Dollhouse - season 2 - Page 5

Yes. She was unaffected by Topher's knock-out gun in the episode where Ballard went to grab Whiskey from the senator's wife. Prior to the three-month gap, DeWitt was completely unaltered. Whether she was tweaked as the senator was tweaked in the intervening period is more of an open question, but I doubt it. Whether acting out of short-term survival or toward some long-term objective, I think DeWitt is responsible for DeWitt.

Watching as much stuff as we all tend to do here, it's always interesting when we see someone we recognize but not know from where. Where would we be without the Internet or IMDB?

 

The woman who played Galena (Ana Claudia Talancon) looked familiar and turns out I saw her in a film starring Minnie Driver, about the kidnappings in Juarez, Mexico. The film went straight to video, I believe, but I happened to catch it at a film festival.

Regarding the recent eps, it's always interesting to see what can be done when a writing team knows the end is nigh.

watching alan tudyk as alpha was great. i've really enjoyed his stint on this and V. he did great on firefly but this other side of him is really good. i'd like to see him in a new series too.

Agreed.   And he did have a killer suit too! 

Olivia Williams is terrific on this show, with a performance that is right up there with her best feature work. The first hour was a reiteration of just how truly scary Rossum has become. The second episode was the "Dollhouse" version of a Holodeck episode, where nothing is as it seems. After three episodes wondering where DeWitt's loyalties lie, the last five minutes finally answers the question. Was this her plan all along, or did she truly choose self-preservation and then find she couldn't live with herself playing Rossum's game? My guess: she is playing the same game as the rest, but true to form she is playing it smarter.

It was neat seeing the world from "Epitaph One" as Clyde's scarily accurate prediction of what the future entails. It was also terrific seeing Reed Diamond's character return, since he was a great part of the first season. The original concept of the attic, in which people "wake up" inside their heads with none of the memories or development that they'd acheived from birth until being sent to the attic, was probably more terrifying than what the second hour presented. However, the idea that Rossum is using people as biological CPUs much like the robots in "The Matrix" used us as biological batteries, is intellectually more perverse. In essence, Rossum has created hell on earth, and turned it toward improving the company's profit margins.

That beginning reminded me of some cartoon I saw in the early 90s, can't remember what it was, but it had the main character being stuck in a dream in a dream in a dream and so on, or something like that.  The first bit with Echo waking up and that being part of the dream was similar.

Anyway, I'm not so sure DeWitt has been on the good side all along.  Topher's invention seems too important to give it up to Rossum just so that she could get power back to fight them, because once they have his invention produced, it'll be difficult for her to fight them for very long.  But at the same time, there was that conversation with Boyd where she mentions that she's still standing right in front of him, so I guess it could be that which is the case.

The story is sure moving forward. These two episodes were a microcosm of the series's character.  Some really strong moments coupled with some incredibly clunky ones. 

Alpha was missed.

I haven't seen Epitaph One yet.

 I don't even know what Epitaph One is! Should I watch it?

Yes.  If you haven't seen it, grab hold of it.  It's pretty much the groundwork for why this whole season happened.. and what "MAY" happen in the future that they are trying to stop :)

"Epitaph One" was the unaired season one finale, which takes place several years in the future; exactly how many is left unclear. It was first made available on the Season One DVD set. If you don't mind low quality, you can watch it online here, or download it in HD from iTunes (listed as the thirteenth episode). The season/series finale is entitled "Epitaph Two: Return", which sounds like it will pick up where "Epitaph One" left off.

Ho-lee crap! I did not see that ending coming. What is Boyd's game, exactly?

Believe it or not, I guessed it right before the reveal.  Once I saw that he hadn't left the Dollhouse I thought something was up with him.

Of course, 999 times out of 1,000 I don't figure it out so it had to happen sometime. 

Is it a case of impending absence making the heart grow fonder, or is this show rocking? Maybe they just upped the ante once hey found out they weren't going to get a new season. I just don't see how the show could have continued indefinitely based on what we've been seeing recently. Whatever the case, Dollhouse has become must see TV for me.

Sometimes I think shows are much better when they know there is only a set run of episodes.  This show really started hitting a stride late... but the last set of episodes?  Great, great sci fi.  I mean -great- scifi.  Tonight the eps were A++ material.

One thing that bugged the hell out of me.  The fact that Alpha destroyed the backup implied to me that the original was gone as well.

So why bother with that "we have your wedge... oh wait, no we don't" part?  It seemed pretty pointless, and that they should've started with "okay, we need to reconstruct her".

 

But other than that, I agree that it was a great episode, as has become par recently.

Anyway, how many are left?  That episode felt to me like maybe it would be the last one before a two-part finale, but I haven't really been keeping track.

It's rocking.  It's really disappointing that the show couldn't have been this good the whole time.  I watched S1 and grew to despise Eliza, the actress and her character, so I didn't watch the first handful of episodes for S2.  I started again with the 'break out of prison' episode and I'm hooked.  I finally watched Epitaph One and it only served to annoy me further that the lousy early episodes doomed what could have been a spectacular series.

That bugged me as well. I'll have to go back at some point and watch the last couple episodes of season one to see if it was specifically specified that they'd recovered the original copy of Caroline. We knew a viable copy had to exist, because the little girl in "Epitaph One" was imprinted with a later version of her. But I agree, it would have been easier from a plot standpoint to just jump right to reconstructing the wedge that Alpha dropped and semi-destroyed.

Was Boyd around when Topher tested his device that made actives pass out? I'm wondering if the Boyd we know is a sophisticated imprint set to revert to the senior partner after a certain set of events. On one hand, that would cheapen last night's revelation. On the other hand, the revelation itself cheapens everything else about Boyd. I would argue that Olivia Williams and Harry Lennix give the best performances on the show, even if their roles aren't the acting showcases that the actives get. Of the actives, I think Enver Gjokaj is far and away the most successful.

There's two episodes left (one each on January 15 and 22).

Wow.

No other general comment, just wow.

This episode was the first one that really felt rushed. I think it could have stood to be stretched out over two or three episodes. As it stood in this episode, it just seemed way too easy to break into the heart of the Rossum Corporation. That being said, I loved the ending. The good guys think they've won in an oddly abrupt and anti-climactic fashion. As the "now what?" feeling lingers in the air, we jump forward to learn that the end of the world happened anyway. And thanks to them, no vaccine exists to reverse it.

Is "Epitaph Two" airing next week or two weeks from now? All of the listings have it for next Friday, but the promo said "In two weeks...". If they are holding it for two weeks, hopefully they'll air "Epitaph One" next Friday so that everyone can be caught up for the finale.

I was thinking that too but it seems likely that they would have said that that episode was airing. My guess is that they'll rerun Human Target and Bones or House.

Topher didn't use the anti-doll gun device on Boyd. 

 

He used the device (new) that he had just figured out in the other lab, that allows him to wipe and reprogram people, even non-dolls.. the one that Boyd was so happy to see him figure out...

That's how they reprogrammed him on the spot to make him a doll.

Thanks for the info, Patrick.

Okay, that makes sense. I hadn't heard they were doing one for Haiti when I posted the first time.

Crap, that was good.

Fox, you can use that as a pull-quote for your Season 2 packaging. :)