Epitaph One--What did you think?

POSTED BY: Dewrastler
UPDATED: Thursday, October 22, 2009 05:34
VIEWED: 8344
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PATCHIST

Sunday, August 16, 2009 8:54 AM

More Felicia Day! I love her. I hope season 2 gets has a back and forth to the present and the apocalyptic future of Epitaph One. Maybe some parallellisms here and there.

ASARIAN

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 6:43 AM

Epitaph One, 'tweren't bad, really. Brilliant, at times, even.

In essence, the entire premiss of the show has always been one of 'too much'. And with that I mean that the technology used is really ELT: Extinction Level Tech. Epitaph One is really the only realistic outcome of the Dollhouse. Remember?

Forget morality, imagine it's true, alright? (...) If that techology exists, it'll be used, it'll be abused, it'll be global. And we will be over.

Yep, the ethicist in "Man On the Street" nailed it: with this technology, the world ends, almost immediately (and not just in 2019). It's just a small step from a 'remote wipe' to Topher's 'The Dollhouse only rings once' trick.

Epitaph One had its flaws; the usual suspects, really: sloppy scripting, bad attention to details; like they hardly recognize the chair and its purpose, yet man-ape-gone-wrong can upload memories and personalities (Caroline) at will without even blinking an eye? Or, when setting a boobytrap, attaching the wire to the granate's pin first, then dragging it to a post (very bad idea, believe me!). Or Topher bs-ing about analog cables. Or coming in with a bag full of harddisks, not knowing which is which, but the first one they pick just happens to be Caroline?

The above despite, Epitaph One had its moments, too. Especially the deepening of our understanding of the relationship between Adelle and Topher, and their interactions, were nothing short of astounding. Adelle's maternal, nurturing way with Topher made her more human than ever before. And for the first time I could really feel, and believe it, that Adelle, her usual rationalizing sales-pitches notwithtanding, truly meant well when she took the job. Or that at least part of her did. Topher bordering on insanity -- or rather, pretty much already having collapsed under the weight of his own consciene -- in those scenes rejoined the human race again, too (as opposed to being just a charicature).

Epitaph One was, all-in-all, a good episode. But "one of the better episodes of TV I've seen," not really. Sorry.

--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

MANGOLO

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 7:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Dewrastler:
I would have to say my one complaint is if this episode represents the general idea of where Joss wants Dollhouse to go, then he just his hand to us. So is he going to follow this route, or will it be something new.

This is exactly what I thought. He could really take it anywhere after this. It would be actually be a bit of shame to go backwards after Epitaph one.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=86085840444

SHINY

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 2:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 2by2gingerblue:
I had purchased all of season 1 on itunes. So now I guess after reading this I'm going to have to get the dvd's because I have to know.I'm glad it is worth it.
Thanks

I'm pretty sure epitaph one is available on iTunes as well

---

I don't need a gorram back-spaceship driver!!!

RAHLMACLAREN

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 7:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by asarian:
...they hardly recognize the chair and its purpose, yet man-ape-gone-wrong can upload memories and personalities (Caroline) at will without even blinking an eye?

I think Griff (guy who set up the tripper) said the computer on the chair had a super simple interface (think Win XP for dummies), that explained exactly how it worked.

--------------------------------------------------
Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

THESOMNAMBULIST

Thursday, September 24, 2009 1:22 PM

This should have been the pilot epiode. So much more profound. This is Joss back on form.

Roll on season 2.

ROCKETJOCK

Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:34 AM

Finally got disk four from Netflix. Damn well worth the wait. Whew. I feel like I just had a stiff shot of scotch.

Myself, I'm going to think of this story as a possible future of the Dollhouseverse, not necessarily written in stone. Consider, for example, that the title "Epitath One" implies that there might be more than one . . .

Funny thing; watching last week's episode, with Topher accidentally switching Echo and Victor's imprints around, the first thing I said to my wife was,

Select to view spoiler:

"That's scary; what if they could do that without the biometric info? You could turn anyone in the world into a sleeper agent."

My wife said, "Stop thinking like an SF writer, and just enjoy the show."

Looks like I'm a better plotter than I give myself credit for.

Also watched the unaired pilot; interesting that part of it ended up in "Epitath One"; which means that

Select to view spoiler:

DeWitt's interview with the prospective client

is canon, even if much of the rest of the pilot isn't.

And, for the record, I think the unaired pilot would have made a much better introduction to the series than "Ghost" did. Still, I've come to think of those first few low-key relatively simplistic episodes as a coat of primer paint for the much more complex stories and story arcs that followed.

"Great, puberty all over again." -- Caroline

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