Dollhouse: Haunted - Echo is a dead person. Post comments here.

POSTED BY: Haken
UPDATED: Tuesday, May 5, 2009 22:42
VIEWED: 130445
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HAKEN

Saturday, April 25, 2009 4:24 AM

Adelle imprints Echo with the her dead friend's memories and personality to solve her dead friend's own murder. How cool is that? Bet Sherlock never saw that coming.

'Haunted' is the 10th episode in the series. Two more to go. Three if we're lucky and 'Dollhouse' gets renewed.

Though, might be difficult. Low ratings from a couple of weeks back, plus skipped an airing last week, and then a lead in with ratings challenged 'Prison Break' tonight. Almost like pouring salt over an open wound.

Let's hope tonight doesn't end up being a out of sight and out of mind kind of an evening for 'Dollhouse.'

Post comments here and wish for good ratings.

HAKEN

Saturday, April 25, 2009 11:02 AM

Awfully quiet and the evening is already over, which isn't a good thing. Not that everyone comes running on here anyway after an episode of 'Dollhouse.'

Well, tonight's episode was rather...how shall I put it? Not what they should be showing for the home stretch with only two episodes left? Hmm...yep.

I'm not saying that it's a bad episode. It's just that it pulled back whatever forward momentum the last few episodes created.

The Good:
Life everlasting, now that's an interesting use of the imprinting technology. I'm sure there are ethical and technological reasons why it shouldn't be used for that purpose, but the episode never quite delve into it. Instead it meandered across a whodunit and focused on relationships, love, and a sense for closure when someone passes away. For sentimental reasons, this was okay.

Other major good point with the episode: Eliza is fully clothed for a change. Though, I must admit, I wouldn't mind seeing her in that dominatrix outfit again. Shiny!

The Bad:
The whole Topher subplot along with the message it carried, while interesting and fun, ultimately didn't have the same impact as when it was first told to us in 'Needs.' Why rehash the whole 'we have needs, we have to connect' message? We get it. It's been imprinted onto our my brains. With only 12 episodes in the season and only 2 to go after tonight, there's no need in repeating the same message over and over again. Should have moved on, but instead this all ended up being a filler for a (arrgh) standalone episode.

The Ugly:
Ballard's entire interaction with Millie seems forced and confusing. Most of the time I couldn't tell if Ballard was at a lost for words or if he was disgusted, pissed, etc.. It's like Ballard was channeling an evil version of Horatio Caine from 'CSI Miami.'

Ballard's actions certainly don't clear things up for me either, especially after he learns Millie's true identity. There's a very adult two word term for what he did and it starts with the word 'grudge' and ends with...I'm sure you can figure out the rest. At this point, I can't tell whether he cares about the other dolls besides Echo or not. Regardless, Ballard definitely has issues with Millie--most likely for all the wrong reasons, however confusing they may be.

That's pretty much it. I'm still reeling from the fact that this was a standalone episode. Doesn't make sense to me at all. Hopefully enough people will remember tonight's otherwise forgettable episode and come back for Alan Tudyk as Alpha next week.

CLJOHNSTON108

Saturday, April 25, 2009 11:59 AM

Haven't watched the episode yet, but they posted about it over at io9...
http://io9.com/5226072/dollhouse-clips-prove-this-show-can-do-anything

This episode seems like Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels & Woken Furies), which all revolve around the concept of downloadable personalities: A person's consciousness is stored in a "cortical stack" at the base of the skull, and if they die, they can be "re-sleeved" in a new body.
So, a person can theoretically live forever, as long as their cortical stack doesn't get destroyed.
Of course, the rich can afford regularly-updated remote back-ups of their stacks (and cloned sleeves).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon
In Altered Carbon, Kovacs gets hired by a wealthy client (whose personality is about 300 years old!) to solve his own murder, which the police believe was a suicide.
One of the key problems is that the client's remote stack is updated every 48 hours, so he has no recollection of the events immediately prior to his previous sleeve's death.
From the posted previews it seems Adelle's dead friend has a similar gap in her memories.

DAVESHAYNE

Saturday, April 25, 2009 12:02 PM

Last nights ep was more of a client of the week show than an arc show that's for sure and coming on the heals of all awesome of the last four it is a bit of a let down. Still enjoyable enough.

Life everlasting: The ethical problem here isn't that people could become immortal it's that in order to do so they have to displace somebody else. Certainly they glossed that over a bit, in part I guess, because Joss assumes we're smart enough to figure that out for ourselves.

Topher: I kind of liked the Topher stuff. It reinforces my feeling that he's actually a twelve year old. Brilliant, but just a kid. And how sad is it that for his birthday all he has to look forward to is laser tag with a meat puppet and three candles in a Twinkie?

Ballard's interactions: Ballard is very conflicted here. In order to bring down the Dollhouse and save Mellie/November, Echo, and all the rest he has to continue a sexual relationship that is essentially rape. He has to hurt, greatly, the woman he loves in order to destroy the organization that created her. And when the Dollhouse goes down the woman he loves will be gone too. How messed up is that.

Stand alone: Not every episode has to have Major Arc Implications. I think they made a mistake earlier in the season in not spreading the stand alones out with the arc episodes more but getting a breather from the big events here isn't too distracting.

Next episode: Wash!

David

'Geeks can't admit that anything worthwhile was invented before 1981. Soon, "making cocoa" will be called "milk hacking."' - Lore Sjoberg

http://xkcd.com/386/

"Don't worry. Captain Hammer will save us." - Penny.

I has myspace - http://www.myspace.com/daveshayneforpresident

FLATTOP

Saturday, April 25, 2009 12:29 PM

Life everlasting: I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that another branch of the HomeOffice has a cloning research facility, and is planning to offer immortality to a few select people. In addition, it'd be much cheaper to imprint a fully trained Operative onto a new body than it is to train them from scratch. The bodies would be totally untraceable, no finger print records, no military DNA matches, etc. How to raise the body to a 22 year old hardbody physique without waiting 22 years and requiring it to have enough of a mind to work out, and be fully functional once imprinted...

Topher: Loved it. Yeah, it's covering territory we've already been over, but now it's Topher's turn to have a dream date. We get to learn a bit more about him as a person.

Ballard: Conflicted only scratches the surface. The woman he loves does not exist. Raises all sorts of inner personal demons. Is there anyone out there that would actually love me? Or is my only chance at a relationship with someone that's been programmed to put up with me? Once Millie is gone, Now what?
That Ballard is having a few problems reconciling himself to using the services that he's sworn himself to eliminating is to be expected.

Stand alone: Totally. A few interesting lines, Topher as a person, Ballard admitting he's a client; five minutes of arc, the rest was just fun.

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KIRKULES

Saturday, April 25, 2009 1:39 PM

The hypocrite vigilante cop is driving me crazy. Anyone find it disturbing that he is obsessed with stopping the Dollhouse but has no problem sexually exploiting one of their "victims" at the same time. He has got to be one of the stupidest characters ever conceived. I hope they kill him off in the next episode because it would really help the show in my opinion.

DEWRASTLER

Saturday, April 25, 2009 2:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kirkules:
The hypocrite vigilante cop is driving me crazy. Anyone find it disturbing that he is obsessed with stopping the Dollhouse but has no problem sexually exploiting one of their "victims" at the same time. He has got to be one of the stupidest characters ever conceived. I hope they kill him off in the next episode because it would really help the show in my opinion.

To me he looked miserable in this episode. It was eating him up inside that he had to pretend to love Mellie in order to keep from being found out by the Dollhouse. He only had sex with Mellie once she seemed on the verge of distancing herself, and then he went and took a shower because he felt so disgusted with himself. He doesn't want to do these things, but has to so the Dollhouse doesn't know he knows, and he hates himself because of it.

________________________________
People who don't care about anything will never understand the people who do

EVILDINOSAUR

Saturday, April 25, 2009 4:01 PM

what show were you watching? he has a big problem with it, he's disgusted with himself.

"Haha, mine is an evil laugh."

GILLIANROSE

Saturday, April 25, 2009 5:32 PM

He bought the Dollhouse line "It doesn't have to mean anything." The Dollhouse premise that a person can exploit another human being for their own needs, without thinking about the moral implications. Ballard called Miner a predator a few episodes ago, but my interpretation is, he fell into the temptation to take out his anger against the Dollhouse on one of theirs, I guess since she isn't a "real" person who would remember being treated the way he treated her. And, they were together all night - he's showering in the morning and she remarks about how crazy "last night" was, and makes more than one remark to show she wasn't entirely comfortable with what happened. I can't say I hope he dies, but he didn't make the hero's choice here, did he? He could have been gentle with her, she's innocent in all this. He could have figured out some way not to sexually exploit her. I felt like, the forceful way he was kissing her and pushing her into the wall, he was acting on his anger. And yes, in the morning he sure was disgusted with himself. I wonder what his next move is going to be.

On another note, maybe I missed something, but shouldn't there be a consequence for Ballard finding and disabling the little camera in his air vent? Was that why the Dollhouse sent Mellie back? I would think there would be more of a response, the camera works all the time and Mellie can only see and hear what he chooses to share. Can someone please fill me in if I'm missing something?

Last, I don't know that Ballard loved Mellie, even before he found out she was a doll. She'd been the neighbor he barely noticed. Then, after Miner makes remarks to Ballard about his probable isolation, he invites her over for dinner. They spend a little time together, end up in bed together. They were starting a relationship, liked each other, he may have thought it had a future. But I don't know if he loved her yet or not.

Overall (yeah I know I said Last, last paragraph) I liked the episode. Maybe a stand-alone is thought to be more relatable for people who are just tuning in? /shrug, but I'm looking forward to Alan next week.

WHOZIT

Saturday, April 25, 2009 5:35 PM

Go to http://tvbythenumbers.com if you want to know Fridays ratings, it's getting to depressing and I'm tired of posting bad news, sorry.

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