Archive | January, 2010

Did I Fall Asleep? For a Little While…

31 Jan

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, TINK

The irony, I must say, is delicious.

Little did Joss Whedon know that his little catchphrase will become such an apt description for his latest breakaway hit/flaming wreckage of a show. But Dollhouse can be perfectly described using that little snippet of clever dialogue. The show, which aired its final episode last week, had a bumpy, uneven, harrowing ride through the world of broadcast television suffering threats of cancelation, actual cancelation, resurrection and a final cancelation once more.

I first heard of Dollhouse, back when its inception was first announced, as any other Whedonite would. By stalking Whedon with a telephoto lens reading about on a website. We all know the story, two old friends have lunch, catch up, one gets up to take a leak, thinks of a brilliant show starring the other while answering nature’s call. The rest, is history.

This is where Magic happens

The concept, and this is something I still believe, is brilliant. People wiped of their personalities, for whatever reason, are imprinted with fake yet full personalities complete with abilities as custom made to order what-have-yous. The show was set to explore what makes us us, the true meaning of “personality” and “identity” in a way Buffy could only scratch. Does a person who is a different guy (or girl) every week truly have a self? What happens when the different personalities start clashing (as glitches in the system are the bread and butter of sci-fi tech-oriented shows like this one was shaping up to be). What about the morality of imprinting these living dolls? Is it wrong to people? How would this affect the people in charge? The people being imprinted themselves?

This, too, is a TV actor’s dream come true. I am not a TV actor, but I’m sure playing the same part for several years can get tedious and boring – David Tennant left Doctor Who for these reasons, as did countless others before him. This part, however, lets you be someone else every week. You get to shift things around, you get to completely showcase your range. Unless, of course…

Ahem...

… You have the range of a ferret.

Look, I’m not here to bash Eliza Dushku. I’m really not, I like her and Faith was awesome. But the honest truth is, she has no range. She does one thing. She does it well, but she only does one thing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Others have made a career out of doing one thing well. The bottom line is – this part was too big for her. The whole point of the Dolls in the Dollhouse was that you become someone else every week. What we were treating to week in and week out is a “someone else” who’s really an ass-kicking bad girl. Sure it may be an ass-kicking bad girl Lawyer, or School Girl or Scuba Instructor, but the bottom line, it was the same character in a different outfit. We basically got Faith/Tru/That chick from Bring It On again.

What makes this so incredibly frustrating is that each and every other actor on the show was good. Especially the other dolls. Take any one of them and put them in the starring role, and this would have been a show worth tuning into. Each one of these actors has proven themselves on more than one occasion that they are capable of shifting personalities, of doing exactly what it is that the show’s concept dictates. This shows, as the show’s best episode were the ones with minimal to no appearances by Eliza Dushku, and you can clearly see that towards the end it wasn’t really about her anymore.

All in all, Dollhouse was a brilliant concept. We got to see that throughout the show, in snippets in between the more mundane “engagement of the week” episodes. The last several episodes, once the show had already been canceled, showed you exactly what kind of toys Whedon had to play around with, and I, for one, would have loved seeing each of these get its due time and space, rather than the rapid-fire burst we got to see them in. Dollhouse will forever be remembered as just that – a fantastic concept that suffered a horrible execution due to a main actress that simply could not hold the show together. It’s a shame, but live and learn I guess.

So long, Dollhouse. I will say you will be missed, but that’s not really the case, is it. Here’s hoping the remake in 25 years will be better.

How I Learned to Love a Doctor

9 Jan

Doctor Who was never a show that would fare very well under heavy scrutiny. I mean, the show tries to sell us the above tin can with an egg beater and a plunger as the most terrifying thing in the known universe.

But we love it, with all our hearts.

I got into the Doctor Who game pretty late. When I started watching, the fourth season (or “series”, as those zany Brits call it) had just wrapped up, and that year’s Christmas special was right around the corner. Suffice it to say, I had to wait for the Christmas special. I swallowed up those episodes faster than you can *obscure Doctor Who reference* at. The show is just full of so much energy, so much zest, that you take the ridiculousness of some of the episodes and just run with it. It’s show in which you can accept a tin can as a deadly, genocidal being.

Case in point, the episodes which worked best, were always the more low-key ones. The ones not being bombarded with special effects. Episodes like “Midnight” or “Blink” (by far the best episode in the current run), where the Doctor is not facing an army of Cybermen or alien invaders. The grandiose episodes, in particular the finales of each season were always such an over-the-top, hold-your-breath-til-its-over experience, that my initial reaction after watching each is “that was awesome”. Once I calmed down, and started thinking things over, I saw the gaping plot holes, the nonsensical chain of events, the handy coincidences. That doesn’t bother me, though. You’re not supposed to take the Doctor that seriously. The show is fun, it’s always an entertaining 45 minutes, even if the plot doesn’t make much sense. And, most importantly, it’s always energetic. In large part thanks to this guy:

Yes, thanks to Hamlet.

You see, David Tennant is a talented actor. He played one of the toughest Shakespearean roles, in the Royal Shakespeare Company, and had one of the most prominent performances of our time. This is a little known secret in the TV-making community, so don’t go repeating this, but in order to have a good show, you need good actors (I’m looking at you Heroes and FlashForward). Tennant’s sheer energy brought so much to the part, that, while Christopher Eccleston deserves credit where credit’s due, Tennant will go down in history as the man who brought Doctor Who into the mainstream. It’s his ability to convey both the wild-eyed wonderment as well as the sombre, serious, no-nonsense Doctor that made the role perfect.

Alas, Doctor who as we know it is over. David Tennant and Russel T. Davies (showr-unner of the show from it’s return) are off to better pastures. The TARDIS and fate of time of space are left in the hands of Matt Smith and Stephen Moffat (actor and show-runner, respectively). I don’t know enough about Smith to make a prediction, as the only acting of his I’ve seen is the last several seconds of “End of Time” (Tennant’s were better). Moffat, on the other hand, is a different story. I am beyond psyched to hear that he would be the big man calling the shots. Should Smith’s acting be up to par, I daresay we are in for one hell of a ride. Moffat’s Who-writing credits include some of the best episodes the show has seen to date – “The Girl in the Fire Place”, the “Silence in the Library”/”Forest of the Dead” two-parter, and, my personal favorite Doctor Who episode, the afore-mentioned “Blink”. I, for one, am interested to see what a Moffat-penned finale looks like, as I am pretty certain it will be a spectacle to behold. My guess would involve weeping angels, but that’s the topic to a whole different post.

Doctor Who, despite what others may say, is a thrill ride of a show. It proves that you don’t have to be dark and gritty to tell quality stories, and sometimes it is ok to just have fun. I hope the show continues to enjoy a long successful run. All that’s left is to see what lies ahead. So…. Allons-y Geronimo!

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