Dollhouse, Two Episodes In

I’m watching Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, even though the subject matter doesn’t especially interest me, because I believe that, like nature, Whedon will out.  So far, it’s decent, though unrelentingly grim, which is exactly how Battlestar Galactica started out, so that’s promising.  The difference is that I’m looking for more funny from Dollhouse.  I didn’t expect Battlestar to have a sense of humor, and was pleasantly surprised to see how amusing Baltar could be, whereas so far Dollhouse’s only comic character is the tech guy, who isn’t funny.  It’s like watching Joss Whedon write with the humor lobe of his brain tied behind his back – gross, and it looks painful, too.

Because the whole personality-changing assassin with amnesia thing doesn’t do it for me right now, I’ve spent the past two episodes coming up with questions.  The show is fairly self-explanatory – this recent episode featured the line, “Tabula rasa.  Or, blank slate.”  Thanks, self-translating character! – but I still wonder about the technical details of this Dollhouse program, and hope that all these questions will be cleared up in future episodes, before it’s cancelled:

• What does “Dollhouse” mean?  Blank house?  House full of dolls?  House constructed by dolls?
• It appears that the memories of each mission get downloaded from the operative’s brain into some kind of big VHS tape.  How do you play those back?  Do you find another operative, re-insert the tape, and say, “Tell me what’s on your tape”?
• It’s made clear in the second episode that sometimes, the Dollhouse Corporation or whatever functions as a really expensive escort service, and programs a woman to become the perfect date.  My question is, why does this only happen sometimes?  Wouldn’t that be the only thing they ever do?  Why are they screwing around with assassinations and hostage rescue and so on?  Don’t they know how lucrative and risk-free prostitution is for all parties involved?
• How does Eliza Dushku pronounce her own name without giggling?  She sounds like an American Girl doll … ohhhhh, I see.
• Why, in the picture above, is everyone arranged in a V?  What are they, geese?
• Echo (Dushku’s character, the one who gets imprinted with all these copied memories, is named Echo – I don’t get it) has a handler (I think his name is Handley) who used to be a cop.  Another character, Helo, is an active cop obsessed with uncovering the truth about Dollhouse Industries, Ltd.  What I want to know is, how awkward would it be if these two characters met at the cop reunion and Helo asked Handley, just making small talk, you understand, “So, what do you do?”
• Does Joss Whedon like or dislike Amy Acker?  Because he puts her in his shows, which is nice, and then he does mean things to her character, which is mean.  Make up your mind here.  Eliza Dushku seems to get herself almost killed a whole lot, too, for someone who is ostensibly the heroine.
• So far, the only Whedonesque humorous banter has been between Handley and the techy guy – let’s say his name is Beaker.  But Handley is usually in the field and Beaker stays in touch with him via a lame looking Bluetooth headset.  Is this how it’s going to be from now on?  Handley sets up a joke.  Cut to – an entirely different location, Beaker standing off into space, wittily retorting.  Cut back to Handley’s literally phoned-in reaction.  Who said this was OK?  Because it so isn’t.
• The big question is, when should we start predicting the demise of Dollhouse?  When do we start the online petitions to bring it back?  What wacky item do we send to Fox Networks to keep it on the air?  Dolls?  Houses?  Houses constructed by dolls?
• Bonus question: Who does maintenance on the house they live in?  It’s full of floors that need waxing, showers to disinfect, computers to defrag.  Are they occasionally programming their operatives with the minds of high class janitors and getting a day of free labor from them?  I would absolutely love to see that.  I’m not kidding, I want an episode where they just tidy up the place.  I’ve seen so many amnesiac, robotic assassins lately.  Just once, I’d like to learn how to assassinate those stubborn mildew stains.  They really are quite stubborn.  I want my shower to look like, uh, like a big old tabula, covered in rasa.

Technorati Tags: Dollhouse, Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku, mildew, it's damn hard to top Buffy but keep trying Joss

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