Dollhouse

I’ll admit it. I used to be a Dollhouse apologist. After all the brilliant or at least unusually clever work Joss Whedon has done over the years, coming to terms with the fact that his newest television series just wasn’t very good was particularly hard for me. Throughout the first, deeply troubled season there were moments of excitement, hilarity and occasionally even inspired creativity that hardcore Whedonites could latch onto, but the problems were unmistakable. The protagonist had no personality – literally – and the somewhat intriguing conspiracy story constantly took a back seat to uninspired standalone episodes that rarely drove the plot or characters forward in any real way. I quit watching the series shortly after the beginning of Season 2, and never looked back until this week, because Dollhouse: Season 2 is out on DVD. Now that I’ve finally watched the whole thing I can officially say, without a doubt, that Dollhouse actually kicked righteous amounts of ass. At least, Season 2 did.

For the uninitiated, Dollhouse tells the story of Echo, a woman who has had her personality erased to create a blank slate on which any thoughts, memories or talents can be imprinted. She and all the other “dolls” at the Rossum Corporation are then rented out at ridiculous prices to sate the needs of their rich clients. Often these are merely sexual encounters, but some of the cleverer episodes found Echo imprinted with all the skills necessary to complete a complex heist, or imprinted with the memories of a dead woman who wanted to solve her own murder, and so on. The first season depended too much on these kinds of gimmicks, which were so inherent to the premise that unless the episode was particularly well-written, as indeed a few of them were, that they were unable to keep the series aloft on their own. Cue the conspiracy.

Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett plays Paul Ballard, an FBI agent who spent the bulk of Season One trying to uncover the conspiracy of the Dollhouse and save Echo from their clutches. There were many interesting twists with his character, who often had no idea when he was talking to a real person or not, but his motivations were muddy. He had no relationship to Echo before she became a doll, so his obsession with finding her seemed flimsy at best. So the plot could only be held up by the grander themes of the science fiction concept: mind control, is there a difference between the mind and the soul, that sort of thing. There was also the promise that the actual Dollhouse was not the intended purpose of the technology, and was in fact the tiniest tip of a horrifying iceberg that could only lead to world domination. But instead of focusing on these tantalizing possibilities, the first season of Dollhouse and indeed the first few episodes of the second seemed content to screw around for a while and leave these subplots, subtexts and foreshadowings to our imaginations. What’s more, and what’s ironic if not outright sad, was that this series was clearly designed as an acting showcase for Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Eliza Dushku, who was constantly overshadowed by the uncannily pitch-perfect performances of her fellow doll co-stars Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj.

But then something happened. Dollhouse was cancelled. But not just taken off the air: It’s cancellation was announced early, allowing Joss Whedon & Company a rare opportunity to a series the way they actually wanted to, albeit much, much faster. The bulk of Dollhouse: Season 2 is a freight train of plotting, character development and clever twists that sometimes feel rushed, but so much is actually happening that it’s impossible to complain. Echo finally develops a personality of her own which is strong but flawed, even broken, and her relationship with Ballard is finally defined in such a way that their concern for each other is justified. The evil machinations of the Rossum Corporation are gradually revealed in compelling ways and escalate into apocalyptic madness before you can say “Jack Robinson” a few thousand times (still pretty fast by TV standards). Season 2 of Dollhouse finally reaches a point where the series can stop coasting on charm, nostalgia or the fantastic performances of its supporting cast, and start coming into its own as a unique television series worth watching. Let’s hope that Joss Whedon and his team of writers learned some valuable lessons here about the difference between a viable episodic television series and what should probably have always been a two season wonder, driven by exciting concepts and momentous plot points.

The DVD set released this Tuesday by Fox is a strong offering. The presentation is a clear step down from the Blu-Ray of Dollhouse: Season One, but for DVD the colors are strong and detail is just fine. (The Blu-Ray version was not made available for review, unfortunately.) Several of the discs have trailers that play automatically, which always feels like a cheat after the first disc in the set, but they come with some fine special features including selected audio commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes and some behind the scenes features. My favorite bonus is easily the comic book that comes in the set by series writers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, which sheds a little light on the ten years that take place between the second to last episode of the series and the very last episode of the series. Specifically, how the fit finally hit the epic shan.

If you, like me, started watching Dollhouse and gave up after a while, the DVD set of Dollhouse: Season 2 is well worth your time, and if you’ve never seen the series you should know that the series starts slow but gets really, really good in the second half, and just might be worth your time if you’re a science fiction fan. And if you have seen the whole series then you’ve probably bought it already (seriously, why are you even reading this?). Dollhouse is one of those rare television series that got dramatically better as it went on, which normally would make its cancellation disappointing, but in this case that supposed tragedy was just the shot in the arm Whedon & Company needed to finally bring their “A” game.

Dollhouse: Season 2 comes highly recommended from Geekscape.