How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

Colleen Lindsay has a post here about lessons to be learned from Dollhouse, namely, you can't wait too long to hook your reader, which makes sense and is true, but is not what I want to talk about here. Dollhouse is only an okay show. There, I said it. I've seen all the episodes thus far, and Whedon is right--the show did take a huge leap forward when we got to episode six, which was the first episode he really had a hand in (blah blah, compromises with the network, blah blah), but for me it still suffers from the same fundamental problem that it did when it started, namely this: I am not in love with any of the characters. I'm not talking about having a "crush" on a character (CALL ME, TIM RIGGINS), I'm talking about being in love. Like, on Friday Night Lights, I love Tim Riggins ( obviously ), but I also love Tammy and Eric Taylor, and their daughter Julie, and Tyra (OMG, I heart Tyra), and Matt Saracen, and even, sort of Buddy Garrity, God help me. The...

I've seen two episodes of Joss's new show Dollhouse , now, and I'm cautiously optimistic. The show is about an agency--the Dollhouse, natch--where people go and have their minds erased and re-programmed, temporarily, with new personalities and skills at the behest of rich clients. They're, like, made-to-order hookers. Sensing a theme, here? Yeah, so obviously the premise is a teeny bit troubling from a feminist perspective, but it is a sci-fi show and if every sci-fi show that was troubling was disregarded for that reason, there wouldn't be a lot of sci-fi on the air.* And I think that Whedon is taking a little pre-emptive heat for this because of his self-proclaimed feminist viewpoint. But anyway, back to the actual show. The main character, played by Eliza Dushku, is Echo, one of the dolls whose reasons for joining the Dollhouse are unclear. In the first two episodes, she plays a party girl, a hostage negotiator, and a wilderness survival girl. Sex is involv...

I was psyched when I learned that Joss Whedon was going to have a new show coming out called Firefly . Although I didn't really understand the premise--cowboys in outer space? ...okay...--I had learned through my experience with Buffy to put my trust in Joss, so I was willing to go with it.* So I watched Firefly. And hated it. The poor treatment that Firefly got at the hands of the Fox network is well documented--episodes aired out of order, schedule changes, excessive notes--so I'm sure part of my problem with the show is that it was pretty confusing trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on, but I've seen the show in its entirety several times on DVD, and I've seen the movie based on the show, and, yeah, I don't care for it. This is why.** In her post (which is rather long), Allecto critiques the many many problems that Firefly has with its female characters. And while I do not agree with everything she says--Allecto has a radical feminist viewpoint t...

This week, I'm going to do something slightly different--in light of the intense media coverage of Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse, I'm going to talk a little bit about my reactions to some of his shows. So there may not be a lot of writing stuff this week (unless I work up some extra posts), but I promise I'll get back to it. A couple of things I want to get straight, right up front: 1. I haven't seen Dr. Horrible (although I want to), so I have nothing to say about it. Except that Neil Patrick Harris has a charming singing voice in the clip I heard on NPR the other day. Other than that--nothing. 2. ...okay maybe I just had one thing I wanted to get straight. 3. Oh, no, wait! One other thing--I didn't read the Buffy graphic novels, either. I prefer to stick to the original cultural artifact, and also didn't have the energy to track them down. So nothing I say here is influenced by them, either. 4. Oh, and another thing--I never got Angel . I didn...