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Dollhouse
2009 · TV series · 44 min episodes · 2 seasons
Created by Joss Whedon
ActionAdventureDramaScience FictionFantasy
Echo is a member of a highly illegal and underground group of individuals whose personalities have been wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Confined between missions to a secret facility known as the Dollhouse, the "Actives" are hired by the wealthy, powerful and connected to wholly become—with mind, personality and physiology—whomever the client wants or needs them to be. They know no other life than the specific engagements they are in at that time—or do they?
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32 comments on Hacker News
Oh wow, I really enjoyed Dollhouse but I didn't know that! I was always confused why Season 2's plot went by so quickly. Thanks.
Okay so a little bit of out of universe trivia on Dollhouse: It was planned for 5 seasons. With the risk of cancellation, the second season and the two Epitaph episodes were a severely compressed telling of 4 seasons of plans. And, personally I think it worked well. Something similar happened to Babylon 5, Manifest, Jericho (IIRC), Firefly (Serenity was the original ending that would have played out over multiple seasons), and the Escaflowne anime: the main plots towards the end got compressed to create a faster pace at the climax while ensuring the story could be finished (though I wasn't a fan of how Manifest ended).
My concern about original writers being involved in reboots is if they want to fill out the story they couldn't tell the first time around and end up with a more standard pacing that's less exciting, and end up getting cancelled before finishing. Then we end up with things like Tru Calling and Dark Matter, which had planned plots they couldn't finish.
Knowing what we know of Joss Whedon today, I think at least 70% of the problems with Dollhouse were Whedon's own issues. It came out in an interview that morally dubious character Topher was Whedon's close to a self-insert character, and that tracks and also explains a lot about the show's problems.
I maintain that Seasons 3 and 4 of Westworld were quite good, but not enough people watched them because they got lost or otherwise fell off in Season 2. But you sort of have to understand Season 2 to get a lot of what 3 and 4 did, to the show's peril. (Massive spoilers: I refer to Season 2 as the Futurama Robot Church season as I think the Season 2 arc was largely about how Delores was the Robot Devil, like in the Futurama Robot Church stories if they were not played for laughs. A lot of what Delores does in S2 and S3 maybe doesn't make half as much sense without that context. S2 trying to be an S1-like puzzle box made the meaning of that a lot less clear than it should have been. Not to mention how many people didn't want Delores to take that dark of a turn, despite it being deeply telegraphed in Season 1, and per flashbacks had already happened once before, hence the whole weird Wyatt thing.)
Reading this essay gave me the opportunity to realize that while I see (and subscribe to) streaming sites as a convenience, the presence of any given title on streaming services has literally zero impact on whether I am able to watch it. Over the past 25 years, the binary NNTP feeds became FTP servers became bittorrent search engines. And of course, that's additive; NNTP is still alive and well, and I'd guess that most people reading this have that one friend with the half petabyte of every movie made in the past 100 years if your login credentials still work. People reliably seem to upload 1080p cuts of literally every show just minutes after it airs to BT.
So yeah, while I usually go the legit and lazy route, if someone says "hey, did you ever see Person of Interest? how about Dollhouse?" it never even crosses my mind that I might have to hope some streaming platform picks it up.
The idea that the author clearly perceives an artificial scarcity is fascinating. It's like... should someone tell her?
My own resentment with superhero movies started with "The Avengers" (2012). Joss Whedon made the excellent space adventure Firefly and the even better "Dollhouse". Both series were intriguing, leaving you something to think about.
"Joker" was good however, and "Black Panther" was fun (there may be a few others I haven't seen).
The tv show dollhouse dealt with that concept.
I hope it's not based on the contents of the quoted posts alone.
> This was explored (all the way to its grim dystopian conclusion) in tv series Dollhouse. Might want to check it out.
That doesn't seem very salty to me, and I could see myself writing that same comment.
This concept has been explored in many sci-fi shows and movies. Example: "Be Right Back" (Black Mirror Season 2, Episode 1), "Dollhouse", "Robot", etc.
Sounds very similar to what the Dollhouse TV series was about.
This was explored (all the way to its grim dystopian conclusion) in tv series Dollhouse. Might want to check it out.
The TV Series "Dollhouse" also explores this, although there the actors can only be rented on a day-to-day basis and their memory is wiped (OR IS IT?) after every assignment.
I don't recall details, but the Dollhouse set was reused for the law office in Season 5 of Angel.
Season 5 has some corporate metaphors, after the production team was no longer spread across Buffy, Angel & Dollhouse. Angel S5 is almost a standalone series.
Just don't watch any episode of "dollhouse" where the lead character played by Eliza Dushku is called Echo
The Buffy vs. Angel vs. Firefly discussion is a good one. Babylon 5, Veronica Mars, and the recent Battlestar Galactica also fit in. Ditto Dollhouse, Heroes, Alias and Lost.
I'd say:
-- It's just a detail, but recall that the first season of Buffy was actually just a half-season in length.
-- The first three seasons of Buffy had a very clear meta-metaphor. :) It posited monsters as being a good representation for what happens in actual high school life.
-- That aspect of the show hit its stride in the Buffy/Angel romance: Girl sleeps with guy and he turns into a monster.
-- Firefly was good, but nothing in it was as brilliant as, say, the best of Buffy.
-- A lot of shows started with a lot of monster-of-the-week/crisis-of-the-week and emphasized the ongoing story more later into the run. But most of the shows cited did at least some standalone stories all the way to the end. (Babylon 5 is one exception).
-- Firefly never got past that part of the show's evolution. This may be one reason it never matched Buffy's brilliance.
-- Not knowing whether or not a show will be renewed is a huge problem. If you're a fan of Buffy or Angel or Babylon 5, you're familiar with the consequences.
-- The writers' strike messed up multiple shows, or at least their audiences. I never went back to watching Battlestar Galactica post-strike.
-- Joss Whedon tried to oversee three shows at once. That didn't go well. Each of Buffy, Angel and Firefly deserved more of his attention.
-- Dollhouse didn't have real characters, the people running the place excepted. It was never going to work.
-- Some shows have a brilliant idea for an overarching story, in which the big story and the individual characters' experiences and arcs mesh beautifully. Then that story comes to a natural end, and the show is never quite as good again. Veronica Mars Season 1 is a great example. Ditto the first 1 1/2 or 2 seasons of Alias. Ditto Babylon 5 after things were wrapped up in Season 4.
-- I'd put Battlestar Galactica into the same group. The best part was the first season, as everybody builds a society on the fly )as it were) that can survive against terrible odds. The plots with the election and the defeat and the aftermath weren't as good. And the pseudo-mystical stuff toward the end was just weird.
I've watched Buffy, Angel, and Firefly several times all the way through (Firefly the most often, by far). Certainly, some of the magic of Buffy is gone when watching it as a middle aged man (I was an adult when watching it the first time, but just barely), but it's still enjoyable.
It was definitely a show that got better in the later seasons, but it was always funny and fun pop horror/fantasy, and the cast was excellent (except Michelle Trachtenberg's Dawn, who was just annoying). I think maybe Whedon's greatest talent back then was picking a good cast with great chemistry, which may be why Dollhouse failed so miserably, for me. So much of that cast was just wooden and utterly forgettable (I almost said "unlikable", but I can't remember anyone from the show other than Amy Acker and Eliza Dushku, so I can't even say I disliked the cast). Now that he's working with huge names, and the cast is already mostly set in stone, I'm not inclined to go see his films. I watched the first Avengers and remember it being funny, but not really anything else about it. The second was a snore.
Anyway, Angel was maybe more adult-friendly; at least it was intended to be, since no one could pretend David Boreanaz was young enough to be messing around with high school girls anymore. Though Buffy was always funnier.
But, Firefly is the best of them all. Surprisingly so, since all other Whedon shows are widely regarded as being best after they've had a season or so to find their rhythm. It seems reasonable to assume Firefly would have actually gotten better; the film hints at that potential. Though Serenity was rushed, it was still excellent, and would have made a top-notch series of episodes for the show if it'd been presented in that form.
I'd pretty much echo this. I didn't get into Dollhouse when it first aired. But someone or something I read got me to dive back into it around Season 2 or so. I recall watching at least the back-end of the series and thinking that it was really quite good science fiction. I should maybe rewatch it one of these days.
For the record, as a fairly hardcore lifelong science fiction fan with limited tolerance for cutesy teenage-esque plots or soap opera drama (I found Buffy difficult), I have to say that the Dollhouse finale was 100% worth getting to for me. Yes, it started out bad in many ways-- some of it may have been on purpose, but there were just so many issues with poorly edited scripts and bad acting. After it warmed up, though, aside from a few minor hiccups, I thought it got better and better. I don't remember exactly when it really picked up, but 10 episodes in is probably not far enough.
From late in the first season through the ending (and oh wow, especially the ending), it seemed to me that the sci-fi themes got much, much stronger, more complex, and more interesting. I have a particular interest in the ideas around 'consciousness transfer' or whatever you want to call it, and in my book the show explores multiple facets of that better than just about any I've seen. I highly recommend getting around to it. I actually plan on watching the whole thing again, something I almost never do with any show.
I suspect that any boost gained by early cancellation would also have been gained by more episodes, and time for word of mouth to popularize it... unless Fox pulled more slow death dickery.
I can't really speak to Buffy and Angel, but with regards to Firefly and Dollhouse... The indication is that Whedon wouldn't so much fuck it up, but requirements by Fox would force him to fuck it up. Compare "Train Job" to the original first episode of Firefly. Compare early episodes of Dollhouse to later ones, particularly the encore episode.
A fair amount of the time, Dollhouse seemed to me like it had been rushed into production without the time to think of better per-episode plots (as opposed to the longer story-arc). Which always made me a little sad, because the underlying theme is awesome.
On the other hand, I agree that the cast was incredible. Even when some of the "little" plots were weak, they made the show very much worth watching to me.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I obsessed over Buffy (which I consider a guilty pleasure as I wasn't the target demographic of teenage-at-the-time girls), and enjoyed Angel to a lesser degree. Firefly absolutely blew me away, and was a starting point for several of its actors who have become successful in the years since. I've followed those actors into the shows they went on to do, with the exception of Nathan Fillion in Castle, which I found too cheesy for my taste.
But Dollhouse...the cast was great, the story was intriguing even if a little derivative, but somehow the show fell flat for me. I found myself struggling to watch it and gave up about 10 episodes in. I still have the first season DVD on my Amazon wish list but it's been on there since December 2010 and I still haven't brought myself to buy it, despite its price dropping below $10 several times in the past.
Maybe one day I'll pick it up and try again, but there's so much good TV out today and so little spare time to watch, I may never get around to it.
iirc, the "Save Dollhouse from Cancellation" campaign started before the first episode even aired. It still got cancelled.
I'm a little surprised Dollhouse didn't rank higher. It's really a wonderful, extended meditation on the nature of identity, wrapped up in a sci-fi, transhumanist, pre-apocalyptic shell, with a liberal dash of feminism. Fran Kranz, Olivia Williams, and (last, but not least) Enver Gjokaj are standouts among the excellent cast.
I do, however, recommend watching the first pilot from the DVD set rather than the actual pilot episode that aired. It takes a couple episodes to get going, but once it does, it's truly amazing.
I don't normally go on "pop culture rants", but as an ex-whedon fan, he's the worst of the bunch for me, and I'd be more than happy to see his work relegated in favor of more unique IP. I can't deny the "technical quality" of his work, but eventually you watch enough sci-fi and realize that while of course everyone pulls heavily from their predecessors, Whedon takes the kitchen sink. Dollhouse was the breaking point for me, both in terms of it being a weak, less predictive imitation of RuR, and the fact that at the end of the day, he has a pattern. He has good actors for that pattern, but you see them enough times and seeing them more times isn't really adding to anything.
There's a lot of noise about mourning the death of sci-fi/cinema etc, but the gems have always been the outliers. Metropolis and later Dark City, Delicatessen/City of Lost Children, Firefly(yes, I'll give him that one, outlaw star has some things to say, but that plot trope was already as old as the Romans.), Primer, Dark Mirror, I'm rambling at this point and this is totally going to spawn another sci fi binge, but my takeaway is that there's been a reasonable stream of surprisingly good sci fi that has popped up in unpredictable places over the years, even into the torrent era. I have some faith it will continue to bubble to the top. My theory is that the only reason good sci fi seems so rare now is that it has become so swamped by bad sci fi as it has begun to fill the mainstream.
My nerdy peer group say they want e.g. better sci fi & fantasy and worship Joss Whedon. They also solidly torrented Firefly, Dollhouse, etc. Then they got bitter that Whedon can't get TV series made any more.
Even the hardcore Whedon fans didn't like Dollhouse very much. Just a handful of episodes, really.
I haven't watched Agents of SHIELD at all yet, because the early episodes have had an even worse reception on whedonesque.com, though that seems to be improving lately.
I wonder if this works for TV shows.
I know plenty of people who like all/most of Firefly, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, Defying Gravity, Almost Human, etc.
All shows that got cancelled after a season or two because they failed to attract a wide enough audience.
If anyone's interested in how this might play out, be sure to check out the Joss Whedon TV series Dollhouse. It's on Netflix Instant, and is really pretty great Sci-Fi.
Duh. I'm adding it right now.
I'm also in the middle of watching Dollhouse, which is an incredible TV series by Joss Whedon dealing with mind control. I think it does a better job than Gattaca of dealing with ethical quandaries of bio-tech, and most likely the more difficult battle we'll fight as our brains become more akin to software. The arguments in Gattaca seem like a straw man that very few people would actually advocate.
Anything Joss Whedon calls Firefly, I'll call Firefly.
The cast made the show, to be sure, but they did so on top of Whedon's words, and Whedon did the casting. He's proven over and over again that he can put together a compelling, poignant show (or comic book) no matter the premise.
I've scoffed at every single show he's ever put out: - Re: Buffy; Who's gonna watch a remake of that movie? It's gonna suck. - Re: Angel; Spinoff? Really? Vampire in sunny LA? Dumb. - Re: Firefly; A space western? What? Stupid. - Re: Dollhouse; Wow, that's abstract, even for Joss Whedon. How are we supposed to care about characters that have no character?
Every time I've ended up happily eating my words, and while I still consider Firefly to be the best science fiction TV show of all time (personal opinion), I have no qualms about somebody trying to resurrect it, so long as that somebody is Joss Whedon.
People like to claim that TV is only full of crap. This is grade A, Microsoft-FUD-level, Bullshit.
Like anything, sure, most of it is crap. Just like if you went to a bookstore and picked up 10 random fantasy novels. You might conclude that they're all just cookie cutter pablum - most are - but then you miss out on George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana, LeGuin's Earthsea, and other truly excellent works of fiction.
But like anything, it takes some investment to tell the good from the bad. If you just watch Jon & Kate Plus 8, Entertainment Tonight, and According to Jim, yeah, you're better off without the TV altogether. But I claim that there's more good TV being made now than at any time in history, particularly for niche markets.
Here's some of my recommendations: Mythbusters, Penn & Teller's Bullshit, Supernatural, Dollhouse, The Office, 30 Rock, Lost, The Simpsons (not as great as it was, but still fun), The Daily Show/Colbert Report, Mad Men... and more, there's just a ton of really high quality work being done.
If your argument is that instead, you watch things online/through netflix, that makes sense. If I didn't enjoy live sports sometimes, I'd consider doing the same.
Not everyone has to have a hobby of watching television, or movies, or reading for that matter, but the opinion that it's all crap is extremely ill-informed and snobbish, and I strongly encourage it to be dropped as something that makes you sound actively stupid when you say it. It's an anti-pattern.
This may be a bit.. off-topic for HN: But this article sounds like it's describing a very primitive version of the memory manipulation technology featured prominently in the TV show Dollhouse. I always find it fascinating when science fiction begins to intersect with reality.