I've never watched Dollhouse. But I've seen many screencaps. It makes me have "Needs".
Dollhouse: "Needs" (1x08)
- Thread starter tharpdevenport
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I felt the show was ready to move beyond a reset. I understand the reset is part of the premise and things are going to develop more before it breaks out, but it is wearing me out.
I have learned to give shows like this a little time. For example, I liked Buffy, but the first season was terrible. B5 was close to that. It had some redeeming qualities in the first season and a few great episodes, but if I had thought the rest would have been of the first season quality I would not have gone on.
Still, I can only handle the reset premise so long. I want the show to do well, but I feel as if I am getting close to losing interest.
I have learned to give shows like this a little time. For example, I liked Buffy, but the first season was terrible. B5 was close to that. It had some redeeming qualities in the first season and a few great episodes, but if I had thought the rest would have been of the first season quality I would not have gone on.
Still, I can only handle the reset premise so long. I want the show to do well, but I feel as if I am getting close to losing interest.
Just give it 5 more episodes.
Average. I saw the reset coming the whole time.
What is really killing me is Echo's real persona being a whacko nutjob PETA chick! It makes me lose most sympathy for her character. I really feel her backstory was a mistake.
Any scenes with the other three main dolls... I struggled to watch through. I just found those scenes boring.
So I hope it gets better, because I enjoy the premise, and have liked some episodes, but this one seems like a small step back.
What is really killing me is Echo's real persona being a whacko nutjob PETA chick! It makes me lose most sympathy for her character. I really feel her backstory was a mistake.
Any scenes with the other three main dolls... I struggled to watch through. I just found those scenes boring.
So I hope it gets better, because I enjoy the premise, and have liked some episodes, but this one seems like a small step back.
Rii
Rear Admiral
Loved Echo's "show, don't tell" line, ever so subtly self-aware. 
I'm not sure if the show is actually getting better or if I'm simply becoming more invested in it.
For what it's worth I don't think we got anything like all of it. I think a lot happened between her flashbacks in that episode and her entry into the Dollhouse.
I'm not sure if the show is actually getting better or if I'm simply becoming more invested in it.
For what it's worth I don't think we got anything like all of it. I think a lot happened between her flashbacks in that episode and her entry into the Dollhouse.
In addition, they are suspension of disbelief of two different kinds. The first is of the sort "suppose this technology exists" and carry on from there. Apart from the non-existence of this technology in current day society, it doesn't contradict things we know and accept about the real world. If then however people start making use of that technology in a way that doesn't stroke with the way we as viewers expect real people to react in such a situation, then many viewers start having problems suspending their disbelief.
To use the Buffy analogy someone used. The existence of vampires in that show would be equivalent of "suppose this technology exists", however the fact that the people of Sunnydale didn't seem to know or care that they exist, even though so many weird things were happening around them, that's a problem of the second kind, comparable to the complaint "why would anyone hire such an expensive doll to be a prostitute, when there are plenty of cheaper prostitutes around?", or "why doesn't any of the rich guys spill the beans about the Dollhouse?" And these kind of things can take you out of the story, unless the characters or story as so strong as to draw you in no matter what. For me, on Buffy the characters and writing made up for it. Dollhouse is not quite there yet imo, but I at least see a tendency in that direction.
Probably we didn't get all the backstory, but I hope they don't turn this into an apologetic for PETA.
At least they acknowledged her lack of thinking in this episode again, by having her go back into the Dollhouse alone.
At this point I care more about Sierra and to a lesser extent Victor and November, than I do about Echo. She was a PETA terrorist in the past, she is a blank slate right now, and for some reason Dushku's performance doesn't help to win me over for her either. I wish I could pin point what it is, since I really liked her as Faith on BtVS and Angel, but here there is something about her acting that throws me off.
I didn't really like her backstory either but I don't think showing her as a PETA nutjob was necessarily supposed to be sympathetic to PETA as it was to show that she went from being a stupid naive college student to someone who volunteered to give her life away to the corporation that she was trying to bring down. Something obviously happened to her to get her to this point and I think we'd probably see that if the show weren't about to be cancelled.
What I meant was: at this point we know Caroline as a PETA nutjob. Not really someone you like to identify with. So if there are gaps in the backstory (and I guess there are), than supposedly whatever happened in these gaps must make her more likeable. And I hope that whatever it is, it is not going to be an apologetic for PETA.
But they're never raped that we've seen, except for that by that one fellow who is dealt with very harshly. While they do engage in sexual relations while on engagements, all that we have seen is both consensual and mutually pleasurable. The fact that the controlling personality is an artificial construct doesn't really change that.
I think that they would have had more leeway if they set the show 20 minutes into the future and made the business legal on the surface, with the the FBI more concerned about some of the covert activities that the dolls perform, like the bloody hostage rescues or the antiquities thefts.
I rated this episode 'above average'. The writing (by Tracy Bellomo) was excellent, particularly the dialogue between DeWitt and Caroline. Olivia Williams is a classy actress and she was great in this scene, and Eliza Dushku was a bit better.
My main problem with the show is that it requires that Echo's character evoke sympathy from the audience, and she doesn't. I don't know whose fault this is (Dushku, the writing, the basic concept) but it is a problem.
My main problem with the show is that it requires that Echo's character evoke sympathy from the audience, and she doesn't. I don't know whose fault this is (Dushku, the writing, the basic concept) but it is a problem.
Given that the Doll's real personality has been drugged away and replaced with something else, every time they have to have sex on an assignment it's date-rape at the very least no matter how much the programmed personality appears to like it. Or you could go with the fact that their default personality is an innocent child and make it into child molestation.
Went with "average". I've been pretty keen on this series so far, usually voting "above average" or "excellent" but I've seen enough of it now that I can grade it vs the rest of Dollhouse, rather than the rest of television, which is what I was grading it on before, and I didn't think this episode quite lived up to the last two. Although it did have its moments.
Or you can say that we were all innocent children once so all sex is child molestation.
In cases of multiple personalities, body swapping, spirit possession, amnesia, and injury-induced personality change, it is the consent of the personality inhabiting the body that matters. Though, joyriding in someone else's body without permission is a shitty thing to do, in cases of swapping and possession. The ethics of romantic involvement in relation to technological memory and personality alteration work on the same principle.
No mind is static, no person is ever the same individual twice. The philosophical questions raised by considering if the person you were a year ago would do the same things that the person you are now is doing are huge and insurmountable, but imposing that question on the law or ethics is just insane. Nothing good can come of it.
What matters is the personality now, at the moment. If the mind controlling the body is sufficiently rational and intelligent to understand and consent to sex, then it cannot be considered rape of any sort. Calling it such because the original personality might not have consented raises a host of unanswerable questions about the nature of individual identity which lead to confusion at best and the determination that all sex must be rape at worst. It just isn't useful.
The original personalities signed on voluntarily. That eliminates any questions about the ethics of using someone else's meatsuit without permission. The meatsuits weren't hijacked, they were donated.
With that taken care of, there are three other important questions, does the current personality possess adult-level reasoning skills at the moment, is the personality fully aware of what is happening, and does the current personality have a sufficient understanding of sex to make an enlightened choice.
In the case of a person who is intoxicated, it is the adult level reasoning skills and awareness that are lacking. In the case of a blank active, the understanding of the act is lacking, even if awareness exists and the reasoning skills remain. But an active in the field has the reasoning skills, and awareness, and understanding; that the current personality is only one in a long line of custodians that have worn the meatsuit doesn't change this.
By the same token, if you get a brain tumor that radically alters your sexual desires or your response to them, your post-tumor sexual choices do not constitute rape.
If, on the other hand, you develop a brain tumor that damages your ability to reason or to understand, then anyone who takes advantage of you would be a rapist.
The difference is not a subtle one. In one case, there is an involuntary change in personality but none in capacity. It the other case, the personality may be the same, but capacity is diminished.
^Good post. I'm not sure that settles the question, but definitely a good post.
It's clear that not all of the dolls signed on voluntarily. Even for the ones that did the situation can still be morally ambiguous. What about the case where a client pays to have a doll that he can literally rape (which seems like a plausible scenario to me, that individual plays out a rape fantasy with none of the consequences). The doll volunteered originally and they're going to forget everything in a little bit so why not? I'm sure that some people (not me) would argue that this allows those individuals to release those pressures in a way that isn't really harmful.
IMHO the Dollhouse is without a doubt, evil. Some of the staff such as Dewitt and Dr. Fred appear to have reasons that they use to justify their actions to themselves but I don't think the Dollhouse is anything but evil. And I think that for all Whedon's love of moral ambiguity the Dollhouse are the bad guys here, they're just the main focus right now because Echo's still a blank slate.
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