Dollhouse

I saw today the first episode of Josh Whedon & Eliza Dushku’s "Dollhouse" while attending the NATPE conference and was really impressed.

My favorite quote so far is from French Maid TV executive producer Tim Street

Quote: DOLLHOUSE is Alias meets The Stepford Wives with a Whedon twist!

I didn’t have the highest expectations going in — the idea of house of programmable human "dolls" who go out and do things for their masters had me worried. But Dollhouse had great depth and richness not only of the adventure plot, but also of the character relationships. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised as Whedon has always been good at this.

The first sequence before the opening title credits (which was missing from the version I saw today) confused me a little, as I wasn’t sure how much of it was flashback or flashforward, but there were many payoffs later to resolve my confusion. This means in general that Dollhouse may not be easily accessible, but for me the many different layers of subtext worked.

I in particular liked these lines from the opening:

Quote: (Echo=Eliza Dushku) "I know. (sigh) Actions have consequences." (her new boss Adelle DeWitt) "...but what if they didn’t?"

The music in Josh Whedon’s work has always impressed me, particularly the evocative mix of oriental and western that was used in Firefly (but unfortunately not in Serenity). But there were a few scenes in Dollhouse that blew me away, in particular one sequence where only different percussion instruments were played.

It is going to be interesting to see how Dollhouse does — there are a number of other great network TV shows that have been on Friday nights, only to be cancelled because they didn’t draw enough advertising from the people who can afford to advertise on network TV. Cable channels like SciFi have been able to take advantage of this and counter-program Friday nights (Battlestar Galactica being a prime example). If Dollhouse does as well in numbers as Battlestar Galactica, it might not be good enough for Fox. The other problem for Dollhouse on network TV is the not quite hidden dominance & submission themes that may scare off many network advertisers, where it might work for those who advertise on cable.

I’ll be interested in hearing what other people have to say about Dollhouse when it premiers on Friday the 13th on Fox.