I didn't find him skeevy in this episode. I find his perspective interesting because I get the sense that, while he believes they're helping people and is proud of his work in a scientific sense, he finds it unfortunate that he has to continually strip the Actives of their peopleness, leaving them nothing but shells.

See, I didn't take his lines about "we help people" as dialogue that was meant to be taken seriously. And I also am not picking up any regret on his part about mind-wiping the Actives. Right now, all I get is that he thinks that what he does -- the technological/neurobiological aspect of it -- is so fucking cool that it doesn't matter how he's using it, or on whom, or what the consequences are.

And putting the actual victim IN THE REFRIGERATOR? I laughed and laughed and laughed. "Look how ironic I'm being! Because the victim survived and was in fact rescued by another woman, so my skeevy gender issues are okay!"

Ha! I didn't pick up on that.

I kind of took it as a post-Dr. Horrible Fuck You to fandom.

(It also annoyed me when Veronica Mars put Veronica in an actual refrigerator in the S1 finale, because the show was generally so damn good otherwise.)

people who tie each other up for sex don't have league regulations, etc. (And therefore no cool jerseys and TV broadcasts on Sunday afternoons.)

Alas! Because I'd totally buy one of those jerseys,

Well, we *do* have t-shirts (at a recent event I went to, there was one I wanted to buy for Jilli that said "Don't worry, it's not MY blood"), but sadly, no league shirts.

and I think that the commentators would be comedy gold.

Heh. Given some of the parties I've been to, you're so NOT wrong.

what the consequences are.

I really liked the opening scene, by the by.

"Actions have consequences."
"What if they didn't?"

Heh. Given some of the parties I've been to, you're so NOT wrong.

Bwah!

What I didn't get from the premise and the promos was the amount of free will the Actives have. While I knew the entered the program somewhat willingly, I had also thought they submitted themselves to the mindwipes willingly as part of the agreement. But that's not the case. There appears to be an implanted suggestion that they come back for "treatment," but they have no idea they're about to essentially kill their selves.

We gave up nineteen minutes in. It seemed weirdly sloppy to me, as if he went into it figuring that the only audience who would watch were people who already knew the premise and his history with other shows.

It seems like a fantastic premise for a porno movie with high production values, like Pirates.

However, it did make me really nostalgic for Buffy and Angel, so I could remember that these people? Are capable of writing/acting/directing the shit out of an episode of television.

When i look at the set-ups of Lie to Me and Leverage, they were so pitch perfect at introducing a cast and a premise. That's how it's done. This? Total mess. Throwing as much shit at the wall to see what sticks. It's frustrating.

I mean, Buffy was exploited heavily, by her watcher, by the Watcher's Council, and we saw this wonderful journey of a young woman becoming self-aware. That was pretty fucking awesome.

This is just porn. Straight up.

I wasn't too thrilled with "the new moon has made her a virgin again", or whatever that line was. Mindwipe does not equal sexual purity.

It's from Tennesee Williams' play Camino Real, the prostitute character Esmeralda says, "I never remember what happened before the moonrise makes me a virgin."

At least, I hope that's what Joss had in mind.

Sparky, I think he's commented on that somewhere (to confirm).

The ratings aren't actually that bad, looking at it. They won the key demos they wanted. Also, it doubled it's female viewership over Terminator.

Allyson, the pitch of Dollhouse is a young woman becoming self aware and fighting those who put her in that position. Well, that's the idea.

I don't think it is straight porn, but it is disappointing. The writing so far seems mediocre at best, and even omitting the promos, the gender issues are huge. (Don't think you can blame the show for the promo's; showrunner does not control those.)

Every now and then an op-ed columnist or a blogger will start a piece "this will make a lot of people angry". And then get very indignant when a lot of people do in fact get angry. "Gee I said that punching you in the snout might make you angry. So aren't you the silly over-reactor for actually getting mad when I actually punch you in the snout."

The same thing with the gender issues in this. The fact that Joss anticipated that people would notice his weird gender issues does not make them disappear. The framing of this show lets him write about human trafficking mainly from the point of view of the traffickers, and from trafficked people who (thanks to brain washing) don't actually object.

The fact that the show understands on some level that this is problematic, that some of the human traffickers have a troubled conscience does not really deal with the problem.

I can't think of many really satisfactory ways to deal with this. Maybe classic victim revenge horror fantasy where all the dolls realize what is going on, kill all people running the dollhouse (including their handlers) and use the computer files to track down the owners and all the customers and kill them.

Now I'm not saying my suggestion is particularly good writing. I'm not a long form fiction writer. But this is squicky at a visceral level, and to me it could only be justified by an equally visceral response. And so far I don't see the premise as particularly well written either.

While I knew the entered the program somewhat willingly, I had also thought they submitted themselves to the mindwipes willingly as part of the agreement. But that's not the case. There appears to be an implanted suggestion that they come back for "treatment," but they have no idea they're about to essentially kill their selves.

P-C, can you elaborate? I don't get this. It seemed pretty clear that when the Actives sign up, they know they're going to be mindwiped. The imprinted personalities don't know they're going to be zapped away, but that's not the same thing.

Allyson, the pitch of Dollhouse is a young woman becoming self aware and fighting those who put her in that position. Well, that's the idea.

Doesn't matter what the pitch is if it doesn't come off that way.