Give the networks some credit

The closing of multiple Borders Bookstores nationwide has left me with some mixed feelings. On the one hand, I grew up going to Borders at least once a month and walking away with some shining treasure. Not only was Borders where I discovered the wonderful novel Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, but that is where I also picked up my one and only copy of Diehard GameFan magazine. That magazine is unparalleled to this day. It’s probably why I have such warped sensibilities about video games. I later went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which happens to feature the first Borders Bookstore right on its campus.

But on the other hand, sales speak loudly to my multimedia habits. It was difficult to hold back, but I refused to go until the minimum discounted price was 50%. My fiancee and I went and tried to find new treasures. By then the store was already picked apart by people who give in too easily. Scott Pilgrim books and DVDs were not to be found, nor were any of the more exciting graphic novels and manga. The science fiction was left bare once we realized that the only items present were derivative materials and new releases that had been pulled out of overstock. The only section that contained anything at all worthwhile was the DVD section, because their discounted material was still around the cost most stores charge for the items – which makes me wonder if one business failing of Borders was the fact that Borders is the only store anywhere that sells DVDs at MSRP.

Click for a Veridian Dynamics commercial from the show

I came across two of my favorite recently canceled shows: Dollhouse (Season 2) and Better Off Ted (Season 1). I think overall I saved approximately $8 on what they would cost me through Amazon, but I didn’t care. These were shows that belonged in my collection. It’s one of the few times in recent years that I ignored my $15 per DVD/set limit.

Interestingly, I had actually been thinking about canceled shows quite a bit. This was sparked by my reading too many comments on various blogs about enthusiast materials. There is an annoying aspect of fandom that seems to require everyone think the same way and regard all material in a similar fashion. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. New movies that get released require the same opinion, and only certain television shows require support. Then there’s the vilification of anything that gets in the way. The most common form of this is the canceled TV series, whose failure must be blamed on the television network.

Dollhouse, science fiction, and television culture

Science fiction television, and the related subgenres, does not seem to last very long anymore. It’s kind of disappointing. When I was younger, every week had a new Star Trek episode. There were special science fiction miniseries on various channels. Heck, science fiction movies used to air on local networks on the weekends. Science fiction, for better or for worse, was something people wanted to see.

What happened? The various Star Trek series tapered off, and shows living in the outer layers of science fiction started taking off. Lost fits in with most science fiction, although many viewers refuse to admit it. Heroes may be wavering in its quality right now, but the first season’s mash-up of X-Men powers and storylines with prime time drama tropes made for must-see TV among the usually unenthused. Then there’s Fringe, which I think only gets watched because it has an X-Files vibe and is made by the same people who make Lost. And now we have FlashForward, a show that I enjoy quite a bit despite some pre-release crap about its not being science fiction. Explain to me how a show with the premise that there was a worldwide epidemic of people suffering blackouts and seeing their lives six months in the future is not part of the genre.

That’s a handful of shows on TV today, but none really push what science fiction is supposed to be. FOX, a channel reviled for its practices, actually supported the production of two great series that just weren’t meant to last. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles was basically about time travel, sentient robots, the creation of artificial intelligence, and the making of a hero. The show died just before its story could kick into high gear. Then there’s Dollhouse, for which I should not have to remind you about my love. The story deals with a place that can rent out the person of your dreams for the right price, the price paid by the participants, the price paid by the staff, and ultimately the price that will be paid by a world in which the technology to erase and rewrite the mind exists – especially in a world with such a great divide in class and power.

Great science fiction like the aforementioned shows gets overlooked because of not only the complexity of the themes but also the complexity of the story structure. The old series Hill Street Blues popularized the current serialized nature of television, but these shows that aren’t making it seem to take the serialization to another level. It’s not just about paying attention to multiple storylines from episode to episode. It’s about paying attention to the details. These are shows that work great on DVD, where the viewer can flip back and forth between episodes as if they were chapters in a book. That structure doesn’t work out so well for weekly television, especially to the casual viewer.

I’m bringing this up, with an unnecessarily long introduction, because FOX is going to cancel my favorite television series of the past year. Dollhouse’s ratings since the beginning of the season have been poor. They’ve been so poor that FOX is pulling the show during the November sweeps and replacing it with reruns of House and Bones. The show will come back on in December with back-to-back episode airings as FOX tries to rush through the remaining episodes. This is very, very bad news.

It was expected news, however. The only reason the series was renewed was because the Hulu and DVR numbers were promising in the first season. They thought that they could build upon that, and Joss Whedon promised to cut the price-per-episode. I doubt the numbers will be enough this time around to ensure an extension to the current season, let alone a renewal for another season.

And I can’t pretend I don’t know why people aren’t latching onto the show like they should be. Dollhouse is really good, but it’s complicated – Philip K. Dick complicated. The whole series is based on questions of morality and ethics, not to mention what it takes to be a human and what it means to be an individual. And power. Power is a huge theme being investigated this season, especially in the two most recent episodes. Episode 3, “Belle Chose”, explored the falsehoods of men in power suggesting that the victims are the ones in power and basically bring things upon themselves. The participants in this exercise were a serial killer with dangerous mommy issues and an English professor who enjoys the whore in Chaucer’s bathhouse just a little too much. Episode 4, “Belonging”, explored how Sierra ended up in the Dollhouse. As alluded to in season one, there was a very powerful man who wanted her but was rejected, so he did everything he could to turn her into a whore. Meanwhile, we have members of the Dollhouse staff who find him repulsive and wish to save her from him – but what kind of moral ground do staffers in what one could deem far more questionable than prostitution have in this kind of situation? And what is justice?

A few years ago a pop psychology book called Everything Bad is Good for You came to my attention. It was about the development of the complexity of multimedia and the subsequent mental development of the viewers. The more complicated television becomes, the more it pushes the viewers to process and work their brains closer to their limits. Hill Street Blues was cited as the example for complex television, running a couple of serialized storylines alongside the episodic elements. That was in the 80’s. An example of how complex shows have become was The Sopranos, with several serialized storylines running at once during any given episode.

I just wonder where a series like Dollhouse would fall into the author’s discussion of complexity. Due to the abbreviated nature of each season (13 episodes), there isn’t much time to develop subplots. As it stands, the subplots exist but are pretty understated. The real complexity comes in the form of the episodic elements and the questions the viewers face every week. This is not too different from the original intent of Star Trek, but the commentary often found itself obscured under the loud makeup and hammy acting. (That which we love, by the way.) However, Dollhouse treats the viewers like the dolls/actives themselves. Since you consented to watching the show, it’s going to treat you like its whore and ram you headlong into everything it has. The show doesn’t hesitate to tell you that the actives are often prostitutes. It doesn’t hold back in it story about rape and being enslaved in the Dollhouse. It doesn’t even lie to you and tell you that the people who work in the Dollhouse are pure and working for the greater good. These people are possibly wicked. What does it say about you when you want Adelle Dewitt, a rich slave driver with no link to the real world, and Topher Brink, a sociopathic genius, to succeed week after week?

People don’t like questions like these and tend to avoid them. The ratings for Dollhouse are reflective of that. I just wonder if viewing a series that is even remotely philosophical like this could be good for people in the long run, as would be suggested by Everything Bad is Good for You. Or maybe people aren’t watching because they just aren’t ready for that level of complexity. Yet.

Dollhouse renewed!

This was something I only managed to foresee due to stubborn optimism, but Joss Whedon’s latest creation, Dollhouse, has been renewed by Fox for another 13 episodes in the Fall.  Apparently the the executive higher-ups at Fox enjoyed the latter episodes, those Whedon created sans heavily corrupted input from Fox producers,  and thought that the DVR, Hulu, and iTunes numbers were enough to make up for the lackluster numbers on the traditionally ratings dry Friday night schedule.  Obviously, I can’t hide my excitement, as I am definitely looking forward to the return of a show that helped keep my optimism for genre television from waning after the disappointment that was the Battlestar Galactica finale.

Also, the Dollhouse DVD and Blu-ray have been announced for a late July release.  Again, something about which I’m excited, and something that the execs are expecting to sell well enough to keep the show relevant.

Dollhouse ep. 12 – “Omega”

The finale of Dollhouse delivered in a way that I was not quite expecting.  Instead of being the usual wham-bam fare that would have been perfectly appropriate given the brutality of the Alpha character, we were given a more philosophical quandary to mull over as we no doubt re-watch the series.  I bet people are already watching through all of their DVRed or downloaded episodes while others patiently await the DVD set.  As always, I’m here to hook you up with last week’s episode:

Rather than spew forth gratuitous praise because I very clearly liked the episode, I will instead offer criticism for its low budget climax amongst girders and how underwhelming the Omega event was.  Chasing Alpha around a power plant was like something out of a cheap B-film or a middle episode of Prison Break, and certainly not befitting an intense climax.  The fact that Alpha managed to escape also seems a little underwhelming.  And were we supposed to be impressed with Omega?  Alpha is frightening because despite his personal hang-ups with himself, he can still carve you to death in 8 seconds.  Omega’s frightening ability is girl with attitude smack talk.

This is all easier to overlook when you realize that Caroline was right about the clean slate.  When you clean the slate, you see what’s on the slate.  When you peel away the memories and that which supposedly makes up a human being, there’s still the base portions of that person there.  In the episode, Ballard calls it a soul.  Regardless, the true essence of the person is still present and is what truly makes Actives dangerous – with or without an imprint.  Alpha, prior to the Dollhouse, was a psychopath.  His composite event wasn’t an issue.  His obsession with Echo and his weird god complex (which caused him to destroy his own backup file) were greater issues in the grand scheme of things.

Since I don’t like relying on metaphysics in a show classified as science fiction, I don’t like the soul (or ghost in the shell) being the solution.  I like to think that living a long life of certain habits and thinking patterns causing the neural pathways to link in such a way that certain solutions will always be viable even in the state of a person’s memories having been erased.  In other words, if you used to solve your problems by cutting people’s faces, then your brain’s physical storage pattern will make that the most accessible solution.

So the next season, and I will be positive and assume that there will be another, we get to see Paul Ballard letting the Dollhouse win in order to find out its purpose.  This is clever because, in a way, it’s Angel season 5 all over again – he’s working within the belly of the beast to figure out how to topple it.  Additionally, Dr. Saunders now knows that she is the Active named Whiskey.  She sounded really dark about being cast aside once her beauty was tarnished.  I’m wondering if that will be a factor in season 2, and maybe should could be a villain or somewhat of a tweener because of it.

I also wondered why the Dollhouse couldn’t just get plastic surgery for her to fix her face, but with the unexplained connection to Topher it would seem that keeping her in the Dollhouse would keep her safe from any future attacks by Alpha.  (Or so they thought.)  They would of course have to fix her face before releasing her from her contract, or else they could face some interesting legal trouble.  Or something.  I guess the presence of contracts doesn’t exactly mean it’s all legal.

So where do we go from here?  What more can Dollhouse show us?  I am definitely looking forward to a new season of thought provoking episodes.  I would implore Fox to consider the show for a 20 episode run (quash the amount of filler, a little bit), but I know that such a request is ineffective.  The only way to send a message to Fox is via money.  Those who really want to keep the show alive will buy episodes on iTunes, watch episodes on Hulu, and/or purchase the DVD set slated for release in a few months.  Honestly, I was going to get the DVDs anyway, so I’m doing my part.

Dollhouse ep. 11 – “Briar Rose”

The penultimate episode of Dollhouse’s first season hit the airwaves last Friday, and it certainly delivered in its promise of being the episode for which we were all waiting.  The previous week’s preview gave us all we needed to know: Detective Paul Ballard breaks into the dollhouse and has a throw down with Boyd, and Alan Tudyk (Wash to the Firefly fans, but to me he’ll always be Steve the Pirate) arrives on the scene to play a wacky scientist.  In short, it’s pretty awesome.

I have a secret to admit – I knew the identity of Alpha months ago thanks to a photographer’s online gallery.  I lost the link, but I’m sure a savvy internet user could find it.  A professional photographer apparently has made a career of taking pictures of sets, probably for use in reconstructions of said sets later or simply posterity.  In his gallery, not only did he have the dollhouse but also a photo called something like “Villain’s Lair” which featured Alpha’s makeshift imprinting chair next to a menacing-looking Alan Tudyk.  Massive spoiler.

Of course, spoiler implies that the knowledge ruins something.  Fortunately, like many of the Dollhouse episodes, knowing what happens makes secondary viewings of the episodes more interesting.  Knowing that the environmentalist was Alpha made it amusing to see how well he ducked away from people who would recognize him and the fact that he looked quite right in the dollhouse outfit, and quite muscular for a supposed stoner.  Sorry, those were carrots.  Medicinal carrots.

Which goes to show just how well the episode was structured overall.  I loved that it started quite blatantly with Echo working a charity case as an aged imprint of a little girl who grew up with a hard life.  (Question, though: How did Topher receive an imprint of the little girl?  Who is copying little girls – or has she been promised to the Dollhouse already?)  The trigger for the girl is the story Sleeping Beauty, which brings us to the title of the episode and offers narration as the events unfold.

But what subterfuge!  Paul Ballard is not the prince who awakens and frees Briar Echo.  Alpha reveals his identity in the end and takes Echo away, with an imprint that’s all over him.  The narrative device was the perfect touch for the reveal of the prince in this story.  However, I’m disappointed that Alpha would only be revealed for the last two episodes of the series.  Isn’t it usually more interesting for the killer to have been with us all along?  And then it’s the stoner dude Ballard forced along with him.

The preview for next week leaves us with Ballard’s being held captive in the dollhouse and probably being forced to retrieve Echo from Alpha (with the caveat that in order to keep his life he must bring her back to the dollhouse) while Alpha imprints Caroline’s personality into some chick’s body so she can watch him make out with another lady inside of her own body.  So the question is…what does Alpha hope to achieve?  We have no MO, so everything is up in the air right now.

But dammit, you people better watch.  I’m actually more certain of the show’s renewal than I was previously, thanks to the preview.  It was stated to be the season finale.  While anything can change over the course of the summer, that wording alone is very positive.  The ratings for the show are bad, but so are the ratings for Prison Break, which was previously known as a ratings giant on FOX.  My understanding is that the DVR numbers are good, it gets a lot of hits on Hulu (hey, remember to watch the episode again, OK?), and the episodes have been known to sell very well on iTunes.  Keeping the show, putting it on another night, and advertising the hell out of it (not the way they have been doing so…) seems like a massive no-brainer to me.

Plus this is a nice way to keep Whedonites from whining about how their shows are too good for TV.  No, my friends.  Your shows are just bad enough to stay on TV now.

Dollhouse ep. 10 – “Haunted”

Have I convinced you to start watching Dollhouse yet?  No?  That’s disappointing, since it is one of the better shows on television; and now it comes on right after Prison Break on Friday nights.  Now you can watch angry men take down a company that framed one of them for murder a few years ago and then watch a show about mind wiped people being used for whatever purposes their rich clients desire.  Wow, that sounds about as dirty as Fox intends it to sound.  Now, Friday’s episode:

Whoever said that love is real and love is blood has never felt the way that I feel.

To be honest, this isn’t one of the better episodes of the season.  The most important point of it was raised by Boyd fairly early on, in that the imprinting process offers the opportunity to extend life indefinitely.  This is not inclusive of the idea of a soul or anything like that, but the idea of the full memories and personality of a person being put into a new shell is questionable enough.

The two B-plots were what really drove this episode for me.  It may be understandable that some people grew annoyed with Topher just hanging out with a doll made into his best friend, but it’s the final moment that shows the real Topher.  It’s explained that once a year Topher gets to do this, just make a doll to be his buddy and run around having fun.  Then the doll delivers a cake with candles to him.  Topher doesn’t have any real human interaction and has no friends.  On his birthday, the only thing he gets is to spend time with a friend he makes.  Goofy guy Topher is now the most depressing person on the show.

The other B-plot involved Detective Ballard’s trying to deal with the fact that his neighbor/lover is a doll sent to spy on him.  Like most probably would in the improbably situation, he doesn’t respond well and basically stonewalls her.  When she offers to no longer pry and just keep with things, something clicks in his head – leading to a night of rough sex.  The next day, he realizes he found a new client for the dollhouse.  It shows that he has started to understand the need people have for these illusions and false attachments.  Interestingly enough, next week he will break into the dollhouse.  If he’s really come to understand them, one can assume what happens next.

Looks like the ratings for this past episode took a dip, probably due to the show’s absence last week.  I don’t think the networks realize that lapses in what should be a regular viewing cycle can damage a viewership.  Not that this episode would have been worth the numbers, but sometimes you gotta watch the crappier episodes in order to keep a good show alive.

Dollhouse advertised as smut

As if the grindhouse-style ads with The Sarah Connor Chronicles weren’t enough to turn away potential viewers, the little pop-up ads shown during Prison Break present Dollhouse as something other than what the actual viewers see.  Showing Eliza Dushku in a state of undress is supposed to be really sexy, but is that what the show is?  The ads, in my opinion, make the series look potentially very smutty to its potential audience.  The actual audience who would embrace the complex show would probably be turned away by such a juvenile attempt at catering to the simplest of demographics.  And the audience to whom this would appeal wouldn’t last 30 minutes into an episode.

Many of the promos were like this from the start, but I ignored them because they were just establishing a fanbase.  I hadn’t noticed pop-up ads before because, well, I never watched that Terminator show.  It would be news to me if the ads were there.  If Fox wanted to turn the Prison Break demographic onto Dollhouse, they’d be better off appealing to their more sensible nature.  At least in the beginning, Prison Break was an intelligent and complex show that required regular viewing to follow the nuances of Michael’s plan.  It is not far fetched to believe that viewers with that kind of dedication would be intrigued by the kind of plot contained within Dollhouse.

Of course, as history shows, Fox does know best.  Right?

Dollhouse ep. 9 – “A Spy in the House of Love”

The most recent episode of the current most interesting show on television, Dollhouse, did not fail to keep up the pace as established by episode 6 of the series.  The performances are strong, the versatility of the dolls and their imprints is being further established, and the effects of the existence of the dollhouse are being shown for the people who actually make the place work.  I don’t want to talk too much about the episode without making sure we’re all on the same page, so let’s thank the gods of Hulu for the convenience they provide (for the handful of weeks they keep the episodes up, anyway).

The episode is definitely great, but it makes me ask a few additional questions – both about the world established in the series as well as about the show in general:

• The major mole in the dollhouse has been filtered out.  However, the imprint in November said “we”, meaning there are others involved.  Are they only involved remotely, selectively writing into imprints, or are there others in the dollhouse?
• Is the NSA interested in keeping Ballard alive and on the trail of the dollhouse for any particular reason, or is there an additional source at work here?
• What use would the NSA have for the dollhouse, and if the show is to continue, will the purpose change to protecting the dollhouse from an NSA takeover?
• How responsible are the writers when it seems they want us to believe that all Asians look alike?  Dichen Lachman is from Nepal, whereas Liza Lapira is Chinese and Filipino.  If you don’t know what that means, go to about 19:40 in the video and see that they don’t look anything alike.  And I’m sure that Sierra could simple steal an identity and encounter no one who would notice…
• How badass is DeWitt?  She’s a godly chessmaster when it comes to defending her little palace, she’s a monster of a fencer, and she shrugged off a gunshot.  I have half a mind to sign up with TVtropes and write a WMG (Wild Mass Guess) entry about her being a slayer working within Wolfram & Hart to help take down the organization once and for all.
• DeWitt suggests that Echo took on the task to protect herself from a threat, that being Dominic.  However, she didn’t have any reason to believe that Dominic was the mole, so it seems that she was protecting her existence in the dollhouse.  Does she subconsciously accept her chosen fate within the dollhouse’s confines for five years?
• Is this episode supposed to signify a shift in how we’re supposed to perceive the dollhouse?  At least this dollhouse in particular?  It’s really not all that vile and definitely worth protecting?
• Are we supposed to think that Eliza Dushku in S&M gear is hot?  It’s not.  She doesn’t have the body for it.
• While I absolutely love Prison Break, does FOX think that airing that next week in Dollhouse’s timeslot won’t potentially harm Dollhouse?

I can’t wait for the next episode, two weeks from now, and neither should you.  The numbers for the show haven’t been great.  The DVR numbers are great, but there aren’t enough views through its actual broadcast time and Hulu.  Surprisingly, the torrent download numbers aren’t that great either.  I want this show to succeed.  The first five episodes, save for the presence of Matt Keeslar, were pretty much a waste.  Everything since has been gold.  I want to see this show progress.  There’s much to get out of this show, not just for Whedon fans (who really need to choose better idols) and sci-fi fans.  It’s a really interesting show, and I refuse to accept that the only things allowed to live for long on television are reality shows and mindless, endless series.

Your Favorite Shows Might Be in Danger

A couple of my favorite shows are in danger. The ratings aren’t looking so hot, even though I think that the current method of determining a show’s being watched is far outdated. After all, we’re in the age of DVR and (legal) digital streams.

Check out the hit list.

There are only two shows on that list for which I care: Dollhouse and Reaper. The former I’ve discussed a couple of times previously. What I haven’t done is return to it and discuss how much better it’s gotten since episode six. Now that it’s following the path laid down by Whedon, Dollhouse kind of rocks. And I still have no idea where it’s going or how the season may potentially end. It’s been doing a great job of keeping me interested. Plus I’ve decided that Dichen Lachman is indeed very beautiful. You know what? Here’s a freebie link for episode 6: “Man on the Street”

It isn’t difficult to see how the show is failing. It airs on Friday nights at 9 p.m., and the plot is difficult to describe to people. You kind of end up asking questions as you describe it. “Is it human trafficking? We really don’t know. Are people there against their will? Well, maybe.” People prefer plots that are easily described in the form of a laconism. Scrubs? Medical comedy (optionally includes “with non sequitur dream sequences and guy love”). Heroes? Normal people get powers and angst over them. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Preppy teen is chosen to kill vampires.

The laconics are often used to deter someone from viewing a series, too. (See last example.)

The latter show I’ve been meaning to write about for some time but haven’t really found a reason to do so. Reaper is a funny show about a bounty hunter for the Devil who happens to be a college-age slacker with equally slacker friends. It is a buddy comedy featuring the paranormal. The fact that they even had one season is amazing to me. This second season is even better, but no one watches it. I’m actually proud of the show, too. The current cast features three very beautiful women, and they avoid over sexualizing them for the audience. While the audience has seen Kristen, played by Eriko Tamura, in some states of under dress, none have been put in scanty clothing. It might have been in the producers’ best interests to do so, I guess.

The other shows on the list can go. I have yet to watch an episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I guess I’m not going to start anytime soon. I hear good things about it, but I’m not interested in an alternate timeline for The Terminator. Not unless it involves Robocop.

Dollhouse: week three