ZionSiva’s Groove

Joss Whedon is one of the very few real auteur in television. Like Aaron Sorkin and Judd Apatow, his style is immediately recognizable, and his fans are many and passionate. But he’s not as lucky with ratings. Dollhouse, his new TV show, seemed to be doomed even before it aired. Rumors about conflicts between the creative team and the network have been around for quite some time before the first episode hit TVs.  Its concept its not exactly easy to pitch to audiences: the series revolves around a secret corporation that deals in erasing people’s brain to use them as “dolls”, blank people that can be programmed to do practically any task a rich client wants done.

Storytelling works when it starts small and goes big, and until now Whedon made a point of this rule. We need to be pulled into a world we can relate with, and we will be willing to go almost anywhere a good story brings us. This is the case with both Buffy and Angel, two shows with a very catchy premise that eventually ventured territories no one could have had anticipated when the show was first aired. Whedon is good at building things and make them move, evolve, change.  Even in Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog he managed to defy the viewer’s expectations with a plot twist that was both surprising and coherent with the story (albeit a little bit too abrupt, maybe). It worked because we fell in love with the main characters in the first three minutes of the show.

In Dollhouse there is no main character. Or better, there are several, but after eight episodes we don’t know any of them. The dolls are, well, dolls. We catch glimpses of their true selves, but we can’t tell who they really are. The people working in the Dollhouse are mysterious, and it’s hard to tell if we should somehow care for them or just see them as villains. The FBI agent is the only consistent character in the show, but it’s very hard to understand the reason why he’s so obsessed about the Dollhouse. In The X-Files we got to know the reason behind Mulder’s obsession with paranormal and consiracies right at the beginning of the show. We wouldn’t have cared for him as much if we didn’t know about his sister being kidnapped by aliens.

The show has a sleek, glossy look  that works with the doll concept, but the pacing of the episodes, the directing and the editing feels very straightforward, maybe too much so. We are fascinated by shows like Carnivale and The Shield because they marry an unconventional, even unpleasant premise and story with a style that seems to fit perfectly with the concept. Dollhouse seems disconnected.

I really hope that the show will be confirmed for a second season, I think that the premise has the potential to explore some interesting issues. Right now, what seems to be missing is any real emotion, something Whedon is usually excellent at. It’s telling that the dolls are programmed when wires go in their head. Their heart is unaffected, it’s missing, and so it’s the show’s.