Man on the Street a Disappointing Mess - Dollhouse
They said this is the week it gets good...
The commercials promised that this week was the week to watch Dollhouse. Creator Joss Whedon also went on a circuit of interviews promoting the same. But honestly? If you're going to bring out the big guns and make wacky promises about game-changing TV, you better bring out more than the plot twists I could see coming a mile away.
This week, the plot mainly centers around Detective Ballard's obsessive hunt for Caroline - aka Echo - while he deepens his relationship with bumbling sweetheart neighbor, Mellie. Ballard discovers, through a series of deposits made by former suspected Dollhouse clients, that there's a paper trail that leads to someone he's suspected of being a client for a while now. The John in question? A pudgy Internet tycoon by the name of Joel Mynor (Patton Oswalt), who just so happens to be having his yearly "engagement" right after our fearless detective makes the connection.
You see where this is going, right? When Ballard shows up to bust Joel for being a huge perv, his doll just so happens to be Echo, which makes Ballard seize up long enough for Echo to be whisked away by Langton. Then blah blah blah, Joel psychoanalyzes Ballard, the two talk about their feelings, and we find out that Ballard's obsession with Caroline/Echo may be less than pure.
In our B-plot this week, we have the lovely concept that Adele and the other Dollhouse managers would care that active Sierra is being raped by someone - possibly active Victor. Through a little sneaky detective work, Langton uncovers that it's actually Sierra's tremendously creepy handler who's the nasty fellow, and puts his head into how to catch him. Literally.
Meanwhile, Adele decides to "deal" with Detective Ballard by sending out a 'roided up Echo out to kill him. But someone on the inside of the Dollhouse changes Topher's meticulously constructed identity, and during the course of the Echo/Ballard showdown, she reveals some intriguing new clues about how the power structure of the world may be using Dollhouses all over the place to do some very nefarious things indeed. Ballard's gun is used to shoot a cop so he can get away, which leads to his suspension from the FBI pending investigation.
Confronted with the fact that one of her employees is abusing the dolls, but rather than putting the pervert out of his misery, Adele then sends him on a mission worthy of the Particicution scene in The Handmaid's Tale. The handler is sent to attack Mellie for "knowing too much," but Adele intervenes with some magic words spoken over Mellie's answering machine, and reveals a twist I thought too banal for the show before today: Mellie is an active. She handily kills the handler, and is detriggered before Ballard returns to rescue his sobbing new sweetie.
Overall, there was a lot to hold my interest this week. But the bookending interviews with people on the street were rather insulting, designed to "make you think" about the grey-area morality of a place like the Dollhouse. And that device, along with the sloppily constructed connection between Ballard and Mellie (which they've been laying on thick ever since we met Mellie, but that Ballard has never seemed to show interest in until he mauls her in this episode), point to hugely flawed character writing.
Yes, it's easy to say "Oh, FOX is rushing Joss Whedon, he would be doing a better job with the writing if this was on another network!" but is that the truth? The show, for all the promising talent of the creator, is still packed with barely competent acting (Dushku being the worst of the lot), a concept that is very flawed at best, and none of the magic of previous Mutant Enemy productions.
Will I be tuning in next week? My Magic 8-Ball says, "Outlook not so good."
