Addendum: I didn't really buy Eliza as the negotiator (Miss Pen). Emotionally she was present, but she didn't project the kind of contained intelligence (or do I want to say...coiled self-awareness?) of that character.

Something wasn't there. The kind of something Jodie Foster had as Claire in Silence of the Lambs. It was definitely a limit of Eliza's acting. And I'm a fan of her acting, but it could be an issue.

Still, I'm intrigued by the show and it's interesting to me that most of the takes I'm seeing here treat it as-is rather than what is (to me at least) an obvious pile of narrative compromises.

I can't emphasize enough how this first episode doesn't feel like the episode Joss would've wanted to write if he had months to write it. It feels like a lot of Joss-craft with a big Tim influence.

Addendum: I didn't really buy Eliza as the negotiator (Miss Pen). Emotionally she was present, but she didn't project the kind of contained intelligence (or do I want to say...coiled self-awareness?) of that character.

Yeah, this was a problem for me. As the party girl, I bought her. As the negotiator, she totally didn't sell it, which made the whole premise that much harder to handwave.

And beyond that, they gave away way too much in the first ep. The fact that (blank) ED doesn't know what's happening when other girls are being mindwiped. That the imprinted personalities contribute more than just expertise. That these are things they don't fucking check out before imprinting them. WTH? That completely blank (disturbing) bodies can wander around freely and see things they I guess are not supposed to see (though why would that matter?) Over a handful of eps, drawing it out, could be interesing. Throw that all into the first ep?

What ev. If this wasn't a Joss show I'd be done. As it is, I'll give it a couple more.

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.

That's who I'm talking about, the imprinted personalities. They're basically tricking the Actives into believing they ARE these people and then ripping those identities away without their permission.

Now, that I think about it, I'm interested to see an episode where an Active is imprinted with some horrible personality (murderer or somesuch) that they would be none too glad to be rid of.

I'm intrigued by the backstory on Amy Acker's character.

There's backstory?

P-C, there's backstory, and it's wacky fun.

It's like Fox saying "Hey leering misogynists—have we got the show for you!"

I believe that's exactly what the promotional campaign for Dollhouse said.

Even the new media stuff - have a look at the website for it: [link]

Joss and Eliza were asked if they were cool with the promotional angle, and I was hoping to God they would say not -- because, you know, I'm British and reserved and don't want to see Eliza's nipples -- and the response was, well, it was something they seemed to want. They want the show to explore being the object of sexual desire. Which is fine, but it shouldn't, in my opinion, be the main focus of the promo campaign. Sexual desire alone does not make a show. I can tell Eliza is considered hot - I've got these new fangled things called eyes.

Which is why I'm made up Dollhouse actually doubled FOX's female demographic. It tends to suggest they mis-stepped slightly. Although they did come in #1 for men.

In a lot of ways it felt more like a Tim show than a Joss show. It was very noir-ambiguity, and S5 Angel and The Inside (to me).

This. That was my instant reaction.

I watched the broadcast version last night, and had forgotten that aside from the fact they load Echo with the personality of a child sex abuse victim and put them in the room with their abuser, the personality -- no, person -- killed themselves over it. Harsh.

The more I look at it, the more I think the show is (or should be) about identity rather than human trafficking. Although I want to know where they get all these personalities from.

On the whole, I enjoyed it. Actually, I enjoyed everything about it except Eliza. Which is completely the opposite of what I was afraid was going to happen. But really, she was terrible in this in every "role" except the party girl. The "blank" Echo role I could forgive being wooden, because there's not supposed to be a lot of there there. But in the negotiator role? No. No, Eliza didn't sell that at all. It was kind of painful.

Which is really annoying, as she's the one the show is built around. If she can't switch it up better, the show'll be toast.

Which is a shame, because I was digging on the Not!Helo, and the ex-cop handler, and seeing Amy Acker again (in a great small part) and even the woman in charge whose name is escaping me. I see a lot of potential, and a lot to enjoy, but so far, it still has a way to go.

Something wasn't there. The kind of something Jodie Foster had as Claire in Silence of the Lambs. It was definitely a limit of Eliza's acting. And I'm a fan of her acting, but it could be an issue.

Yeah, I hate to admit it, but those scenes read very much as the client and kidnappers being cowed because the script said so, not because of anything Eliza was projecting. SMG hit all the right notes of a similar situation in "Checkpoint," and (though I hesitate to bring up the Most Hated One) I bought it that Julia Roberts' Erin Brockovich could just walk into law offices and Deadly Pollution Inc.'s boardroom and brass her way into dominance. Eliza doesn't seem to have that sort of gravitas if she's not allowed to beat people up in the scene.

There's backstory?

When a character shows up in the first episode with a huge scar across her face, there's backstory.

Where does the crush thing come from?

there were rumours back in the day about Kai being a bit jealous of Joss' attention to Eliza.

Oh dear, really?

That's...pretty depressing. I trust it's just random internet gossip.

Yeah, I didn't love it. I think it's kind to assume that all the negatives come from trying to wrench in network notes, but I doubt that's the case.

Expected problems are still there and not mitigated at all by the casting. Hope that it pans out better over the long haul.

In actual episode reflection, do you think the actives are named (or rather initialed) linearly? If Alpha is presumably first, that would only put a few before Echo, whereas there's quite a bit of space between her and the presumably newest Sierra. So Echo's been there for some time, and the scene of bringing her in was a flashback? Also, it's funny, because it'll be fine to have someone named Charlie or Juliet, but there's going to be somebody named Uniform or Whiskey. Hee.