A Dollhouse episode 1 conversation between Buffyfesters

Tara: I liked it.

Bitsy: There's a good show in there somewhere but it's buried in rewrites and network interference. It wants to be a complex genre piece that twists and turns as it slices into the psyche of the viewer's mind, confusing and disturbing us in a way that brings us in touch with the mindset of our forget-me-not protagonist, Echo. Instead the knife is dulled, the threat of something new and terrifying only hinted, never revealed so we have no fear that we will get cut. When did the suits (at Fox no less) decide being edgy was a bad thing? They told us we'd see a world unlike any other and we got, what? A procedural and a very boring one at that.

You know what this reminds me of? The first episode of Angel season five: Conviction. The whole time I was thinking "I know you can do better than this, Joss". The characters are there, the concept is stronger than I thought, the Logan's Run dystopian aesthetic is intriguing. If the show can only get a chance to breath, to live and follow it's own development it can work. Angel season five became something great as it entered it's second act and built and built to one of the best conclusions of any show I've seen, certainly better than Buffy's but it still wound up getting axed. That happened on the WB, a network who was far more likely to give a show a million chances. If that happened there then, I ask you, what chance can Dollhouse possibly have in the hand's of Fox, who is quite possibly more guilty of the 'show me the money' mentality than any other network?

Michelle: I thought it was better than I would have expected, but not so good as to say I was overwhelmed. Something's missing and if I had to guess what it is, I'd say it's Joss' freedom to explore. I could almost feel Fox's influence spread over the entire episode, not to mention those promos of Eliza Dushku and Summer Glau which made me want to hurl right onto my coffee table. Dushku's acting missed the mark in my opinion. I wanted to care when she was recalling childhood memories of "her" abductor, but I couldn't. It seemed forced and hollow. The character I did feel for was her handler, Boyd Langdon who had a great amount of depth and conflict.

The story as a whole was well-written. I love the idea that Echo brought a sense of closure and peace to the "real-life" person who had been through such a traumatic experience and in the end, couldn't handle the world. It's a nice connection to the idea that we can avenge the mistakes of the past and set things right. One aspect of Joss' writing that was missing though was the comic relief.

Tara: um....yeah. I just liked it.

It did feel s little like it was built on a flimsy premise haphazardly and forcefully thought up over gouda pizza at a paparazzi joint in LA. Oh, that's because it was. Besides that, it was as good as any Fringe type show on TV. Buffy or Angel it ain't.

Bitsy: Hilarity. I uh, liked it too. Those Summer/Eliza spots made me want to kill someone though. Every single one of them they were like "Hey, we kick a lot of ass but, because we have vaginas, let's talk outfits and, like, some junk. For sure! Tee hee..."

Vom.

Tara: Actually, I thought it was more like:

Eliza "I need to try so hard to be sexy b/c for some reason I'm insecure in my own skin. Joss thinks I'm great and sexy. Did I mention I was sexy?"

Summer "Oh I'm sorry about that Eliza. Anyway, I'm just natural, cute and generally awesome!"

Bitsy: Ha! Well, either way you look at it the whole affair was a total crime against womanity and both them bitches should be ashamed. I think they felt pretty gross doing it. How did this total prostitution happen? Boo.

Tara: see: "Fox=show me the money".

I care less about that then the lame-ass Bullet effect. I'm sad they didn't use the "bullet-of-fail" just because I need to get that crap over with. Oh well, there's always next week!