New Joss Whedon show announced: Dollhouse - Page 20

The unaired pilot is a frustrating thing. First, I was surprised how much of the footage from the episode was repurposed over the course of the series, especially the Paul Ballard stuff. Ballard is a better character in the pilot, who makes the smart and logical decisions. It was also a more successful pilot in that it would have gotten me to week two in a way that the aired pilot didn't.

But for all of that, I still think they made the right decision to ditch it. Having the layers of this world peeled back gradually was a more rewarding experience, particularly since as aired we didn't know all that much more than Ballard did. I'm also happier that Ballard had to really dig before he got his moment with Echo, so that it felt earned in a way it didn't in the unaired pilot. Because the unaired pilot through a lot more out at once, they introduced some ideas that were better handled in their reconsidered form later on in the series. The unaired pilot, for instance, makes mobile wiping seem like a problematic but entirely doable process. Having it occur unprecedented and out of the blue during the vault heist was much more effective. Other key moments from the show as aired wouldn't have been impossible given the information provided in this episode, like Dr. Saunders's scars. It makes sense that they'd be able to heal scars quickly and completely, given the extreme measures imposed on the dolls. But if they have universal scar repair, than there'd have been no reason to retire Whiskey from service. This pilot would have greatly limited the direction with which they could take the character. Overall, I just liked how the puzzle pieces were delivered and am sorta glad we didn't get the embarrassment of riches. The only thing that never made it into the show proper from this pilot that I would have liked is Dr. Saunders's idea that the morality of what the dolls are doing matters. The "Needs" episode sort of played with this idea, but from the wider perspective endorsed here.

Just saw the unaired 13th episode and I have to agree with everyone else.  I love it, but I can see why it was left unaired, because it was a bit too much of a trip for most.  If I hadn't known how much different it was supposed to be (and that it had Felicia Day), I'd have had to check to make sure I put the right disc in, I think.  And yeah, the unaired pilot and this episode definitely did have a much darker tone as well.  I kind of wonder what would've happened if the unaired pilot actually aired though.  I mean, basically where Whedon apparently wanted to start his story from is practically where we left off at the end of the first season.  Should mean that we have some great stuff ahead for season two, that's for sure.

Adam, you seem to indicate that for cost reasons, shows are moving to "HD 24P tape" instead of 35mm, resulting in a lower picture quality. But isn't 24P the same thing Star Wars Episode 3 was shot on? That looks glorious. I don't want to put words in your mouth. What did you mean? If TV shows are using the same process Star Wars used, I see no reason they shouldn't look fantastic.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CineAlta
 

24P is inherently more limited picture resolution, but in the context of television that doesn't mean it's lower picture quality. 24P shoots with 1080 lines of resolution, the same as the highest resolution on HDTVs. At this resolution, they can and do look spectacular. They're just not as futureproofed for the next iteration of picture quality standards as good old 35mm is, which features the equivalent of 4,000 lines of resolution.

Digital also handles light differently than film, which requires somewhat different set lighting. I believe this has more to do with why Epitaph One is less gorgeous than the film shot episodes, especially given that most of the episode used much less lighting than the show's traditional look. If they can translate the lighting of the first season to 24P for the upcoming season, the difference shouldn't be tangible. And in addition to being cheaper than film, it's much more versatile for the quick shoots that television requires. With 4K cameras starting to take off in feature films, the drawbacks of the 1080P cameras will soon be a thing of the past.

 Just finished the Blu-ray set last night (all save for the original pilot). My expectations of it were sufficiently lowered by all the mixed word of mouth, as well as the first half of the season- so I was actually very surprised just how much I enjoyed it overall.

Another big surprise to me was how much depth and relevance  was available in the initial premise. I didn't follow the week to week chatter about it, so I was coming into the show cold, just going on a few dvd release week reviews. What I expected was what we got for the first half of the season- a very formulaic, episodic execution with only brief cryptic hints to a larger mythology. Tru Calling is a good example (and that was fine because I also enjoyed that show quite a bit). I wasn't expecting them to treat the premise like hard sci-fi and go in exploring the philosophical, political, spiritual, social aspects  this technology would affect and change.

In this sense, I thought 'Haunted' turned out to be the pivotal ep of the first season, even though the surface murder mystery seemed mostly trite. This is also why I didn't like Epitaph. The former hints at larger concepts at play and the latter gives everything away and replaces all the chewy philosophical paradoxes with the promise of another pre-digested, post apocalypse band of survivors fighting back against the overlords.

The one bit that really stood out to me in Haunted was when the son guessed that that Echo was his mother.
On the one hand, you have working class stiffs like Ballard.  Nearly all of his peers believes the Dollhouse is an urban myth, and black helicopter stuff.
On the other hand, you have this wealthy scion who is a regular customer and for whom the concept of seeing the persona of someone he knows in someone else's body, is taken completely for granted.
That points to a conspiracy that isn't maintained by a few powerful people so much as a conspiracy that is able to exist in plain sight because of the boundaries of class structure.
A time when the masters of the universe on Wall Street are getting bailed out by taxpayers and then continue to award themselves six figure bonuses as if it were business as usual, and the average tax payer is powerless to do anything about it, makes this  a perfect environment to sell class-based conspiracies. The idea  that the elites are slowly working towards turning the working classes into more amenable slaves than they already are has a resonance now that it may not have had during the hay days of a tech or housing bubble.
DeWitt, for all her hoity toity Brit airs, functions basically like an Old South Plantation overseer, keeping both the slaves and the plantation functioning efficiently. Against that backdrop exploring ideas of persona, or the schisms of mind/body, soul/mind, and legal and ethical problems... all offers a rich environment for a weekly sci-fi/adventure series.

Unfortunately Epitaph trades most of the mystery of how this will play all out, for a conventional post apocalypse band of rebels premise. I guess we can also look forward to nods of "is the new friend we meet in our travels actually a replicant/cylon/pod person/doll?" in the future stories as well.
I hate to see the series box itself in like that, and future contemporary based episodes become nothing but 'the prequels'. It would have been interesting to see how all the main characters grapple, rationalize, or rebel against the larger questions as new events or information unfolded. Or see the conflict between Boyd and Ballard as they both try to protect Echo in their own fashion. But that's been taken away to a large extent because we know eventually Caroline HAS to become another John Conner with Ballard as her Kyle Reese, or something like that.

I think Epitaph was a bad move dictated by Whedons prior experience at not having closure. If the series had been canceled, I could have lived with that as a tantalizing glimpse of stories we wouldn't see. But as it is, I don't see how it opens the series up more now than actually constraining it to an anti-climax- unless they pull out something totally off the wall like Aliens being behind it all.
Edited by Paul_Scott - 8/16/2009 at 11:03 pm GMT
Edited by Paul_Scott - 8/17/2009 at 03:52 am GMT

Paul, Joss Whedon has pretty much said that he wouldn't have executed the episode the way he did if he'd known the show was going to get renewed for a second season. He put it all on the table so that there would be some closure for fans if that's all there is. However, he also backed tracked from the episode a bit. While "Epitaph One" is canon, and there will apparently be periodic flash forwards to the three nomads headed for Safe Haven, the flashbacks from the chair aren't necessarily to be trusted. They might not mean what they appear to mean, and they might not in fact have occurred at all.

I actually think the episode is going to prove quite helpful. It creates an end point for the show and lays the stakes out on the table. I think this will focus the show's second season in a way that it wouldn't necessarily have been focused without "Epitaph One". And because the episode is sufficiently removed from the contemporary storyline, it gives them a lot of wiggle room as to how the show gets to that point.

The problem is we the audience now have information that puts us about 20 steps ahead of all the characters in any contemporary based episodes. It's hard to see how the smaller plot points that they encounter and conflict against, points that are connected to the larger conspiracy, are going to seem anything but tedious now since the future is in no doubt whatsoever.
The only 'mystery' left is in the minutiae of how exactly we get to that point. Those points are no longer revelatory to us. 
Look at it this way-
Plot A = contemporary based eps taking place in the wake of "Omega"
Plot B = band of rebels traversing the post-apocalypse landscape on their way to safe haven

Plot A eps will be involved with unraveling a plot points connected to an outcome we all know. There is no longer any urgency in having them uncover anything, because we know they can't do anything to modify an outcome we already are privy to.
Plot B now becomes more relevant and urgent because it is the only plot where an outcome is open ended.

The series will have to go through extreme contortions for that dynamic to be altered. 

Of course there could always be an Epitaph Two (or 3 or 4 etc) whenever they do something in the present day that alters the course of History.

They could end each season with an Epitaph X that shows a slightly different future resulting from actions during the series.

They could also end each season with an Epitaph at other points in the future.

Not sure I follow. 
Why would the future here be flexible? 
There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe anything other than whatever happens is supposed to happen.
They would have to introduce a whole 'nother layer of time travel nonsense to get to a point where what we see are only possible futures.

The only way I can see writing around this is if Epitaph is some kind of in-head diagnostic simulation. That frankly would be pretty lame too. 

I'm afraid I'm seeing a show with seriously great potential being dumbed down far too soon. It's richly speculative sci-fi being constrained by woefully derivative, cliched sci-fi elements.

What Steve is suggesting is that "Epitaph One" be viewed as one possible future, rather than the definitive future. This would free up season two to play out however it wants, which could then end with "Epitaph Two", which presents a related but different possible future that is affected by the events of the season. And so on.

It's an intriguing idea, even though comments made by Joss have made it clear that it's not an idea they're going with. I don't see how "Epitaph One" undermines the main storyline, of the series however. What we were shown is merely a reflection of the breadcrumbs we were already given throughout the season: the potential for wireless imprinting was demonstrated in "Gray Hour", when Alpha wiped Echo over the cell phone inside the vault; the potential for upgradable bodies was demonstrated in "Haunted" with the dead heiress that solved her own murder; the idea that Echo was special was likewise coming to a head over the course of the season, and not just because Alpha fancied her. "Epitaph One" just took the ideas of the season and extrapolated them out to their bleakest logical conclusion. There's no reason to assume any vast conspiracy, since all indications are that the Rossum Corp colored outside the lines with the imprinting technology, and that technology got away from them. Certainly no one appears to be benefiting from the overwhelming social insecurity that the rampant imprinting and bodysnatching has unleashed.

I also think it's underestimating the writers to assume they're going to stick with a linear, "Smallville"-esque path between what we know from Season One and what we glimpsed in "Epitaph One." What we saw in that episode, I think, is less than you think we saw. The idea that the flashbacks could be counterfeit is important from a character standpoint, because it frees up the destinies of all our regulars except Echo and Whiskey. And since there's quite possibly another Echo running around out there who is much more abreast of the situation than child-Echo is, her storyline isn't really tied down either. Which leaves Whiskey, aka Dr. Saunders. Amy Acker got cast as a regular in "Happy Town", so we weren't going to see much of her next season any way.

Personally, I believe in free will and not predestination.
My thoughts on glimpses of the future or past (or time travel) is that you can change the future but not change the past. Anything you do now affects what happens later, but you can't go back (physically or via messages) and change something that has already occurred during or before your personal linear timeline. (this last part applies to time travel stories and avoids most paradoxes)

If the show was being shown from the viewpoint of the future episode, then it would be fixed and all of the episodes set in current time could only lead to the future results. Since the show is being seen from the present viewpoint, nothing in the future episode is destined to occur. Whedon can declare result as fixed but it really limits story options.

Personally, I wish I had not seen Epitaph One. I would rather look back from the end and realize that I had all of the clues needed to foresee the results. Now I fear that they will beat us over the head with the obvious, week after week.

There are various ways to write stories that look at the future or past but it requires writers who have actually read and written science fiction. Sci-Fi shows written by people who don't know anything about Sci-Fi can drive me to distraction. At the very least, they should hire a consultant to point out obvious gaffs.

We went through the whole first season with the show having nothing to do with time travel. The question is, is Epitah One a flash forward (view of the future) or time travel? I saw it as a view of the future, in which case it's preordained. If it's time travel, it can be changed.

Just to clarify the distinction, if I have a book with 31 chapters that covers the period of Jan 1 - Jan 31st, but in Chapter 15 I talk about things that happen on the 31st, that's a flash forward, not time travel. It's a literary construct because the reader/viewer exists outside the timeframe of the events taking place. But what happens on the 31st is what happens on the 31st. The reader/viewer can be told about th3 31st at any time and it isn't time travel. A character living on the 15th visiting the 31st while all around him continue on the 15th is time travel.

I took it as a view of the future but I would argue that it is not preordained. I would see it as a possible future but any action taken in the present can, and will, change that future. (I don't think time travel is involved in the show. I just extended my philosophy - that you can change the future but you can't change the past -  to include that option.)

I think Whedon is looking at Epitaph One as a predetermined future but I think that is a terrible idea from a Science Fiction and literary standpoint.

But what would be the point of that? In order for the scenario you've outlined to come to pass, the episode has to be taken as fantasy -- even within it's own world. It'd be the equivalent of making a movie today about the complete Obama presidency. Maybe I'd guess right on some things, but maybe not. But they'd be guesses, not a view of the future. Things that occur in the real world would necessarily "change" what shown in the movie. I put change in quotes because since it's fantasy anyway, reality wouldn't really be "changing" anything -- it'd be proving guesses wrong.

I don't follow why you think the creater of the show looks at it as a predtermined future, but you'd argue that it isn't preordained.

Anyway, I don't have a stake in things. I saw the episode and proceeded to forget about it ASAP. I don't want it in my Dollhouse world as it's a radical mental departure from the show I've been watching (for me). I don't want some post apocalyptic Dollhouse. It's just that as I read the posts, it occurred to me that given the show we've seen so far, it either has to be time travel (nonstarter), or predetermined future. Or fantasy (may as well have been someone's dream).

One thing to remember is that this episode did not air. It was filmed just in case there was no 2nd season. In fact, it is in the "Special Features" section on the DVD, not the last regular episode.

Since there is going to be a season 2, the Epitaph episode is just sort of a neat look into one way the show would have gone. Most viewers won't see Epitaph, so they won't have any knowledge of this possible future except what is shown in the new episodes. This means that Joss could choose to go this way or not. All this means to me is that it was just one possibility, not a definite.

Except he has repeatedly stated in interviews that Season 2 is going to include flash forwards to the "Epitaph" storyline. All systems are go for this episode being an out-of-left-field but canon part of the show's continuity.

Another show I watched in a big gulp once I heard it was renewed.  Pleasantly surprised.  The show's biggest hurdle is Eliza.  As long as they work around her limited range and leave the heavy lifting to the other cast members it should do well.  An unfortunate dynamic though.

Summer is in the house:

http://www.dollverse.com/2009/08/official-summer-glau-joins-dollhouse.html

Summer Glau has filmed 2 eps so far, and has a commitment open for more ;)