of love and crack pot recaps

[seraphcelene]

1.) I love Julian Sands. Always have, probably always will.

2.) Was the last season of Dollhouse as crackpot as the recaps make it sound? Because, dude, if that's the case then I'm kinda glad that I opted out on that one. Seriously, Joss? Are we really surprised that Dollhouse was canceled? Really?

Comments

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Supposedly S2 was decent. Apocalyptic and creepy. But you know, I couldn't get past the basic premise to give a shit.

[seraphcelene]

I caught a couple of episodes but the structure, I think, is inherently flawed. We love Joss shows because of the human connections. Dollhouse by its definition promotes episodics and limits that connection. Then, of course, there's the premise which is disturbing, to say the very least. I just watched the series finale and it seemed pretty much as crackpot and hole-in-plot as I expected. The ending was pretty, though. With the music and everything.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the ending, but I guess if you watched the whole thing, there weren't any holes in it. It was just rushed, bc obviously, he wanted more than two seasons. Or so say the people on my FL who watched it all.

[seraphcelene]

OMG! I love that icon!!

Even if you watched the whole season, I think the holes are still there. They were just more obvious because I had been away so long. I watched all of S1, then eps 1,2, 4, 7, 8 and half of episode 9.

I don't know. I'd like to say it was all the networks fault, but I think that the reality is that the concept was flawed from the beginning.

[darlas-mom.livejournal.com]

What'd Julian Sands do? ::loves him also::

As I understand it, "Dollhouse" never sorted itself out from being cracked out and strange and vaguely icky. And the ending, as described to me by missbreese, was basically a wallbanger.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

What does 'wallbanger' mean?

[darlas-mom.livejournal.com]

It refers to the sound the DVD case will make when you throw it. *g*

[seraphcelene]

LOL! Love it!

[seraphcelene]

I was watching Stephen King's Rose Red this morning. Got a little caught up in the Julian Sands love!

I just watched the series finale and I can't say that I am sad to see the show go.

[redbrickrose.livejournal.com]

The DH finale made sense if you watched the whole thing, but it still didn't work for me. From some of what I've seen I may be in the minority on that, but eh. I just kept thinking it was going to get *better* - and it did for awhile? Aaaaand, then it got worse again.

[seraphcelene]

I didn't watch the whole season. What I did do was read the recaps for all of Season Two as well as Epitaph One from Season one. I watched all of Season One. Even so, I suppose that there were just things that jumped out at me that probably would have been clearer had I watched all of S2, unfortunately, my interest waned right around the time the cancellation was announced. I just never felt quite connected enough to the characters. And the series finale felt exactly as you described. I was going along, very Terminator: Salvation with a side of zombie apocalypse thrown in, then stuff happened on the farm and Topher was crazy and they were going to save the world (I really liked the whole bit around the kitchen table with Adelle being all over protective and Ballard being corny) and Victor showed up and angst (and Mag was awesome, even Zone with the yelling) but then they made it to L.A. and to the Dollhouse and the show lost me kinda again. Of course then there was Alan Tudyk, which was great despite the non-Alpha evilness cause he *is* Alan Tudyk and he proceeded to kick people's asses.

In the end, I suppose the finale really suffered from a lack of time. There just wasn't time to tell the story properly and get it where it needed to be, and the characters to who they needed to be, and make it believable. But the recaps that I read with the whole Boyd, Whiskey, November, Rossum making a President thing was just a little ... crackpot.

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

Apparently it's necessary to have seen "Epitaph One" (the S1 finale that didn't air but is found on the DVD set) in order for "Epitaph Two" (series finale) to make the sense it should. I'm told it hangs together really well if one has seen Epitaph One.

I have mostly read the squee and raves recently about Dollhouse, from people saying their doubts over S1 were alleviated by S2. I can say that S2 wasn't stand-alone episodic, like S1 was.

I am up to date except for the Epitaphs - I want to watch One before Two.

So far I'm overall very impressed but wish Joss had had more time to tell his full story, and more of a free rein from the beginning ... I think it would have been incredible.

[seraphcelene]

I have mostly read the squee and raves recently about Dollhouse, from people saying their doubts over S1 were alleviated by S2. I can say that S2 wasn't stand-alone episodic, like S1 was.

I'd seen the beginning of S2, but, I don't know. For me S1 really failed to create any real attachment to the characters. I cared, but not all that much. I mean, generally, I forgot that the show was even airing. I never forgot about TSCC or Life or my kdramas. But, Dollhouse? I kept forgetting that it was on. Going back, I was mildly interested in watching and I watched two episodes kinda in the middle of the season (the Priya centric and Victor centric episodes), but again ... I had no consistent empathy.

Partially, I think the problem was that Echo didn't engage me. The doll state prevalent in season just wasn't quite enough. There was no consistent big bad outside of the threat of Alpha and the shadowy Rossum Corp. A friend of my pointed out that I wanted to like it because it was a Joss show, but that maybe it just wasn't really a good show. Which I think might be the case. It was theoretically interesting, but I don't know if it really works in execution. I'd like to go back and re-watch all of the episodes, S1 - Epitaph Two and really pay attention and make a determination of that.

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

There was a lot of failiness in how S1 was handled, in my opinion, and it seems to have been the network pressure that caused the fail - at least what I considered "fail." It really took far too long for the show to get "good" and I was continuing to watch solely because I'd heard it *would* improve. I can't blame people for giving up before then.

From what I've read, many people did decide it just wasn't a really good show, based on early S1, and then changed their minds during late S1 and/or S2. I'm looking forward to a mass re-watch of the DVDs when S2 comes out, but I'm pretty sure I'll still be impatient and disappointed with the first half of S1. A lot of time wasted that could have been devoted to quality storytelling ... grrr. Unavoidably the cancellation has left us with questions and unfilled plot holes.

And of course for some people it's just not a story they're interested in - a valid issue to be sure.

Your complaint about Echo not engaging you is a common one - I didn't care about her much either until S2! She changes a lot.

It's worth watching the entire series just to be awed and amazed by the brilliant Enver Gjokaj, even if you don't care about the show in general. Seriously. That guy is incredible.

[my_daroga]

Julian Sands rules.

tkp and I still need to do our Watching Every Julian Sands Movie Ever thing.

I did not was S2 of Dollhouse.

[seraphcelene]

I think we've discussed that project and it is, indeed, a worthy one. Julian Sands is so winning!