You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “Dollhouse: Stage Fright”.
Article by Sonia Aurora
Aspiring screenwriter and seamstress, Sonia's dream is to write life-tweaking films while product-placing her own line of handbags. In 1999, she wrote, co-directed and co-starred in the short film Dr. Lovestrange, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bug, a satirical homage to Stanley Kubrick set amidst the panic of Y2K. She is working on her next short about the Mayan Calender that she hopes to finish before the end of the world. Ever the late bloomer, she finally started a blog chronicling her misadventures as one half of a long distance relationship (http://llddr.wordpress.com). She still struggles with which picture to kiss before bedtime: her boyfriend's or Bruce Campbell's. And, in the interest of time, she'd like to start thanking the Academy now. 7 Comments
Leave a Reply
Additional comments powered byBackType
great theory on Ballard as active! I didn't think about that, but it's totally a Joss thing to do, have someone from the inside commission an active to take it down….but how would that work? And who was psycho boyfriend woods guy from the last ep and who hired him??? I'm also loving this show more and more….
Biz realizes that Rayna’s been buddying up her psycho stalker and smacks her (yay!) and Echo confronts Rayna that she will give herself in and help this girl, but Rayna ignores that, wallowing in her obligation as diva, and Echo knocks her out with a chair (double yay!).
Yeah, I'm with you on those yays.
Cause man, could not stand Rayna AT ALL.
I think the thing I really liked about Rayna's character was that there wasn't the whole "poor little rich girl" thing going on. For a minute I thought they were going to veer into that territory during Echo and Rayna's conversation in the dressing room, but I felt like that was more of an analogy about Echo's situation. Which was cool.
I really liked that scene at the end too–it kind of shows that Echo really IS a smarter doll than the rest. Nifty.
Oh and yeah, Sierra was cool too. MORE OF HER PLEASE.
Sierra = best thing in the show
yeah, the whole russian guy being an active is pretty awesome; definitely didn't see that coming. i'm looking forward to the development of boyd's and dr. saunder's relationship- they're definitely the most real, morally aware people in the dollhouse (not to mention they're played by amazing actors). i'm still not sure how i feel about eliza's range, but i def. think we have a lot more to see with sierra.
So far, Eliza Dushku has not really convinced me with her acting – Dichen Lachman made a greater impression. Boyd, however, is awesome.
I thought the episode was really weak. It had some good parts, but the main plot was badly bad. Rayna wasn't interesting, nor did I care if she died or not. Even with music interludes it should have been over more quickly. I mean, what exactly was Sierra's job? Getting killed on the off-chance that the killer would take her?
So with a truly annoying main target and a flimsy excuse for the second doll (Whedon said in an interview that the doll-rent was "millions" – which manager would pay that, twice?), what do we also get? That's right, hokey dialogue. Way to draw a parallel between Rayna and Echo and then hammering. it. home. Echo "saving" Rayna was also meh, and… "I don't know why, but even after everything that's happened, I have to help her." (Way to spell it out for the lobotomized among us) "By quite literally dangling the threat of death in front of her…" (again)
Really, without Dichen's fun fan and all the side stuff with Boyd and the awesome fight sequence, this would have been a total loss.
I realize shows like this will always have logical holes you can punch through, but it's the show's job to not make me want to. "It's alright if we get to the good story", basically. Here, I had the impression some things stood in the way of a good story, most of all those things that allowed the A story to proceed (Sierra taking the guy out, Boyd taking him out, to name just two; also, what on earth is Laurence talking about with Echo being "off mission"? I assume an engagement *requires* improvisation, because a killer – to name but one – can't be simply given a script of how to get caught).
I think Dollhouse has potential, if you give it time, but with episodes like this one, I'm afraid it won't get the time.
This episode really pushed up the plot complexity, with Victor and the Echo/Sierra look at the end – I approve.
One minor correction, Echo's accent is supposed to be Boston-y. When she clocks the photographer in the club VIP room, she explains with the line "I'm a Southie."
I agree that the A story (Rayna, Echo & Sierra) was a little trite, but the B story (Ballard & Victor/Lubov) more than made up for it. The bait-and-switch worked on multiple levels, too, because those of us who were spoiled on casting first heard about Enver Gjokai being Victor. The "change of character" to Lubov was put out when they started doing publicity a couple of months ago and I (foolishly) believed it at face value. That Whedon is a magnificent bastard using spoilers against us.
My question now is, does the Borodin syndicate know that Victor is a plant? Did they contract him to put the FBI off their trail, or is Adelle using Victor to keep and eye on both Ballard and the Russians? The plot thickens…