Dollhouse--Even Joss Whedon Isn't Perfect

I have a confession to make: I am a huge Joss Whedon fan, yet I abandoned two of his TV creations.  Not Buffy, the Vampire Slayer or Angel; I stuck with those series until the very end (although the abysmal quality of Buffy’s last two seasons made it a challenge).  No, I gave up on his two non-Buffy TV shows, Firefly and Dollhouse.

Given the subsequent critical adoration of Firefly, my throwing in the towel after three episodes seems inexplicable.  But, as the defendant said in court, I plead guilty . . . but with an explanation.  I will lay the bulk of blame at the feet of the FOX network, which reportedly insisted that the show NOT begin with the pilot episode but instead insisted that Whedon rush a new episode into production for the premiere.  The result, an episode called The Train Job, proved to be arguably the worst episode of the series (IMDB has it ranked as the third worst).  I have since purchased the show on DVD and watched the episodes in their correct order, and the results are MUCH better.

Secondly, I still believe that the show pushed the “space as the old West” metaphor WAY too hard.  Okay, settlers on new planets in the future may have a culture similar to that of the old West, but it wouldn’t necessarily look like the American west circa 1870.  I find the stronger episodes of Firefly (and the exceptional follow-up movie Serenity) are the ones that minimize the Western paraphernalia and instead deal with space ships (Out of Gas), Government control (Ariel), and behavior modification (the movie Serenity).

I gave up on Firefly after three episodes, but I stuck through Dollhouse until the end of season one.  Once again, network interference played a part in my initial disappointment.  The first few episodes of the series, in which humans called “actives” could be programmed with different personalities, mostly featured stand-alone episodes in the vein of “Who will Elisha Dushku be this week?”  I have read that this was on the insistence of the FOX network, and that Whedon had wanted to start the series in the direction of the shadowy conspiracy of the Rossum Corporation that eventually emerged in season two.  Despite a weak beginning (one of the minor knocks on Buffy is that the seasons were slow to get going), I stayed with Dollhouse.

A bigger problem with Dollhouse was that it was created by Joss Whedon as a vanity project for star Elisha Dushku.  Frankly, she couldn’t pull it off.  Dushku is a very god actress, and showed some talent for playing multiple personalities in the Buffy body-swap episodes This Year’s Girl and Who Are You?  But she’s no Sarah Michelle Geller; heck, she’s not even as good as Charisma Carpenter.  Building a show around an actress that will showcase her skill at playing disparate characters is a non-starter unless the actress is supremely talented, and Dushku wasn’t quite there.

It didn’t help that Dushku was surrounded by an exceptional supporting cast, notably Tahmoh Penikett, Enver Gjokaj, Dichen Lachman, Franz Kranz, and Amy Acker.  Many weeks I wished the show was following the exploits of Sierra (Lachman) and Victor (Gjokaj) instead of Echo.  By the way, Dollhouse must hold the record for the most cast members with really strange first names; I know actors want distinctive monikers, but Tahmoh, Enver and Dichen?

I think another problem with the concept of Dollhouse was the potential (and reality) of unreliable narration.  Sometimes an unreliable narrator can be a blessing (for example, Mr. Robot).  But with Dollhouse there were several plot twists where the revelation was that a character that we thought was good turned out to be an “active” who’d been programmed. After a few such shocking twists, it becomes difficult to invest in any character, lest we find out later it was all a ruse. Such shocking reveals are great in a Hitchcock film, but in a weekly TV series it makes it hard to keep watching.

The best episode of Dollhouse I’ve seen is the un-aired “season finale” for season one that was scrapped when the show was renewed.  The episode, called Epitaph 1, was never aired in North America but is available on DVD (and on streaming, although it is leaving Netflix on April 1, 2017).  It was a brilliant demonstration of the potential devastation that could be wrought by the Dollhouse technology, potentially destroying humanity by obliterating the concept of “self.”  My understanding is that this thread was developed in season two, and the series finale Epitaph 2 wrapped things up.  Season two is the vision that was sidetracked in season one.

I could go back and catch up with season two of Dollhouse on DVD.  However, to appreciate season two, I would by necessity have to go back and re-watch season one, and that is too much of an ask.  I don’t remember much of season one except that I kept expecting it to get better and, with the exception of the episode Spy in the House of Love, it never did.

Life is short, and there is too much good TV on to find out if a sci-fi show I passed on in 2009 was as good as people say.  I gave it a fair shot.  It’s just that it has been a long time since Joss Whedon produced a new TV series, and season two of Dollhouse is the only Joss Whedon produced TV that I haven’t seen.  I guess I can hold out until he decides to produce some more.

What to expect from Tony Romo?

Reports coming out of Dallas indicate that our long national nightmare may be just about over:  Tony Romo may be released by the Dallas Cowboys to join any team NOT in the NFC East.

When the talking heads at ESPN talked about this last week, they were unanimous on one thing—Romo is as fragile as a crystal football.  He was called fragile, injury-prone, “unable to play a full season” and a lot of other words that meant that he was a strong breeze away from being on the disabled list.  Even the sportswriters who LIKED him agreed he was a buttercup.

Looking at his history, it is easy to see why people would say that; he has missed major time in several seasons.  That’s why he is expendable in Dallas—while he was recuperating from his last injury the Cowboys discovered Dak Prescott who filled in so well, he got the job permanently.

But is Romo actually “injury prone”?  Yes, he’s been injured several times, and his back has been injured more than once.  But he isn’t a running back who’s torn his ACL repeatedly, or a pitcher needing a second Tommy John surgery.  His injuries have usually been caused by very large men falling on him with considerable violence.  Under the circumstances, I wouldn’t say that makes him “prone” to anything other than being tackled.

In 2010 Romo broke his collarbone.  In 2011 his hand was injured.  In 2013 he hurt a rib, followed by a herniated disc.  In 2014 he hurt his back being tackled, and in 2015 his collarbone was broken once again.  Most of these were caused by tackles that would cause damage to any human.  The back issues seem unrelated.  Yes, his collarbone has broken twice, but I doubt the problem is a calcium deficiency. I think he just plays a violent game and is a tad less lucky than Tom Brady.

Is it reasonable to expect that Romo WOULD NOT suit up for 16 games in the 2017 season, if he gets a starting job?  First off, no QB, not even the sainted Tom Brady, is assured of starting 16 games in a season (you may recall that Tom Brady missed four games last season, for non-injury related reasons).  But Romo has as good a chance at starting 16 games as Alex Smith, Jay Cutler, or even Dak Prescott.  Second, Romo is 36 years old, and we know that people do get brittle with age, so that is a strike against him.  Third, a lot would depend upon the ability of his offensive line to a) protect the quarterback, and b) establish a running game that makes play-action passes effective.

If I was a Bronco fan and they signed him, I’d buy a plane ticket to where ever Super Bowl 2018 is being played.  If I were a 49er fan, I’d bet the Niners DOUBLED their win total from 2016 (that’s right, four wins, baby! Maybe five!). 

The downside is that Romo might get hurt, but the upside is that the perception of the downside might keep his price low.  In a league where the Bears are throwing around $15 million a year at unproven starter Mike Glennon and his career 84 passer rating, Romo’s 97 passer rating would be worth a lot more.  If people didn’t assume he’d get injured.

Football is all about risk.  Nothing is guaranteed except signing bonuses and base salaries.  At 36, Romo is a risk, but then so is any QB in the league; the younger ones just get up a little faster.  Romo says he might be willing to sign for $6-$8 million; if so that is a risk I’d want my team to take.

Science Fiction TV as of March 2017

First off, if anyone out there actually watched the execrable ABC pilot for Time After Time, I have a suggestion—immediately, as soon as possible, rent the 1979 version with Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, and David Warner. The difference between it and the ABC pilot?  The 1979 movie was made by people with brains (director Nicolas Meyer) and talent (the above listed cast), two traits absent from everyone associated with the lame remake.

As we near the end of the 2016-17 season (or what passes for seasons nowadays), let’s check in on some science fiction TV shows:

Supergirl:  Big changes as it switched networks from CBS to CW, and lost regular Callista Flockhart.  Winners: Winn Schott (Jeremy Jordan).  This character was so underwritten last season, who knew his last name?  His sole purpose was to be the “Xander” the platonic friend who wanted more from the superheroine lead.  He ditched his job as a low-level tech guy at Catco Media and got a job better suited to his supposed kills, head tech guy with the DEO.  He also got over Kara, got a hot alien girlfriend, and a cool hobby as the brains behind Jimmy Olsen’s Guardian.

Another winner was Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh), who got a lot more screen time and more back story thanks to the juicy story line of her realizing she was a lesbian.  This could have been handled awkwardly, but they generally handled it with aplomb (she’d tell people her “big news” and they’d usually go, “And?”).  Her new relationship with her gal-pal developed aspect of her character that didn’t come out when she was with Kara.

The big loser is Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks), who has been AWOL from several episodes.  As the focus shifted away from Catco and on the DEO the interim head of Catco is suddenly superfluous, he was replaced as a love interest by Mon-el, and who needs Guardian when you have Supergirl and J’onn J’onzz around?  He suddenly wasn’t needed as a love interest or as a member of Team Supergirl.

Legends of Tomorrow:  Someone, I think at Hollywood Reporter, had this on their “bottom 10” TV show list.  Maybe its first season was hard to defend, but this show has improved significantly.  The show was even self-aware enough to make fun of itself for having a charisma-challenged bad guy (Vandal Savage) in season one.  The show has found the fun, letting different characters (even the bad guys!) put their own stamp on the show’s overtly pretentious opening monologue (the best one was the one read by gruff good guy Mick Rory (Dominick Percell) who ended by saying, “Who writes this crap?”).  The show added a big bad with charisma to spare, the “Legion of Doom” featuring Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) and Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) from Arrow and Eobard Thawne (Matt Letscher) from The Flash.  The show still struggles with time-travel gaps in logic and a limited CW budget, but any show that doesn’t make me hate Brandon Routh is doing something right.

I deeply miss Wentworth Miller, but I keep hoping they will find some time loophole and bring him back as more than a hallucination.

The Flash.  Sigh.  When The Flash started I praised it for eschewing the angsty baggage that most post-Dark Knight superheroes wallowed in and brought a sense of (here is that word again) fun to the material.  Now close to wrapping its third season, The Flash is all about the angst.  Barry Allen went back in time to save his mother, but that had consequences, so he went back in time again and let her die, but THAT had consequences.  That sentence demonstrates the pretzel-logic that has taken over the show.  Now every episode is all about how Barry must save his beloved Iris from being murdered by the evil speedster Savitar.  Who?  Why?  What??  Every week some member of Team Flash makes a selfish decision, then bravely apologizes just before consequences set in.

Thank the stars for Tom Cavenaugh, a beacon of (here it is again) fun in an otherwise dreary offering.  Cavenaugh has now played three different roles, or three versions of the same role, and he manages to make each amusing in a unique way.  If there was a category for MVP of a show, my vote would be for Cavenaugh hands down.

Timeless.  Sigh again.  There is much to like about Timeless, mostly the wonderful Malcolm Barrett (late of the wonderful sitcom Better Off Ted).  But the whole thing MAKES NO SENSE.  If the bad guy, the improbably named Garcia Flynn (he’s what, Mexican-Irish?) had a time machine (which he did), wouldn’t there be some way for him to accomplish is nefarious (or noble) goal by only taking ONE TRIP back in time?  Two max?  Instead he goes back in time, over and over, and always to an inexplicably convenient major historical event.  The plot has gotten so complicated I have no idea who to root for as both sides seem bad, and the season one finale hinted that there may be multiple universes vying for reality.  Throw in a leading man who is the definition of wooden and a story that wasn’t on any rails to go off of, and my desire to see this series return is 50-50.