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Dollhouse 2x2 "Instinct" tonight 10/2 Grade-Discuss **Spoilers**

Grade "Instinct" Dollhouse S2ep2

  • EXCELLENT

    Votes: 6 16.7%

  • ABOVE AVERAGE

    Votes: 9 25.0%

  • AVERAGE

    Votes: 11 30.6%

  • BELOW AVERAGE

    Votes: 7 19.4%

  • POOR

    Votes: 3 8.3%
  • Total voters
    36
  • Poll closed .
Captain Craig

Captain Craig

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When Echo is imprinted as a mother with a newborn baby, she takes too strongly to motherhood as a result of Topher’s modifications. Meanwhile, Adelle pays November a visit, and Perrin ramps up his investigation into the Rossum Corporation in the “Instinct” episode of DOLLHOUSE airing Friday, Oct. 2 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
Cast: Eliza Dushku as Echo; Tahmoh Penikett as Paul Ballard; Olivia Williams as Adelle DeWitt; Harry Lennix as Boyd Langton; Fran Kranz as Topher Brink; Enver Gjokaj as Victor; Dichen Lachman as Sierra
Guest Cast: Miracle Laurie as November/Madeline; Alexis Denisof as Senator Daniel Perrin; Kristoffer Polaha as Nate Jordan; Stacey Scowley as Cindy Perrin
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Thought the season opener was largely a good episode. Hoping for another good episode here as we revisit November and move some othe elements along like Ballard as handler. Tell your friends about Dollhouse, let em borrow your S1 DVD cause this show is going to build to something great....if the ratings gods allow it anyway.

Grade -- Discuss -- Commentary
 
Well, I find this show fascinating but I can't imagine that enough people are going to keep watching it to keep it on the air. It's just too twisted.
 
Interesting for a filler episode. Liked the reversal of having Echo as the 'villain' towards the end, with the generic dressing of a thriller/slasher (although they should have eased up on the lightning flashes). Good to meet the woman behind November, though I couldn't help but feel Miracle Laurie was rather wasted compared to past appearances.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
 
Above Average. The first half was slow but picked up nicely in the second half, thanks in large part to the return of November. Echo's latest development is an interesting one too. These episodes still feel like the first six of last year though.

Just got an HDTV so watching that scene with November and Adelle was quite nice.
 
Paul has got to be the most conflicted, tormented Whedon character in quite a while. There was certainly no one of his kind on "Firefly." :lol:

So, as twisted as this show is...I'm liking the politician's wife as an Active from one of the other Houses. Whaddaya wanna bet?

I mean, she has to be. She's exactly who he needs.
 
Good to meet the woman behind November, though I couldn't help but feel Miracle Laurie was rather wasted compared to past appearances.
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It was nice to see her, and it was nice to see what her life after getting out was like, but it felt strange to see her as something of a peer to Adele. That didn't quite add up for me.
 
It's a perspective we haven't seen before, that's for sure. These people are slaves for five years, but when they're restored to themselves they're suddenly independent adults - pretty wealthy adults.

That part of the story was also obviously intended to raise further questions, though. November is pretty detached and functioning in a carefully narrow emotional range.
 
Dennis said:
"Arc story" or "filler episode" makes no difference at all to me. Either the hour is entertaining or it's not.
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True enough, I suppose; it's just that these shows tend to be so short-lived that they end with much of the mythos incomplete, and I'm more curious about the grand schemes underway in the background of the Dollhouse than the incidental uses and misuses of the technology.

Dennis said:
It's a perspective we haven't seen before, that's for sure. These people are slaves for five years, but when they're restored to themselves they're suddenly independent adults - pretty wealthy adults.
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Well, not quite to themselves: November had her grief cut out from her; she remembers losing her child, but doesn't feel it. And if these people are wealthy, one wonders why she didn't just pay the Dollhouse to excise that part of her in the first place instead of going through the ringamarolle of being a doll for five years (from the number of actives walking around in the background, it doesn't seem like there's a dearth of candidates). Although, come to think of it, isn't one of the contract's provisos that dolls are well renumerated at the end of their contracts? So perhaps November wasn't wealthy before, and had only herself to bargain with; whereas now she's been paid for her (abortive) service.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
 
Allyn Gibson said:
Good to meet the woman behind November, though I couldn't help but feel Miracle Laurie was rather wasted compared to past appearances.
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It was nice to see her, and it was nice to see what her life after getting out was like, but it felt strange to see her as something of a peer to Adele. That didn't quite add up for me.
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Actually, it makes perfect sense. Even with her no longer being an active, Adele has to keep her close for both security reasons and to watch for side effects.
 
I'm interested in Topher's comments about not messing with original personalities and what that might mean for November. Is her personality going to degrade unless constantly given "touch up" visits?
 
I went: Above Average

I'm seeing why Eliza made the comment she did about this show more all the time. There was a generic question in some Q&A with some mag about "What attracted you to this project" or something similar. Eliza[paraphrase] said "If the show goes the way Joss and I talked it will allow me act in a different persona nearly every week vs being locked into one character over the same span of time."

This week: Hand that Rocks the Cradle edition.
I agree with another post that Echo as the baddie was a nice twist but fit the style of my description as I watched.

Have Madeline/Millie/November as the character we see post-Doll contract is something I like. We explore Caroline/Echo in flashbacks pre-Doll and as a Doll then use Madeline as one example of post-Doll life. Nice, its part of the things that were on my list of things to see, even if I didn't know it till now.

When is Topher's genius going to catch up to him? His overly programming of the maternal drive led to this Echo malfunction. Topher may be the most accidental dangerous person in the house.

Dennis said:
So, as twisted as this show is...I'm liking the politician's wife as an Active from one of the other Houses. Whaddaya wanna bet?

I mean, she has to be. She's exactly who he needs.
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My friend made that call, just not one from Another house. My friend said we were introduced to Millie in episode 2 last year and I called that. She is countin on Joss being repetative to which I said, NO. Guess we'll see...maybe, ratings gods be as they will.
 
This was a snoozer, plain and simple.

The A-Plot with the I WANT MY BABY was stupid. The B-Plot with Flabby McMelonTits was boring. Any momentum from last week has been squandered.

And Helo just sucks. He sucked on Galactica, and he sucks even more on this show. Supposedly he stuck around on Galactica after initially being written out in the BSG miniseries thanks to fan support. How did THAT happen? He's just a big stupid lump who can't act, it's kind of a shame he can get regular acting gigs. Someone out there with actual acting potential is losing out because of this dead weight.
 
I found this episode to be absolutely uninteresting. Who cares about a fake one shot character worrying about her fake one shot baby? And much as I love Denisof (sp?) he is just coming off horribly stiff and poorly acted in this show so far. So is Mellie still a regular cast member or was this just a guest appearance?
 
^^^
You didn't read the initial post at all it seems. Clearly there in the episode description Miracle Laurie is listed as guest cast.


Not all episodes, in any series with an dominant arc, are focused solely with the A-story all the time. This episode was more about, imo, the B-story of how the House uses and tracks ex-Dolls. It also had a smaller C-story, which does tie to the main arc, about Senator Perrin's aim to bring down Rossum and the Dollhouse.
 
I vote "above average" due to the return of November, the twist of making Echo the "bad guy" (even though it really wasn't her fault), and the nice little scene between Echo and Ballard at the end. Overall, the episode didn't seem all that interesting. The threads with the senator are obviously going somewhere, but at a very slow pace. Echo as a mother and wife isn't necessarily interesting. However, I did like the fact that we got to experience what happens when a doll's programming goes wrong and the memory wipe doesn't work. Echo punching Topher's face was quite lovely and unexpected.
 
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