After some delay due to traveling and whatnot, I finally caught up with Dollhouse this weekend. You're doing much better, Show!

I had intended to come in and rant about how disappointed I was about the developments with Mellie's character. But then I got to the end, and no one else saw what I saw, so... I have a feeling that I'm superimposing my Issues (of which, as I am the first to admit, I have so many I keep them on microfiche to save space) onto the character. Also, I'm tired, and just can't seem to work up the proper head of steam for a good rant.

I will say that, while I'm glad Mellie didn't get Mineared (and in what would have been record time too), I feel like making her an Active affects not only her character, but the character of Ballard as well. Ballard's my main "in" for this show right now (along with Boyd, but they're doing all right by him), and I don't really like it when we take too much of our "hero's" support system away. The one "normal" person he could trust and turn to for support is a tool of the far-too-powerful agency that he's hunting? He's being watched, they're controlling and manipulating him for their own ends? Why are you letting your character fight an unwinnable fight? Seems unfair.

(I still don't know how I feel about her character being "flawed" because she's programmed that way, rather than because they wrote her as a flawed personality...)

A theory on the inside man: One assumes that, if the Dollhouse is true to its word that after five years the person will be restored to their original personality (which we have no proof for yet, but...), then somewhere there has to be a "copy" of that personality, so that when the Active has completed their tour of duty they can re-imprint them with their original personality. What if those patterns have achieved independence from their storage devices? What if the inside man is Caroline's imprint? Caroline and the other actives could be infecting the process from the inside. (This is way more sci-fi than the show's been set up to be thus far, so I doubt that I'm right, but it's an idea that entertains me.)

Corwood - Olivia Williams' character is Adelle.

Ailleann --

I've had thoughts about Mellie's character, but I was distracted by the no pants and the funny.

Since I know from interviews about the shows inception and premise, I am seeing Mellie mainly as a symbol of the whole "LA-eats-actresses" thing that Joss spoke of in an interview somewhere. Maybe the world eats women, or at least projects ideals onto them as a way of comformity, but I was really thinking about LA and actresses as a specific. Don't ask me for the interview, cause I have no idea but I definitely remember reading it. Remember, Mellie kept going back to the "denied stock option" thing in addition to the "do you think of her when you're on top of me?" stuff. And she's already mentioned that she "knows she's not the gold standard in LA." Hmmm. I'd be interested in reading an interview with Miracle Laurie, and seeing what the actual's actresses perception of this is.

Anyway, I think that Mellie's basic personality is no more flawed than any of the other Actives; they all go back to that idea of the world eats women thing (and the male Actives are an interesting comment onperceived gender roles and passivity in our culture) but Mellie pings the LA-eats-actresses button harder because of her weight. And I'm thinking that Joss HAD to have cast a (very) slightly heavy girl who also was completely beautiful -- not pretty, but gorgeous -- otherwise the message might be lost in the "But she's a COW" reactions you know that can happen in the American viewership.

Actually, what strikes me about Mellie/Laurie is how she's a more solid/healthy/realistic version of Echo/Dushku.

Eliza may be entirely healthy and Miracle may not--I don't think that's a comparison we have information to make.

I think my problem is up until she was triggered Mellie was, though perhaps a little broadly drawn and/or overdone, a fully-formed character with strengths and flaws and a sense of authentic humanity. She was, really, the only character we've met so far who wasn't deeply broken (all the Actives, most of the clients, I suspect Bennett) or under the Dollhouse's thumb (Boyd, Topher, possibly some of the other Dollhouse employees).

And then they triggered her, and made that whole personality a lie, and made Mellie into just another victim.

I hate that Mellie is an doll. I want to wonder who might be a doll, not think that everyone is.

Her name is Miracle? Huh.

Ooh, and interesting that she was originally playing a different character.

[link]

Everyone else has probably already read that post.

Ooh, and interesting that she was originally playing a different character.

They said this about Victor, too. I think Joss was just covering up the fact that Mellie and Victor were actives.