Dollhouse

Hello lovely blog reader.

It’s another week in the wild, wacky and windswept world of Keith Telly Topping And His Top Telly Tips.

So, I sat down to watch a review tape of Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse, last night fully expecting to be hugely disappointed (as many critics in America have been it would seem). Actually, I wasn’t – much to my surprise. Well, to be fair, this is a new show from the man who made two of what I consider to be the best dozen-or-so television series in the world over the last decade so, perhaps, one should cut the chap a bit of slack. There was certainly a lot to admire in the Dollhouse pilot - some classy dialogue, a lot of very good actors, an impressive design to the thing. The direction was a touch flat, I thought, which is not something you normally associate with Joss. Maybe he had other things on his mind whilst he was making it. But, overall I enjoyed it a lot. In fact, the main problem with Dollhouse is there was a hell of a lot going on in it - too much, possibly. I can’t even begin to give you a "twenty-words-of-less" explanation of what it’s all about, it’s far too complex for that. And the "twenty-words-or-less" thing is usually a pre-requisite for a TV show making any sort of impact in the US. Think about it. Your favourite TV show - describe it to somebody who’s never seen an episode in twenty words or less. If you can’t do it then, chances are, they’ll never watch it because they will have to spend so much time working out what it’s all about that they’ll be unable to surrender themselves to the story itself. Dollhouse seems to be about three different shows in one - Echo’s story, the agent played by the lad out of Battlestar Galactica’s story and the "undercover-plot-of-the-week" story - any one of which, one their own, might have been a better bet than chucking all three of them into the mix in the hope that somehow they’d mesh. It’s also very "high concept" and somewhat morally ambiguous (who, exactly, is one supposed to regard as the ’good guys’ in this scenario of what appears to be a world full of shades of grey?) both of which can be regarded as "brave and challenging" (if you’re a Joss sycophant) or "wilfully anti-populist" (if you’re very definitely not) or just simply "confusing as hell" (and, unfortunately, I’ve a feeling that’s going to include a lot of people who don’t fall into one camp or the other). I like it from the evidence so far, I think it has a lot of potential and I hope it’s a big hit (it’s about time Joss had another one). But I do worry what kind of audience they’re expecting for the show. If they’re going for "everybody who watched Buffy, Angel and Firefly (adjusted for inflation and demographic changes)" then they’re not going to get enough viewers to satisfy Fox or anything even remotely like it. If they (and Fox) have their expectations set lower then they might, just get away with a second season and then we’ll see what longevity - if any - it has. But, I have to be honest, I’m not holding my breath. It’s clearly a clever idea - very clever - but will that cleverness be turned against it by viewers who believe that it’s "too clever for its own good." That’s happened before, several times (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Lone Gunmen, Whedon’s own Firefly and, most recently, Pushing Daisies). Opening night ratings of 4.7 million were hardly earth-shattering albeit they’re nowhere near disastrous. But still, bright side - Eliza Dushku in leather pants and Amy Acker in a lab coat, what’s not to love? I shall await future developments with interest and more than a little hope.

Right, let’s have some of them there Top Telly Tips in the area.