By Lisa Fary
I gave up on Dollhouse early in the second season after faithfully watching for it’s entire flawed first season. I want to be impressed; I don’t like hating on stuff. But, Dollhouse is so. . . meh. However, I picked it back up now that’s it’s almost over and am still not terribly impressed. (“Not impressed” is an understatement – I was holding my head muttering, “Get the camera off Echo and Helo! Put it on someone else!”) It’s enough to make me question my faith in Joss Whedon.
This is a real crisis for me. Whedon is my go-to guy for quality, has been for years. Seeing his name on something was like seeing the USDA Prime stamp on a cut of meat.
Do I have to rethink that position? Is Joss Whedon is a hack or is he simply neutered by television execs?I’m a logical kind of gal, so let’s look at the evidence before making any rash proclamations.
Buffy: Doesn’t need defense. Seven seasons on television, still running in comics. Buffy the Vampire Slayer influenced numerous programs that came after and is the subject of academic studies in gender, family, and media. Obviously, Buffy struck a cultural chord.
Angel: A spin-off featuring a very dreamy vampire with a soul. Popular, but could the show be considered George Lucasing* Buffy? I’m going to say not likely because, although a spin-off, Angel was different from Buffy in many ways, rather than being a soulless copy.
Firefly: No one in my family believed me when I told them that they needed to watch this show. A space western in which the only Earth cultures that survived our planet’s destruction were American and Chinese, so everyone curses in Mandarin? On Fox? Bah! Must be crap on a crap network! Then Serenity came out and they said, “Lisa, you have to see this!” And I was like, “Yeah. I already saw it twice. Watch my Firefly DVD box set and get with the program.” Firefly was totally original. Who knows how it would have gone if it had gotten more than 14 episodes – perhaps it just didn’t have time to get disappointing. But, I’d like to think it wouldn’t have come to that (disclosure: I’m totally biased on this one). Since Firefly died so young, we’ll never have to know.
The Wonder Woman Movie: Depending on who says it, Whedon was either thrown off the movie or his departure was a mutual decision between him and the studio. On Whedonesque, Whedon wrote, “We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs on, that’s never going to work. . . Everybody knows how long I was taking, what a struggle that script was, and though I felt good about what I was coming up with, it was never going to be a simple slam-dunk.” Maybe a Whedon-helmed Wonder Woman was never a good idea and he seems to agree that it’s better off without him. Know your strengths and work with them, right?
Dollhouse: In his defense, Dollhouse isn’t entirely his show. Eliza Dushku is partially responsible for creating it and significantly responsible for its suckage factor. She’s the weakest actor in the cast. Fine in an ensemble; not strong enough to carry a series. Unfortunately, the show revolves around her.
It had a few great episodes, but for the most part it was mediocre. Dollhouse was too timid to start off strong and seemed too concerned with stringing along the mundanes – getting them comfortable with the idea of the concept – before going into compelling territory. A device that can remotely imprint anyone without the active brain infrastructure? That’s interesting. The Rossum corporation operating a Manchurian candidate? That’s high stakes. 10 years from now the technology has resulted in an apocalypse of mass identity? Awesome!
Echo’s engagement of the week? Not so much. Echo may be special, but Dollhouse is a fail.
Dr. Horrible: The world’s first supervillain musical? I can’t imagine this going over very well anywhere except for the internet. No network involvement, no suit interference. Utter genius.
So, looking at the evidence, I think my crisis of faith is an overreaction, disappointment that one show wasn’t as good as the rest of his body of work.
What do you all think?
*George Lucas: Verb. Cannibalizing your body of work for profit. Related: George Lucased, George Lucasing. Example: Rick Berman and Brandon Braga kinda George Lucased Star Trek with Enterprise.
Lisa Fary is a graduate of the creative writing program at Florida State University and holds an advanced degree in Special Education. Her earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She’s angry that it’s almost 2010 and she still doesn’t have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
Haven't you read Sugarshock yet? It is way, way, way too much fun.
Whedon is more than a 'hack' – he's simply terrible at creating things a great number of people like.
He was lucky with 'Buffy' – the show was generally entertaining as a whole, but once he gets started with his soap-opera-y storylines, all bets are off (and the TV, as well, in my case!)
Everything else he's done has been almost unwatchable in my opinion – and that includes 'Firefly'.
Sure, there will always be a small number of sci-fi/fantasy fanboys who will salivate for anything Whedon dreams up, but the proof is in the pudding – nearly all of his works are cancelled because the general public simply doesn't like it.
Take a look at some of the stuff he's written for others – again, the same story applies. One success (Toy Story) and lots of MASSIVE failures (Titan A.E., Atlantis the Lost Empire)
yuk.
Yes, Dollhouse is the weakest entry into Joss’ oeuvre for a various reasons: (1) Eliza wanted to play different characters each week, but as you rightly point out, she simply doesn’t have the talent to pull it off. (2) The concept, while intriguing, reads better on the page than it does in production. (3) The sexual slavery aspect of the show would seem to have a very high ick factor among women, Joss’ core audience. (4) More network interference from Fox. Now, to their credit, they renewed the show & let Joss wrap it up however he wanted, and the last 10 hours moved along much better than the first season and a half. However, as soon as Fox bought the show, they shot Eilza in all the wet, skimpy outfits, selling the sex of the show all the way. They immediately got cold feet, and asked Joss to tone down the sex, and make it “more like Alias”. He did what he could with his weak premise & weaker lead actress, but the writing was on the wall early on. Again, kudos to Fox for reupping the show, but they need to shoulder their share of responsiblity for it’s failure.