Dollhouse, big step backwards (No spoilers here)

[cactuswatcher]

The main story of last night's episode was the kind I've heard people say they don't like. That may be nothing compared to the insidious problems that I had with last night's episode. One is a particularly big problem. The premise, I found, has one giant hole that I only hope can be fixed. By design, we know nothing about the main character and she literally has no personality. In the series John Doe a few years ago, we knew nothing about the character's past, but his personality made rooting for him early on fairly easy. I found I had trouble rooting for Echo last night. I keep wanting to root for Faith. But this woman is not Faith. Who is she and why should I care?

Incidentally, Age put a long essay on last week's episode up at ATPo. I will probably put up some more comments (with spoilers) about last night's there later today.

Comments

Re: Au Contrare-y, Mon Ami (Part II)

[atpo-onm.livejournal.com]

Last night we almost, but not quite learned something about Echo's handler. All we know is that he was a little put off by the idea of dealing with her too closely. So by all rights we should have been shown how he gets closer to her and how Echo will depend on him from now on.

Not sure that won't become interdependence, rather than being just a one way street. We shall see, but that's what I got out of this episode.

She could have found a gun in the Park Ranger's office and he could have died without reaching her, and there would be no reason for the audience to care.

But that's not this story-- that's an entirely different one.

Why show us a menacing faceless figure, unless you are going for cheap thrills? (...) Didn't Joss learn anything from the boredom people had with the bogeyman Adam?

I liked the Adam character, YMMV. As to "cheap thrills", it is a standard trope, and whether is it being overused here to me depends on the way it develops in future episodes.

Where would (Alpha) find the funds to completely fool the super wealthy Dollhouse with fake documents?

Uhhm, Dick Cheney's Swiss Bank portfolio? Seriously, though, does that matter? It's another convention. Maybe he stole them from the Dollhouse's Senior Partners.

If this is turning into a another comic book series like Heroes, the weeks which I will continue to watch are running out quickly.

I don't think that even a Joss on mescaline could make a show turn as ineptly, profoundly near-pointless as Heroes became. Now FOX, on the other hand...

[/contrariness]

-- OnM