Dollhouse Season 1

Dollhouse was an enjoyable, benign little thing for much of its first season, but the final run of episodes made me want to see it return.

Image by catclawtub. Get it? It's a dollhouse.

I gave my first impressions of Dollhouse after I watched the first four episodes, So I won't rehash the concept or my Whedon frenzy.

My thoughts remained much the same throughout the season - good, not great.
But the final two episodes really came together and saw the creators get a solid handle on the concept. It's a shame it took them so long, as even now the show is dangling somewhere between 'maybe returning' and 'definitely cancelled'.

There seems to be a pattern with Whedon's shows post-Buffy. They're announced and his fanbase gets excited. Immediately there are rumblings of executive meddling and always the idea pops up that the network desires a more episodic, self-contained experience. The show starts and is alright until the episodic nature dissolves and an overarching story emerges - then things get great. Why the same song and dance all the time?
Dollhouse proves this again. The Dollhouse concept is awash with grey. There aren't any obvious heroes or villains. It's complex. Too complex for self-contained episodes, but ideal for an ongoing serial. The early episodes failed to engage me as there was no-one to root for. The main characters were literally nobodies, so why care? This show needed room to breath and explore the concept, to clue us in that all this shadiness was the point.

The final two episodes, however, rediscover the story that launched the whole thing - rogue operative Alpha. In the process the ideas of the show (is there any cause for voluntary slavery? Will technology wipe us away?) are clearly enunciated for the first time and the cast is rejigged into a wholly more interesting configuration.

In the final episode there's a fight which neatly sums up this point. An FBI agent has worked all year to save an operative from her slavery within the Dollhouse. The Dollhouse's head of security was once her minder and seeks only to keep her safe. When they face off for possession of the girl, you're struck with the oddity of not knowing quite who to root for.

Sadly, the excellent acting on show in the final two episodes by Alpha demonstrate pretty clearly that the concept has been let down by acting in the past. It doesn't bother me terribly, but it shows in hindsight that part of the difficulty in accepting that these people can become anyone stemmed from their inability to convey such a thing.

The final episodes make good use of the Dollhouse concept beyond programmable people on a 42 minute mission, and I am now interested to see the show go from here.

In all, this first season - perhaps due to its short nature - feels like a long pilot. At the end, I feel as if it's really ready to start.
Here's hoping it gets the chance (he types, hoping cancellation won't be announced before he pushes the 'publish button).