Is Dollhouse any good?

[Ubik]

So, first things first, I'm not a massive Joss Whedon fan or anything. I saw a small handful of Buffy and Angel episodes many years ago and thought they were self-consciously cute and juvenile, so I never bothered. Then, I watched the movie Serenity, and liked it very much.

So now my wife and I are just finishing off the DVD of the series Firefly - and man, is it good. I mean, Deep Space Nine good. The characters are instantly loveable, the tone is great, the scripts are tight...I mean, it's really, really good science fiction.

So....Dollhouse. I've heard nothing about it. We're looking for a new sf series to rent. Is this one very good, or is it not worth the time?

 

[RoJoHen]

I wouldn't say it's "very" good, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's only 2 seasons long, but the story is completely wrapped up by the end of it, so at least you don't have to worry about it ending on a cliffhanger or anything.

It took about 5 or 6 episodes before the overall story arc came into play, but once it gets going, I think it's great.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Opinions differ, but I say it had its moments.

The first half of Season 1 is mostly crap, then it suddenly turns better. Form there on, it maintains a relatively decent level of quality. The second half of Season 2 will definitely feel rushed though. That's because they knew that they're gonna get cancelled, so they tried to shoehorn the remainder of a five-year arc or into five episodes or something like that. But it least it doesn't end on a cliffhanger that way.

All things considered, I would recommend watching it.

(And speaking of Firefly... two of Firefly's main cast members have recurring roles on Dollhouse.)

 

[DeafPoet]

It's pretty good. Certainly worth watching at any rate. It's short but it had a lot of potential. The end result is that while it gets wrapped up, you sort of need to flesh the universe out in your imagination.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Its biggest drawback was a weak lead actress. There were props and costumes that out acted Dushku on a weekly basis.

 

[Lindley]

It's decent, but it's unfortunately weaker than any of Joss's previous shows.

 

[Sindatur]

I really enjoyed Dollhouse myself. The premise is great. Some are turned off by the extreme misogyny early on, but, there is a reason for going there, to really lay out the Tech and operation exactly.

I didn't get to see the last episode of S1, which they chose not to air on TV, because it was a flash forward and the Network, I believe decided to use it as a roadmap, rather than as a Season 1 Finale.

There's some really big payoffs in the last run of episodes in S2, very satisfying series ending, even if rushed (but, at least you didn't have it meandering and stretching, heh).

I enjoyed most episodes, I especially enjoyed the growth of the arc.

 

[od0_ital]

^

The flashforward episode from the first season wasn't aired by anyone - it was an exclusive bonus for the first season DVD/blu ray set because of how the contract worked between the series, the studio & the network. No one saw it on tv.

As for the series itself, I liked it. The first season had a slow build, but the second season had big payoffs.

And Sierra was hot.

 

[T.Geiger]

"Any" good? Yes, it had some good points. But I would qualify the series as thoroughly mediocre, and I liked Whedon's other shows. (Not a big fan of the man himself, but he has the rare ability to surround himself with much more talented people.)

Some of the problems were caused by studio interference, but many of them just seemed to come from the premise itself. And while I rather like Dushku, she was not the proper person to play lead for this series. Really, just about any of the other "doll" actors would have made for better leads here. Its really a shame, they had some nice talent there.

Dollhouse is no Firefly and I cannot recommend it for anything other than "borrowing a friend's copy" type viewing.

What I have seen thus far of Fringe is pretty good though, if you want other suggestions.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Yeah, there were flashes of interesting material, but most of it was MEH.

My biggest problem with the show was Dushku - simply not good enough of an actress to carry a show. Interesting side characters, but that wasn't enough in the end.

 

[C_Miller]

Yeah, there were flashes of interesting material, but most of it was MEH.

My biggest problem with the show was Dushku - simply not good enough of an actress to carry a show. Interesting side characters, but that wasn't enough in the end.

I don't think she's been given the right show. Some actors have trouble getting into a new role for the first season or so. Some of my favorite characters in Star Trek took a season or two to come into their own. Bashir, Sisko, and Picard. I feel like she's never been given the chance to really grow into her character. Faith was the closest and I would have loved to have seen a Faith series. Get her a nice group of supporting characters and that could have been a great show.

 

[label]

Caveat: I'm a huge Whedon fan.

Dollhouse started out pretty mediocre for me personally. It wasn't until halfway through season 1 that I saw anything that I thought held a lot of promise. It wasn't until the very last episode of Season 1 that flashes forward that I was really interested in the series.

Season 2 started out a bit shaky but better than much of Season 1. However, once it kicked into gear, season 2 was a joy to watch and I really enjoyed the way the series unfolded. Granted, it would have been a better show had it been given 5 years to unfold naturally instead of in the compressed way we got, but still, it was definitely worth watch.

It's not as good as any of Joss's other series, but it's still worth watching in the end .

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

i've been wanting to watch this for a while.

is there much relating to robots or science fiction? i was a huge buffy/angel fan. never got into serenity.

 

[od0_ital]

^

Lots to do with science fiction, nothin' to do with robots.

 

[Takeru]

The flashforward episode from the first season wasn't aired by anyone - it was an exclusive bonus for the first season DVD/blu ray set because of how the contract worked between the series, the studio & the network. No one saw it on tv.

Wrong, it is the regular season finale outside of nort america and aired there.
To make a long story short: Fox ordered 13 episodes including the original pilot, which was never aired but still counted as an episode. The studio already signed contracts for international distribution and had to deliver 13 episodes, but only had 12, because the original pilot was impossible to air as part of the series. So they produced a 14th episode, that was never intended to air on Fox, but was always part of season 1 internationally.

BTW, Fox really did the show a favour by cancelling it. It started out pretty bad, got decent in the second half of season one and only became good when it was obvious that there wouldn't be a third season and the writer's were forced to drop the crap and just told the story.
It also hurt the show that Dushku was the lead, she's not a very good actress and it was even more noticable in Dollhouse because most of the regular and supporting cast was so strong.

 

[bigdaddy]

Its biggest drawback was a weak lead actress.

She was horrible, but so was the show.

I say pass on it, it's just not very good!

 

[Skywalker]

The first four or five episodes were pretty weak, then the rest of Season One was pretty good, then most of Season Two was awesome. But as much as I like Eliza Dushku, she was by far the weakest link in that cast. I was much more interested in the other dolls, Victor (Enver Gjokaj) and Sierra (Dichen Lachman), than I was in Echo.

 

[JoeZhang]

I watched the first three episodes, they were so awful I never saw any more of the show.

 

[Jack Bauer]

The standalone episodes weren't all that great especially in season 2. The arc episodes were much better.

 

[Reverend]

In a nutshell; it takes a while to get going but it's defiantly worth a look, just don't expect it to be as good as Firefly.