL. Serenity would have needed crew hibernation and decades to hop ports between colonies.[/geekery]

Unless this government is all within our solar system? Or some other region of space where the planets are chockablock on top of each other? I didn't get that, but perhaps it was mentioned at some point.

Yes, they explain that within the show; it's all one solar system.. the inner planets become the elite/rich/etc.. the outer planets and smaller rotational asteroids and moons became the rebellion/outer worlds. In fact, they never got to explore the farthest reaches of their own solar system, really..

 

[DaveF]

Ah. I missed that detail.


What amazed me most was being reminded that Firefly was doing long-shots followed by "handheld" zooms to express the vastness of space while getting to the detail of the spaceship. I thought BSG innovated that, but clearly drew from Firefly's inspiration and matured the technique from there.


I don't know if Firefly actually created that film style for space, but it's seemed novel to me after decades of locked-camera Star Trek.

 

[mattCR]

Tis ok... damn, you made me go back and watch a mess of Dollhouse last night and this morning.. I'm just finishing Epitaph 1. Really, Dollhouse season 1 was kind of "eh" until Episode 6, and from that point on, it's a pretty good ride. And Epitaph 1 is great Scifi.

 

[DaveF]

It took several episodes to hit its stride. The opener wasn't the strongest hour of TV. But thematically, I prefer it to Firefly. S2 started a bit rocky too, but was pretty awesome the second half. It was a little weird seeing Alpha as Wash (Alan Tudyk). But after seeing Summer Glau in Firefly, I understand why she keeps showing up in stuff. She's not a role that good since, and she was excellent as River Tam.



Dollhouse, with its epitaphs, might be the bleakest sci-fi TV show I've seen.

 

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by DaveF

It took several episodes to hit its stride. The opener wasn't the strongest hour of TV. But thematically, I prefer it to Firefly. S2 started a bit rocky too, but was pretty awesome the second half. It was a little weird seeing Alpha as Wash (Alan Tudyk). But after seeing Summer Glau in Firefly, I understand why she keeps showing up in stuff. She's not a role that good since, and she was excellent as River Tam.



Dollhouse, with its epitaphs, might be the bleakest sci-fi TV show I've seen.

I think what's interesting is that you can take the 2 epitaphs and separate them almost entirely from the series, and as a pair, they make for one of the best ways to play out a scifi concept. In a lot of ways, "Caprica" borrowed heavily from some of the concepts that played out in those, but didn't do it nearly as well. Dollhouse had a great core concept, but it was never a TV network show. Way too cerebral and bleak. This is what I love about this forum; discussing a long expired show and making me remember what I Loved about it

 

[Greg.K]

Originally Posted by mattCR





Yes, they explain that within the show; it's all one solar system.. the inner planets become the elite/rich/etc.. the outer planets and smaller rotational asteroids and moons became the rebellion/outer worlds. In fact, they never got to explore the farthest reaches of their own solar system, really..

Which of course was a pretty bad idea - I mean how many (roughly earth-massed) planets/moons in the habitable zone can one solar system have? "Terraforming" can only do so much. I prefer to try to ignore this part.

 

[DaveF]

(embedding option vanished from my editor.)

 

[mattCR]

Cute link. Just went back and watched through Dollhouse Season 2. I'd have to go back through the thread, but you're right Dave.. I can't think of any other show that has ever been as dark/pessimistic in a while. I enjoy the hell out of it, but the Season 2, Episode 12 (last before Epitaph 2) where they have 2 inflicted suicides, a host of cast death, think they've resolved and then end up with the world destroyed anyway.. wow.

 

[DaveF]

Yeah, it's a bummer.


In a way, two seasons was about what it needed. A third season to flesh out the "what makes us human", I would have liked. But I took from the supplementals that S3 was going to be Charlie's Angels: Echo, Sierra, and Victor going out on missions to fight bad guys. That doesn't sound very interesting.


A show that was far superior than I expected, than the reviews said. I can see why it didn't succeed, but it really worked for me. Tackled some of my favorite sci-fi themes, had some sparky writing, great action, and a heck of an epilogue!