Battlestar Galactica finale

So Galactica was the B-Ark?

Dollhouse Isn't All Fun And Games

Last night finally brought the premiere of the eagerly-anticipated new Joss Whedon series, Dollhouse. Thanks to previous creations Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and, to a lesser degree, Firefly, Whedon has developed a small but devoted fan base that will follow him anywhere (something that he shares with J Michael Straczynski and J.J. Abrams, but which is far from the norm in TV circles). I like each of those earlier Whedon-vehicles enough that I'd try practically anything that came out with his name attached, and so I was there, butt in seat, for last night's 9:00 debut on Fox. (I continue to be amused by the rather-clever marketing move of combining Summer Glau from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles with Eliza Dushku in promoting Fox's Durable Dame Doubleheader.)

Many of the reviews that I'd read beforehand were pretty rough on Dollhouse. One of the most common complaints expressed - that the audience can't bond with or invest in a main character who's essentially a cipher in terms of personality (i.e. she doesn't have one of her own) - is something that I think probably will hurt the series, over time, if it's not addressed. Sure, it's going to be fun to see Eliza Dushku take on vastly different characters as Echo every week. In the premiere, she first plays a lovestruck party-girl who's convinced that she's just met "the one" in the person of some spoiled rich brat (ironically named "Matt") who really just wanted a perfect weekend of sex and adventure with a disposable hottie. When the clock runs out on Matt's birthday present to himself, Echo's de-programmed and then later re-built as a super-competent, no-nonsense hostage negotiator who's being rented by an ultra-wealthy Mexican expatriot whose 12-year old daughter has been kidnapped. The two Echo imprints couldn't be less alike (although even an all-business attitude, updo and glasses do little to diminish Dushku's hotness in the latter role) and so the show very quickly establishes its premise. But we're still stuck with the original problem: we want to, but can't, get to know the real Echo. (In story terms, there is no "real Echo," but you know what I mean!)

We do learn that Echo is far from unique in her existence as a new rewritable memory format, though. When not out "on assignment," she resides with the rest of the "agents" in "the Dollhouse," which is some shadowy organization that's run by Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams, who you may remember as Bruce Willis' wife in The Sixth Sense). Ms DeWitt's motivations, as well as her resources and credibility, are suspect as the show begins, but her stated stance, at least, is that she's "helping people." We see other men and women in various stages of "dollification" (I just made that word up!), making it clear that having your original memories and personality ripped out of you and tossed in the garbage isn't actually as easy a process as... well, a really stupid person might believe it to be! Each agent gets "dolled up" in a high-tech chair that's (I'm sorry) way too similar to the one used in NBC's My Own Worst Enemy (which not only beat Dollhouse out of the 2008/09 gate by about 5 months but also managed to get canceled before the Fox show had even debuted!). They also get reset to semi-blankness in the same impressive-looking recliner after completing their assignment, at which point they apparently get to wander around the Dollhouse aimlessly, engaging in coed showering and mindless chatter until climbing into slots in the floor and going night-night.

There's a line early on about how the authorities would surely shut down the Dollhouse and toss its management into jail if its existence was ever found out, which of course means that there's already an FBI hunk Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett, "Helo" of Battlestar Galactica fame) on the case. Whedon's sometimes a little too "by the book" for my tastes, and the pilot of Dollhouse suffers more than a little from that weakness. Besides the various points of conflict being immediately established and beaten over the head with a hammer - not only is the FBI agent in conflict with his own superiors over his pursuit of the mysterious "Dollhouse" urban legend that he's tracking with unprofessional zeal and career-limiting tactlessness, but as that conversation plays out, we're shown shots of Ballard in a boxing ring with another man! and no, I'm not making that up! - there's also one flashback scene with a pre-Echo Dushku voicing the Whedonistic refrain, "every action has consequences." It's the sort of thing that seemed fresh and exciting on TV 10 years ago but which comes across more like a crutch when I see it used by the same guy, over and over again. (One bit of Whedon schtick that was mostly absent from the pilot, and which I didn't miss at all, was the use of humourous dialogue to undercut, and sometimes undermine, tension. I personally hope that it makes no more than cameo appearances as the series progresses, as I find that it takes me out of the scene more often than not.)

There are also some credibility gaps that need to be filled, if the show is really going to last. We need to find out why these people would agree to essentially commit suicide in order to become tools-for-rent (which I imagine we will), how any private organization could ever expect to pull off an operation of this size in total secrecy when they're renting their services out to anyone who'll pay (not exactly a top-secret approach, that!), where the ground-breaking technology itself comes from (and I'm hoping that we're not really expected to believe that it's the work of the one annoying hot-shot genius that we've seen so far) and why anyone wealthy enough to afford the Dollhouse's services wouldn't simply hire actual experts instead of "dolled-up" ones.

Those criticisms aside, I actually quite enjoyed a lot of what Dollhouse offered up in its debut. Amy Acker (Fred Burkle/Illyria in Angel, as well as Kelly Payton in Alias) plays Dr Claire Saunders, a scarred woman with what's certainly going to prove to be an interesting backstory. I'll freely cop to being a big fan of the actress, as I think she's lit up the scene every time I've come across her. Rather than trading on her good looks to play the same character each time, Acker has ranged from Southern small-town science nerd (Fred) to cold-blooded killer (Kelly) to other-worldly god-in-human-form (Illyria), and I've bought it each time. I can hardly wait to see what Dr Saunders has in store for us in future episodes.

I also liked that there's some moral ambiguity in place right from the start. One of the handlers (played by Harry Lennix), for example, is already beginning to question the neutral stance that the organization takes in matters involving innocents in harm's way. That sort of thing may get tiresome quickly, though, if there isn't any evolution. And as I said to my wife at one point, viewed one way the Dollhouse is really nothing more than a high-priced whorehouse. If I'm rich and can therefore rent Eliza Dushku to use as my sex toy before tossing her back, how is that anything other than prostitution? Hopefully the show will deal with that angle before long.

Overall, I'm intrigued enough by what I saw, as well as trusting enough in the Whedon track record, to sign up for more Dollhouse. I think I read that 13 episodes were ordered by Fox, so we'll at least get that much. Whether the show follows in the footsteps of Buffy (7 seasons) and Angel (5 seasons) or goes the way of the late, lamented Firefly (13 episodes) remains to be seen. I think that it needs to step its game some to stick around, but at least it got off to an interesting start.

What exactly is the Cylon plan?

At the risk of further inflaming Denis McGrath, and perhaps further proving his point (see "EDIT" at the bottom of that post), this 94-item list of unanswered Battlestar Galactica questions might be part of the reason that "fanboys" have a problem with shows that purport to have continuing storylines. (Heroes is another one that's run into continuity problems, and has seen similarly negative reaction.) Moore came up with a realistic "re-imagining" of the original series that held a lot of promise, but over four (or is that six?) seasons the show has set up so many threads—ropes, even—that have been left hanging that it's hard to see how that promise can be kept.

I enjoyed the first season of Galactica, but as it's worn on the questions that seemed so intriguing to start with have been replaced with more of a feeling of "what nonsense are they going to come up with this week?" That feeling definitely contributed to my comment a few days ago that "Weird is good, but generally best in moderation." Would The Prisoner be as highly regarded now if it had run for three seasons instead of one, and we found out that Number Six's memory had actually been removed by the aliens that sent him from space so he could objectively evaluate the effectiveness of the mind-control virus they'd distributed in the 14th century that, through an unforeseen side-effect, was the real cause of the Black Death, and that the ever-changing Number Two was an insane Catholic priest who had developed shape-changing abilities after sneaking aboard the aliens' spaceship during the initial landing 600 years ago and was just biding his time until he could take revenge on Six's father (the commander of the mission) for messing up his plot to overthrow the Pope?

Actually, you know, I might watch that....

Ironically, The Wire Set Now Resembles East Baltimore Even More

The remains of Baltimore's alternative Homicide Division after the Wire's close of production. Wish I could have taken McNulty's inbasket or some other keep sake.

More here

Over the holidays, Cathie, my shorty, started watching. She devoured Seasons 1 and 2 like a dockworker and is now peppering 'mo-fo' into everyday conversation.

Re-up for the greatest program in the history of television.

Time warp time

I'd heard rumblings about AMC's remake of The Prisoner, but it didn't really make an impression until now:

The new series may be months away, but starting today fans can now view (in full screen, no less) all 17 full episodes of the originals series online at The Prisoner 1960s Site.

(via Wil Wheaton)

What a way to promote the new series (although mere Canadians are shut out, as usual... sheesh).

At least we'll get to see the new series. AMC was a recent addition to the Rogers cable lineup, and between Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and now The Prisoner, it's become my favourite U.S.-based channel.

As for Canadian-based channels, you can probably guess at my favourite. Check out Being Erica on Mondays at 9; the premiere episode that aired this week shows a lot of promise.

Battlestar Galactica Trailer Is Up...

... and just a click away!

Shake-Up Among The Heroes Writing Staff

Apparently, heads have started to roll in response to the negative reactions (including my own!) toward this year's season of Heroes. Despite having liked some of his early comic work (such as Superman For All Seasons), I've grown increasingly turned off by Jeph Loeb's output of late. Because of that, I can't help but applaud his removal from the TV show that once exhibited so much potential.

Sarah - The One Who Isn't Evil! - Gets A Second Life!

After the last thing that I'd heard about the future of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was so dire, I didn't expect to read this great development (the second season will go the distance!) The show has been excellent this fall so far and it would've been a crime if they'd cut it short. What's not known is what impact this great news will have on Joss Whedon's Dollhouse psychodrama, since I believe that it was supposed to take over the Monday slot from Sarah for the latter half of the season.

Battlestar Galactica Returns Jan 16/09

This article provides the Sci Fi Channel's launch date for the final half-season of Battlestar Galactica (Jan 16/09)... I guess those of us in Canada will have to wait to see just exactly when we'll get it (probably within a few days of that date, I'd suppose).

I'm hoping that somewhere in the remaining 10 episodes we'll find out what the Cylons' big plan has been all along, as lately they've appeared somewhat disorganized (a civil war will do that, though!) and it's almost as if the plan has been forgotten. Then again, that same article references the Caprica spin-off movie as potentially being called "The Plan" so maybe that's where that ground will be covered?

Sarah Connor, On The Other Hand...

Oh, Lordy, this is not good news at all!

So, a recap:

Fringe? Doing well!
Terminator? Not so good!

Fringe Fans Rejoice!

We'll get a full season of the X-Files-ish new series, according to this report.

September: The Loneliest Month

Unless one of the seven other contributors to this blog posts something in the next 48+ hours, I'll be the only one to have put anything here in the month of September. Now, it can't really be that no one else is watching TV or movies at this time of the year... can it?

Some Reasons Why Heroes Still Ain't All That Good

Never mind that the Heroes Event Special last week, kicking off the third season of the show, made it sound like Heroes was the greatest thing since sliced bread (that, despite an almost-universally panned second season)... the two-hour premiere that followed it was enough to put the lie to that opinion, all by itself!

There were some good moments in it, but let's consider just a few of the aspects that made it somewhat sucky:

• Peter from the future should have not only all of the powers that we've seen him accumulate so far (in the present) and any that he'll encounter over the next few years, but also should have had lots of time to perfect the use of them (consider how far he's come already in that regard)... and yet he's still running away (rather than teleporting, freezing time, turning invisible or any of the many other uses that he could make of his abilities)?
  
• Are we to believe that Hiro is mentally, not to mention emotionally retarded? He receives a "message from the grave" from his father and all he can think to do is immediately disobey the old man by opening a safe that he's been told holds a secret that could destroy the world? What is this guy, 6 years old? He's certainly written that way...
• Speaking of whom, wasn't it just wonderful to watch him blame Ando for something that hasn't happened yet?
• And while I can appreciate the visual coolness of having Hiro able to touch the "speed lines" trailing behind the superspeedster, did no one on the writing staff understand that those things are simply visual tricks (the blurred after images of something moving very quickly) rather than physical matter?
• Will we ever find out how the speedy girl could possibly have known that Hiro opened the safe so quickly after it happened? Will they explain how she travels across water so quickly (is it, like the Flash, that she runs across the water like a skipping stone?) Is this a show where answers of that sort are likely to ever be given?
• Did anyone buy Nathan's sudden conversion to "messenger of God" or whatever that nonsense was? Are each of the main characters in this show slightly deranged to start with, or should we just assume bad writing?
• When Claire hid in the closet while Sylar stalked her, all that was missing was the theme from Halloween and a hanger that the teen could unwind and shove into Sylar's face! Horror movie homage, or shameless rip-off?
  
• The time travel "theory" in this show is starting to make my head spin, as it seems as if they subscribe to both the notion that trips to the past can change history (Peter coming back to stop Nathan's outing of himself), and can't change it (various attempts by Hiro across the first 2 seasons)! Pick a horse and ride it, for Pete's sake!

I could go on, but you get the gist...

Fringe Has An Outside Chance To Make Me Want To Believe

I want to like Fringe, and I'm happy to give it a few more chances to win me over. But that pilot episode that was on last night definitely had me laughing at all the wrong moments. It was obviously going to suffer from comparisons to X-Files, and it did. If we remember that earlier Fox show the way it started off - and not get sucked into focusing on how badly it ended - then I'm not sure Fringe does much to improve upon it.

When we're first introduced to who we expect will be the "Mulder & Scully" of the show, they're already doing the nasty between the sheets. That can't be good, as clearly no TV writer in his right mind would have the two leads start off in a happy relationship, unless something bad is going to happen to one of them. And sure enough, it's not long before the square-jawed hero is blown up and lying in a coma, while his flesh disintegrates off of his body. Ouch... that's going to leave a mark!

There are twists a-plenty to be found, including how one character is presented to us in a Hannibal Lector-like role initially, only to later become "suddenly sane" and join the main Scooby gang! He seems like he'd have fit right into Alias when it was on, with his crazy-brilliant knowledge of science and pseudo-science that a decade or two in a loony-bin have somehow done nothing to diminish. And it's that sort of turn-your-brain-off vibe radiating off the show that had me chortling when I was probably supposed to be oohing and ahhing. I think there's an interesting premise at the core of the show, and I hope they can draw it out as they go along. I'm willing to give them another three or four episodes, just out of blind optimism for what the series could be.

On the positive side, at least nobody had a sister who'd been abducted by aliens...

Sarah Connor Kicks Butt In Season Two Premiere

Tonight's second season opener of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was pretty damn fine, indeed! This show waxed and waned for me a bit in its inaugural season, but ended strong with a good mix of action and the "small stuff" like John Connor getting to meet his father (as a little boy). The finale back in May left me feeling that they'd have to up the ante in the second season, and if tonight's episode is any indication: they're going to! While the series can be uneven at times, there are clearly some good writers on staff who know how to tell a compelling story. They seem to get that they're going to have to stop telling us how great a leader John Conner is in the future and start showing us how he gets there, in the present. Tonight's scene with Cameron, and the gun, was a great example of the latter. Instincts like that don't come along every day! And just who exactly do we really think offed the reprehensible Sarkissian? Was it Sarah (who Derek had claimed in Season One didn't have it in her to kill people), or was it maybe John's first kill?

The first season finale had a very exciting climactic scene that was dubbed over with the great Johnny Cash, singing "The Man Comes Around," echoing Agent Ellison's earlier remarks about the Book of Revelations. Tonight, bookending that was an opening montage put to the music of a female performer who I didn't recognize, foreshadowing both the literal house-burning that was about to happen as well as the extended family's figurative house (of unified purpose) that would melt down as a result of Cameron's new situation. It's not exactly Alan Moore- or Grant Morrison-subtle, but it's still pretty high-brow by mainstream TV standards. And it shows a willingness to experiment a bit with their form that goes against the norm for action-based series. I continue to hold out high hopes for this somewhat-brainy gasoline-powered show...

Journeyman Answers Provided

For those of you who, like my wife and I, got hooked on TV's Journeyman last season, only to have it unceremoniously canceled out from under you in a Drive-like fashion, there is this. It may provide some small amount of closure for you (personally, I haven't even read the whole thing yet... but I'm sure my wife will!)

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Fans of Joss Whedon's wonderfully-warped mind - you know who you are, and yes I'm one of you - will almost certainly want to check this out. Right now it's just a trailer, but then over the course of next week 3 video installments of Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog will be available, before disappearing again after July 20. Looks like something worth giving a few minutes of attention to, anyway...

Wanna Know More About Upcoming TV Show, Fringe?

Going here might be a good place to start.

Two and a Half Big Lost Theories

The recent "writing staff crossovers" between CSI and Two and a Half Men/The Big Bang Theory got me wondering: if Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn were to write an episode of Lost, would we find out that the mysterious organization on the island is actually the Dharma and Greg Initiative? Would Abrams, Lieber and Lindelof et al have Sheldon move Charlie's house to the north pole?

Any other mashups you'd like to see?

Want To Read That Comic From Lost?

Some fans of Lost were so intrigued by their glimpse of Mystery Tales # 40 on the show recently that they decided to buy their own copy of it on eBay... and now are posting its interior pages, page by page (slowly). While I don't normally support or even condone scanning and posting entire comic stories online, this is a comic long out of print and not available in reprint form, as far as I know.