Like waterboarding, it won't be back next season.

The weird response to Whedon's feminism surprises me. I agree with everything the two of you said.

I loved the way he handled Victor. For a long time Victor was just a piece of eye candy, and that was fine by me. Then he started being sent out on assignments where he had to be tough, smart, assertive. Who WAS this person?

Whedon was riffing on the stereotypical use of women, and what t.v. and movies generally think they're capable of, what they're there for. It was a clever feminist point.

Better, more straightforward trash without the brain erasure "complexity".

I enjoyed the season finale of Dollhouse and thought the twists were awesome. I thought the show was slow getting started, but it improved a lot over the season. That said, I think the show has some fundamental problems. The stories of Echo's assignments were pretty boring. Less warm and fuzzy, and more Dushku ass-kicking there, I say. In contrast, the concept of the Dollhouse itself is clever and thought-provoking. I agree that Dushku doesn't have much range, but the show wouldn't have gotten made without her participation. The supporting characters are way more interesting than Echo. I'd like to know how Langdon rationalizes his participation in such a corrupt enterprise. Topher is a fun character. And, I want to see how Paul fits in his new role. I don't really expect Dollhouse to be renewed, however. Dollhouse is just too complicated for most people.

Uh, in case you guys haven't figured that out by now

Alpha

Bravo

Charlie

Delta

Echo

...

Sierra

Tango

Uniform

Victor

Whiskey

etc.

Whiskey's not the personality name, it's the doll's serial number.

Does that mean there's only 26 dolls?

on Mission Impossible, they would just peel off the old face.

"white slavery" doesn't mean enslavement of white people -- it means sex trafficking.

Until the episode where she played Laura Petrie (she was the wife of a computer geek and she's afraid he's involved with porn). I never imagined she could play that character and she did, and was hysterically funny. I tend to think that Caroline is more a part of all her personalities than Topher imagines, something that I think was made clear when we saw the difference between Echo and Alpha after they both had mutiple imprints.

it's disappointing that Eliza Dushku couldn't have just remained behind the scenes as a producer. She is a one-note actress. I used to think that Sarah Michelle Gellar was pretty lame, but if you go back and watch some Buffy you can see that SMG has subtlety of facial expression, of movement; and that she can deliver a line. Dollhouse? meh. It was great to see Alan Tudyk shine as usual, though.

Dollhouse is soft-porn trash. Cover it with perfume and it's still soft-porn trash ...

Amen to that. I'd rather see Linda Hamilton doing a follow-up now (at 53) than whatching this TSCC fluff.

@mdschill

"white slavery" doesn't mean enslavement of white people -- it means sex trafficking.

A few things.

1) No freakin' duh.

2) Since most of the sex trafficking done these days involves women and children of color, using the term "white slavery" to mean "sex trafficking" is racist and inaccurate.

3) "White slavery" means "sex trafficking" when it involves white women, and it's something white people are supposed to be concerned about, mostly because it involved brown or black men having sex with white women (shudder! gasp!), which should be self-evidently AWFUL and not the natural order of things. It happened because it was the only way a brown or black man would ever get to have sex with a white woman, since every white guy knew that no white woman would EVER willingly consent to sex with someone from the "inferior" races. (See "Thoroughly Modern Millie" for a comedy about the white slave trade, and the lengths pimps and madams will go to in order to stock distant brothels with white chicks.)

4) Chattel slavery involved a great deal of rape and sexual abuse. The fact that white America knew this is one reason it called sex trafficking of white women "WHITE slavery."

5) While the term "white slavery" is inaccurate re: the world in general, it's quite accurate to apply the term to "Dollhouse"--both in terms of chattel slavery and sex trafficking--since the dolls are overwhelmingly white.

6) "Dollhouse" invokes chattel slavery and argues that no one should be a slave today, since "we have a black president," as Caroline-in-Wendy's-body says to Echo-with-38-personalities. Given the racial profile of the show, it's a cheap, exploitative, unearned gesture.

"And for those that think that the show is about viewers getting off on that: I think the problem lies in the eye of the beholder, not so much with the show."

Yes, the feminist take on both pornography and prostitution is that it evidences a disfunction of the consumer, not the producer.

Amen!

What's the problem? Can nobody recognize dystopias anymore, or has everyone gotten so precious and emotionally sensitive these days that they have to hide under the bed from them before they can get the point? Yes, the people at the Dollhouse are kind of likeable people sometimes. But even comics and cartoons rarely use Snidely Whiplash cackling villains anymore.

Seriously, am I just watching a totally different show from everyone else? The reviews I've read addressing the moral issues have just floored me with their total lack of sophistication.

and so I will not make the attempt. But when brain-erased escorts start showing up on the streets of America...don't say you weren't warned.

I threw in the towel after four episodes of DOLLHOUSE. I like Whedon's work in general, but the show was ultimately a non-fun grind. It's the worst of what Fox wants (sex, mindless butt-kicking, and more sex) and Joss' grim philosophy gone extreme (good people and good intentions, it doesn't matter...nobody gets out alive.) And even with Joss' influence the darn thing still plays like a Jerry Bruckheimer-does-Philip-K.-Dick wet dream, and that's a gruesome combination no matter how you slice it. :P It also has the same problem too many post-X-FILES-type shows have, and that I have yet to see truly licked--people you don't care about with ten thousand agendas you can't suss out involved in double-plus-crossings you finally get too frustrated to want to figure out. From what I missed, it sounds like Joss waited too long to play his narrative face cards that would at least give us a reason to care about what's going on here.

As well, Dushku's casting is/was disastrous. Echo is the linchpin of the show. It's not enough that whomever plays her has to be convincing as different people--that person has to also have a spark of individuality to make you care about the person she once was...and still is. Dushku is appealing, but she just doesn't have the acting resources/talent to go that deep. (You would need a Kate Winslet or a Cate Blanchett-level actress to do Echo right.) And with material this grim, if you can't care about Echo, the game is up.