No. It wasn't pre-empted. They were right up front about it being off for two weeks due to baseball.
Canceled!
- Thread starter Starbreaker
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No. It wasn't pre-empted. They were right up front about it being off for two weeks due to baseball.
J
Jetfire
Guest
Melrose Place!
Every show on the list is going to be canceled except for Fringe.
It reminds me of Joan of Arcadia. It came out of its first year and into the second with buzz. Next thing I knew Jennifer Love Hewitt and her breast where in the timeslot.
It's shit.
It's written badly.
It's acting is worse.
That wasn't the question, the question is which one is next.
Then I contend you are not looking deep enough into the show. Even on the surface the shows 'actives' aren't always used for sex. They've been hired as thieves, inside men for the FBI, avatar of a dead woman or protection services to name a few.
The deeper angle is that we all at some point willingly sell ourselves into a type of slavery at some point. Be it your job, your kids, your hobby whatever we can all become so absorbed into something that we are ruled by it. Sex is just the common denominator we can relate to.
While I know its audience has dropped I've seen other links saying its ratings had stabilized. I'll just admit I might shouldn't have said "very" safe. Its going to survive though.
Fringe lost half of its audience because it moved from Tuesday to Thursday. It's as simple as that.
What's your point?
I can certainly understand people who dislike the show and I wasn't crazy about a large part of the first season but condoning slavery? I honestly can't see how anyone who has watched the show for even five minutes could come to that conclusion. From the beginning it's been clear that Echo was going to gradually realize that she was a slave and then break out of that. In the process it's portraying her captors and often sympathetically but that's hardly condoning their actions. I think the fact that
the Dollhouse has ended the world
Well, I stopped watching after the first 5 or 6 episodes of season 1. To me, at that point the name 'dollhouse' said it all - these women had no say whatever over their own lives or memories, and were used like dolls (and even CALLED dolls) by their masters for everything up to and including sexual acts.
If I wasn't so OFFENDED by that concept, I'd have thought the show merely stupid and boring, and it's star highly over-rated eye-candy. But as it was, I thought it was extremely offensive toward women.
What it did later might have been all well and good....but as I said in my initial post, the original CONCEPT was offensive. And I will not support a show which gives any significant positive air-time to the concept of slavery/sex slavery. I watched the first few episodes and didn't see any evidence of the transformation you described coming...and I wasn't going to sit through who knows how long, watching women portrayed week after week as property to be played with like dolls.
I was a big Buffy and Angel fan, and I really loved Firefly. But this Joss Wheaton creation? Has nearly put me off of him permanently.
The point is that it's against three other extremely popular shows when it used to well... not be.
The basic concept of the show is consensual slavery which unfortunately is still a reality in our world. Joss Whedon gives it a sci-fi twist and explores the why people still do such things.
The show is certainly not pro-slavery or anti women.
Exactly these people (it's men and women) are slaves with no control over their own lives and they're forced to do horrible things (granted most of them did volunteer for this). But the show is clearly depicting these actions and not condoning it. Even in the first several episodes you see the hints of Echo recovering her personality, an FBI agent trying to take the Dollhouse down, and the clear implication that the Dollhouse is up to some bad stuff.
I'm not trying to argue that Dollhouse is a good show but I really don't see how it's condoning slavery or prostitution anymore than Mad Men is promoting racism just because it depicts racism.
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Three Rivers. It's on merciless CBS.
The writers needed to come up with some angle that could create mitigating circumstances and retain our sympathy, but without being to waa waa waa weepy (because that's just sickening). So if they were simply kidnapped and brainwashed, nah. That's waa waa waa. And too obvious.
The only way I can see to do this story is for all the dolls to be deranged maniacs incapable of existing in normal society. Being brainwashed is a better alternative to being incarcertated in an insitituion for the criminally insane - the only "cure" possible for them. Then at least we know they're not victims (they're getting the better alternative) and they're not dumb. The sources of alienating contempt having been removed, perhaps the show could be tolerable.
The show wouldn't exist if Whedon didn't think it would titillate the audience. It's sheer exploitation. I find the premise alienating and sickening, but the whiff of hypocrisy surrounding the whole procedings is even more disgusting.
Whedon should do the show with a knowing wink. "I know you get off on this stuff, so do I, it's hilarious that a major network, even one as sleazy as Fox, would let us do this." Pompous morality is the absolutely worst approach to take. Whedon should see himself as that sleazeball master of ceremoies that Joel Grey played in Cabaret, because that's exactly what he is. And put the show on cable because then it would all be too obvious for the network to ignore.
Yeah but they do it in an incredibly stupid way that guarantees their victimhood and negates any possibility that the audience will sympathize with their so-called plight (at least I sure can't). You gotta care about the characters at least somewhat before you can be interested in the story.
The writers needed to come up with some angle that could create mitigating circumstances and retain our sympathy, but without being to waa waa waa weepy (because that's just sickening). So if they were simply kidnapped and brainwashed, nah. That's waa waa waa. And too obvious.
The only way I can see to do this story is for all the dolls to be deranged maniacs incapable of existing in normal society. Being brainwashed is a better alternative to being incarcertated in an insitituion for the criminally insane - the only "cure" possible for them. Then at least we know they're not victims (they're getting the better alternative) and they're not dumb. The sources of alienating contempt having been removed, perhaps the show could be tolerable.
Oh please, what obvious hypocrisy!
The show wouldn't exist if Whedon didn't think it would titillate the audience. It's sheer exploitation. I find the premise alienating and sickening, but the whiff of hypocrisy surrounding the whole procedings is even more disgusting. Whedon should do the show with a knowing wink. "I know you get off on this stuff, so do I, it's hilarious that a major network, even one as sleazy as Fox, would let us do this." Pompous morality is the absolutely worst approach to take. Whedon should see himself as that sleazeball master of ceremoies that Joel Grey played in Cabaret, because that's exactly what he is. And put the show on cable because then it would all be too obvious for the network to ignore.
Because he finds Echo's victimization sexually stimulating. But Whedon pussyfoots around this and tries to present the guy as some kind of Sir Gallahad. Bullshit! Just GO for it! Make his character a revolting skeev, who is priggishly blind to his own skeev-hood! The premise is skeevy, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Hypocrisy is far worse.
Funny you should say that. Here's an excerpt from a very inisightful critique in the current issue of The Atlantic, which I wholeheartedly agree with - Mad Men has a very strong odor of hypocrisy about it. Although it's weird to compare two shows so utterly different in quality, Mad Men and Dollhouse share the fault of pandering to the audience, which annoys those of us in the audience who are capable of seeing through attempts at manipulation.
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Not a bad idea. Joss should send him a free Doll.
"Consensual slavery" is a contradiction in terms. If someone consents to something they are not a slave. Those who consented to be in the Dollhouse, like Mellie, are not slaves. They are merely voluntarily leasing their bodies (separated from their minds) to the company for a set amount of time in exchange for a large amount of money. Nothing (so far) is being done to their bodies that they haven't consented to in principle. (Isn't the right of a woman to determine what she will do with her own body a key tenet of feminism? If a woman owns her own body, then she can sell/rent it too if she so chooses.)
If there is slavery going on, it is with the Dolls' bodies, separate from their original minds. Mellie is not a slave but November might be. What happens if a Doll refuses to have his/her original personality restored? Or how about a long-term imprint like Dr. Saunders? Does Dr. Saunders have inalienable rights to self-determination?
In a much broader way, I would say that we are all slaves to something. Total freedom is impossible and incompatible with the nature of human existence. If nothing else, we are all slaves to the flesh. We must nourish our bodies or we die.
I somewhat agree that the Dolls' situation makes them uninteresting as characters. Echo as the lead only works for the show when they're doing stand-alone mission-of-the-week episodes (which tend to be not very good). What mostly keeps me watching the show is the story of the Dollhouse itself-- Boyd, Topher, DeWitt, Dominic, Dr. Saunders, the Sierra/Victor love story. Also, some of the Actives have interesting backstories.
Interestingly, last week's Sierra backstory episode incorporated elements of both alternatives you postulated. When Topher first brought Sierra to the Dollhouse, she was a paranoid schizophrenic incapable of living in normal society. What Topher didn't know at the time was that she had been drugged & forced into that condition by her doctor, who was obsessed with her and a wealthy supporter of the Rossum Corporation. The combination of those two elements, along with a seriously dark ending, great acting, and great direction by Jonathan Frakes resulted in the best episode the show ever did.
I'd agree that the show started out in a pretty stupid and unengaging way. It didn't start finding it's footing until episode 6. Before totally giving up on the show, its execution, and its concept, I think you really need to see "Man on the Street," "Needs," "A Spy in the House of Love," "Briar Rose," "Omega," & "Epitaph One" in order to properly judge the show. Judging Dollhouse by its 1st 5 episodes is like judging Star Trek: The Next Generation based on its 1st season.
"Consensual slavery" is a oxymoron but it does occur in prostitution, human trafficking and slave factories in India, China etc, where people voluntarily hand over control of themselves to others for next to nothing.
btw I voted for Brothers
btw I voted for Brothers
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