Dollhouse

Dollhouse is over, and I can’t say I’m exactly in anguish over its loss.

After several strong episodes as Season 2 progressed, the show really dropped the ball in its penultimate episode, with a messy, unsatisfying story that failed to sell me on a huge plot twist (Boyd being behind Rossum), while also conveniently overlooking would be monumental events, such as what would happen when Caroline and Echo were integrated. It all served as a reminder of how inconsistent this show has been and some of the key issues it never was able to overcome.

"Epitaph Two" was certainly better than "The Hollow Men." It was easy to look at it as a completely different story – a sequel of sorts, since "The Hollow Men" in many ways wrapped up the show’s storylines, as far as the building threads this season. With that disappointment out of the way, "Epitaph Two" saw a return to the future of the unaired "Epitaph One", which was, in fact, a very cool, intriguing installment of the show. Felicia Day, Zack Ward and Adair Tishler all reprised their roles from "Epitaph One" here, and it was fun seeing them work alongside the regular cast.

However, I have to say, a lot of "Epitaph Two" felt very silly. On the new Channel Surfing Podcast, IGN TV’s Matt Fowler and I discuss "Epitaph Two" and how one has to be careful with portraying the future – especially the near future. "Epitaph Two" is only set ten years from now, and yeah, a semi-apocalypse has happened, thanks to the Dollhouse technology being unleashed, but still, this episode suffered from way too much invented slang and "future speak", that felt forced and awkward. Hearing someone things like "Log off!" sounds silly when it’s in the context of a world that shouldn’t be that out of our reach. And it was just laughable when Victor and his Tech Heads made an entrance and looked like every Road Warrior meets 80s metal video cliche of Future Warriors, including a lot of black leather and Giant F’n Shoulder Pads. Even hearing that Tucson had been renamed "Neuropolis" ten years from now was just cheesy.

The sudden death of Paul Ballard about half way through the episode was really meaningful to me, but not in the intended way. What struck me is that Paul, a character I’ve now followed for 26 episodes, could be killed and I, as a viewer, could feel nothing and what a contrast that is with Joss Whedon’s previous work. Doyle was only on nine episodes of Angel, and yet I was horribly sad to see him die. Firefly only lasted fourteen episodes, but when two characters died in the follow up movie, Serenity, I was really upset to see them go. Dollhouse had longer than that, and yet it failed to create a world or characters that were truly engrossing. Three of the main characters died in the final two episodes, but — some nice performance moments aside — it lacked almost any true impact.

So what did I like in "Epitaph Two"? Little bits and certain scenes. I’ve been hard on Eliza Dushku throughout this series, and I stand by my belief that a show centered around a woman who can be programmed to become anyone has a major problem when the actress at its center is limited in her range. But I have to re-iterate that lacking range doesn’t mean "bad", and Dushku has proven in the past she can deliver, within the context of the roles she’s right for. In "Epitaph Two," I thought Dushku had one of her best scenes of the entire series when Echo let out her rage over Paul’s death. Even if I didn’t care about his death (or ever really believe in their hardly fleshed out would-be romance), that was a great scene for Dushku, who really let loose showing a person who reacts to grief via anger.

Also, Fran Kranz, who has always done better with the more dramatic moments on this show than the comedic ones, managed to add some depth to Topher’s final moments, as he told DeWitt, "I don’t want to cause any more pain," before setting off the bomb that would re-set all actives to their original personas. That being said, the portrayal of "crazy" Topher for most of this episode was a bit grating – and not because of Kranz, but because it felt like Whedon was being repetitive, once again reverting to a style of crazy person we saw him already do with Firefly’s River (and then even mimic, to a small extent, with Bennett’s odd little asides).

I was very happy to see Alan Tudyk show up once last time as Alpha – who, ten years later, was amusingly a good guy and ally of our heroes. I can only assume his off-camera exit was due to a scheduling issue – because it would have been much more interesting to see Alpha himself express his concern over reverting to the horrible person he was before he was a doll than hear it talked about by others.

Echo’s story ended with her putting an imprint of Paul into her own mind, presumably as the last use of Dollhouse technology ever. We see the two reunited inside her mind – and again are reminded that this was not a relationship that ever felt genuine or worth rooting for (I still recall Paul seeming like an obsessed stalker in Season 1, more than anything). It seemed in the past few episodes the writers were really trying to sell us on caring that Echo and Paul could never be together, but it just never worked, so it really felt odd to have Echo’s final scene be about that relationship.

Joss Whedon has made what I consider to be some of the best TV ever. Dollhouse though is not a show I’d count among that group. I am glad he was able to at least give this story an ending, but his recent comments that he has no intention of pursuing the Dollhouse universe in any way, such as comic books, make me feel his heart just wasn’t in this one and that he might just be happy to move on. I have no idea if that’s true or not, of course, but as a huge fan of Whedon, I certainly am absolutely fine with Dollhouse being over. I want to see what Whedon does next, rather than dwell too much on a show that simply felt like a rare misfire from a great talent.