Tuesday 1 February 2011

Dollhouse - potentially the best show ever made

The key word here is "potentially." I don't think Dollhouse is the most amazing show ever, but it's definitely in my top 10. Just think about the premise for a moment - an organisation that turns people in tabula rasas and them uploads personalities into their brains so they can live out other people's fantasies. They can be anyone. Literally!

Now that's high concept!

The massive problem with season one, though, is that our main character - Echo (Eliza Dushku) - is a complete blank slate. We can't relate to this character, because she isn't a character! It's far too episodic, since after every hour, Echo ceases to be whatever person she was, and becomes nothing again. Of course, episode six threw things wide open with a brilliant hour of TV. And the show got so much better.

But it didn't really come into its own until season two. Based on ratings, it should have been axed, but Fox were scared to repeat their mistake with Firefly, so gave it another season. Good old Joss Whedon, knowing full well that season two would be the end of Dollhouse, went all out with twists and turns and made it a lot better. Go out with a bang. Why not?

My personal favourite moments were the Epitaph episodes, flashforwarding to the future, where the Dollhouse has gone apeshit and destroyed the world. So I'm uber-glad the comic books are following that storyline.

Anyway, Dollhouse could have been amazing based purely on that awesome premise and the potential it had. But, while we wait for the comic books, why not check out this shiny fan-made trailer. Really captures what I'm on about. Ain't it cool?

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