Dollhouse

Thoughts about the season finale of "Dollhouse" are below.

Recently, Fox announced that it was airing "Virtuality," an intriguing pilot by Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor of "Battlestar Galactica," on July 4. Clearly that means Fox is done with the project; dumping the 2-hour pilot on a Saturday, let alone on a holiday, means that Fox isn’t even making a token attempt at getting ratings for it and it’s over for "Virtuality."

Dh-ep113_Sc53PT_7301 That’s a real shame, because (in my perfect fantasy universe), I could see "Virtuality" and a second season of "Dollhouse" making for one creepily wonderful night of television. Both projects are obsessed with the idea of memory, identity and reality. What’s real — what a person feels? Whom they love? What they touch — with their minds or with their hands? Does it even matter?

It’s all quite heady stuff — profound ideas executed with healthy dollops of sex and irreverence — and both are quite probably better suited to cable television. Because "Virtuality" and "Dollhouse" ask questions that can’t be answered, not by the end of the hour, not by the end of the season. Not ever, really. But when the questions are so confounding yet alluring, one naturally wants to see them explored further.

Bummer to be us, then. "Virtuality" — Deady McDeadsty. And no more "Dollhouse" for us, I’m guessing.

Yes, I’m all for any and all efforts to keep the show going. But let’s face it, Fox is the most heartless of networks. They don’t need our stinking critical acclaim and fan campaigns. Now, NBC — it, to some degree, needs the media and the public in its corner. It can’t afford to arrogantly spurn those constituencies. And NBC can buy some love — and maybe some time for Leno’s new show to gel — by keeping "Chuck" alive.

Fox has the Death Star in its corner. What, you think the people who have the "American Idol" franchise are going to get all worked up about a fan campaign to save a low-rated show? I don’t want to get my hopes up that they’ll have mercy on us, ’cause the quality of Fox’s mercy usually isn’t so great.

Dh-ep113_Sc53PT_7266 Now, again, I’ll say it loud: I want the "Save ’Dollhouse’" campaign to work. I would love it if the show came back. But Fox is rigorously pragmatic. If the numbers don’t work, "Dollhouse" is done. So, my fingers are crossed that some magical iTunes/DVD/Hulu sprites will sprinkle fairy dust on the "Dollhouse" franchise and convince Fox that the show deserves a second season. (For more of my thoughts on why the show deserves to live and what to do to help "Dollhouse," look here.)

Regarding "Omega," the show’s on-air season finale, one key fact stood out for me on both viewings of this crackling episode: Alpha snapped well before multiple personalities were dumped into his brain.

Before that "anomaly," his desire for Echo, his jealousy over Whiskey’s No. 1 status, his own criminal nature and the frequent brain wipes had destabilized him. He snapped well before the accident in Topher’s mad-scientist lab. This seems to me to be the most blatant statement by Joss Whedon that this place does is deeply immoral. Sure, Alpha was a few sandwiches short of a picnic well before the Dollhouse got hold of him. But the engagements and the mindwipes and the imprints all conspired to give him a one-way ticket to Crazytown — where his true nature as a murderous loon was free to come to the fore.

As for that loony part, I think what the "evil lair" scenes told us is that Alan Tudyk was born to play this kind of mercurial, multi-faceted role. And no disrespect to Eliza Dushku, but she just doesn’t have Tudyk’s range. She’s really terrific at playing butt-kicking, acerbic heroines with a touch of hidden vulnerability.

But a commenter on my site, James, made this observation: "This role calls for someone like Alec Guiness, Ed Norton or Tim Roth. This is not a knock on Dushku - she’s in the same school as people like Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Nathan Fillion - all good actors, but all with the kind of presence that makes it impossible to forget who you’re watching."

I agree. But having said that, would I watch another season of this show starring Dushku? Absolutely. I never thought David Boreanaz was the bee’s knees as an actor, but Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt constructed an amazingly rich show around him, the late, lamented "Angel." Dushku doesn’t have Tudyk’s ability to be funny/scary/intense/innocent with barely a breath between emotional states, but she’s good enough to anchor this show. And the world that surrounds her is now so dense and interesting that all that is required is that she execute her part efficiently, which she mostly does.

Here’s how wrong I was with my predictions about this episode; I thought Alpha would die (but I’m glad he didn’t); I though Paul would become a doll (still a possibility if the show comes back, I’d guess); and I thought Paul would buy out Caroline’s contract. Then again, if he did, there’s no show.

So, though the freeing of November threw me on my first viewing of "Omega," I can understand that decision. Paul doesn’t have unlimited leverage with the Dollhouse and he used what he has to free a woman he "knows," at least a little bit. And there’s no way that Ms. DeWitt is letting her top earner go without a fight.

All in all, the episode confounded my expectations even as it deepened the characters and their relationships: Topher — he may have a conscience! Paul — he’s working for the Dollhouse! Whiskey — she was the Bonnie to Alpha’s Clyde! Dr. Saunders — she is pretty dang angry underneath her calm, scarred visage. And kudos to Harry Lennix for making Boyd’s watchful, mournful presence valuable and necessary even though the character wasn’t given all that much to do.

Fox just picked up "Fringe" for another season; that show has improved a lot, but it still plods in places, while "Dollhouse" has begun to soar. I can frequently predict what’s going to happen on "Fringe"; that’s not the case on "Dollhouse" and one of the main things I enjoy about good storytelling is the way it upends my expectations on a regular basis. This is why I want Whedon to keep making TV: Stories that are emotionally engaging yet surprising aren’t all that easy to find.

Hail of bullets: Here are a few things in "Omega" that were kind of awesome or just worth noting:

* Here are the films that this episode echoed, for me anyway: "Natural Born Killers," "Bonnie and Clyde," "Night of the Hunter" (for some reason, some of Alpha’s sonorous lair speeches reminded me of that movie), "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein," and Jimmy Cagney’s "White Heat" (I really, really wanted Alpha to ascend to some high part of that refinery/factory and shout, "Top of the world, Ma! Top of the world!")

* Dh-ep113_Sc53PT_6751 So somebody really paid for Alpha and Whiskey to be part of some sick fantasy? About what, getting beaten up? Um, alrighty then.

* Alpha: "Well, are you having fun, Lars?" The wild-eyed, "Shining"-esque qualities Tudyk gave Alpha could have tipped over into hamminess, but they didn’t. Dear TV, could Alan Tudyk please be in everything? Thanks.

* Caroline: "When does the hankering for tasty brains kick in?"

* Topher: "He’s like Soylent Green. He’s people!"

* By the way, Topher — keeping your originals and your backups in one place — maybe you want to rethink that. Sheesh.

* Wendy: "The wrongness of this is so large."

* Wendy: "You’re in a lair! An evil lair!"

* After Alpha downloaded many personalities into Echo, then she stood up, there was a pause. My husband said, "She’s Chuck!"

* Paul: "Three names. That’s always ominous."

* Here’s the kind of line that Eliza Dushku really excels at: "She’s me. And we’re both coming to getcha."


* One trivia note: The Fox press site has pictures of Sierra and November at the site of Alpha’s lair — the refinery or whatever it was. They weren’t in the aired episode. Perhaps we’ll see those scenes when the show comes out on DVD.

Your thoughts?