Joss Whedon's Dollhouse only has two more episodes to go, alas, but it's not going down without a fight. Last night's episode, "Getting Closer" had so much going on, it was enough to fill half a 22-episode season of a lesser show, but I really just want to talk about one rather amazing thing that happened: The lead character (sort of) in an American TV show self-identified as a terrorist.
Let me say that again: The lead character in an American TV show self-identified as a terrorist.
It wasn't entirely accurate, of course. But in a sense, that only makes it better.
The last two weeks since the Christmas/underpants bomber episode have seen the utter and complete collapse into meaninglessness of "terrorist" discourse. As Rachel Maddow noted, Rudy ("A noun, a verb and 9/11") Guiliani has effectively destroyed his political career once and for all in the process of trying to make 9/11 disappear, and that's pretty much the symbolic crown of the mountain range of stupid that's been trotted out in the past two weeks.
In essence, the post-underpants GOP attacks on Obama can be summarized thus: "You can't fight terrorism, because you're not scared! And you're not scaring us and the American people!" You're not screaming "terrorism" every other word, just like Osama bin Laden wants!
And so now that "terrorism" has been made utterly meaningless as the final reductio absurdum of those who flew so high for more than half a decade based on their own spectacular failures, it's only fitting that a fictional character from Joss Whedon's fevered imagination should turn the ultimate linguistic trick, and--quite impossibly--turn "terrorist" into a Good Thing.
After a torturous November hiatus, Joss Whedon's Dollhouse returned for a double episode on Friday with a timing that was downright eerie in my book. The really sucky news is that Fox used the hiatus to announce it was canceling the show after the end of the season. I never did understand why Joss went with Fox again after the way they shafted Firefly, but alas, such is life. Someone just give him his own cable channel already. He could oversee a full lineup with the crew of writers and showrunners he's mentored over the years.
His first series, Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, was first incarnated as a movie that began with fairly simple premise, a classic tale of the young hero's calling, but with a twist-the hero is a cheerleader in Southern California high school. It was also an overt response to a decade of reactionary slasher movies. Buffy turned the tables. She was the one doing the most serious slashing. The series then expanded from this premise.
Dollhouse is in many ways an opposite to Buffy. Its protagonist-Echo--is the most un-agenty person imaginable-not really a person at all. A blank slate. An empty body, wiped clean of memory, personality, self. A "doll". While Buffy discovered herself to be embedded in an institutional structure of good fighting evil-which she increasingly rebelled against-Echo does not discover anything, at least for quite some time, but we discover her to be embedded in what looks to be the most extreme fantasy version of a slavery ring...even though it's "only" for a limited five-year period. The "dollhouse" she lives in is revealed to be but one of many in different cities, all covert properties of a very public and powerful biomedical company, Rossum Corporation. (The term "robot" first appeared in a 1921 play by Czech science fiction writer Karel Capek, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)--although the robots were more like what would become known androids.)
Usually when writing about tv, I try to avoid spoilers, even writing about old shows, but there's no way to write about what mattered to me most here without writing about spoilers-so you have been warned!
Boyd:What you're doing could have consequences you can't predict or control. Some people are not ready to wake up.
Echo:I don't care. Something bad is coming, like a storm, and I want everyone to survive it. They need to wake up.
Last week, Joss Whedon's Dollhouse had a particularly telling episode, that spoke to me on two big, broad issues--maybe even meta-issues, one might argue. First is the issue of moral accountability & the awakening of conscience where it has previously been absent. Second is the issue of awakening awareness & power, that was addressed by tremayne earlier this week in a really perceptive dairy, "On Reality-Based Optimism". For those of you not familiar with Dollhouse, what's wrong with you? TV doesn't get any better than this. As good as, here and there. But not better.
Anyway, it's contemporary science fiction. And to get you up to speed, Wikipedia will do rather well:
The story follows Echo, a "doll" or "Active" for the Dollhouse, an organisation which hires out reprogrammable human beings to wealthy clients who use them for a range of purposes, such as sexual encounters and high-risk illegal activities. Echo, like her fellow dolls Victor and Sierra, exists in a child-like blank state [tabula rasa], until the programmer uploads her with the skills and memories to make her a whole other human being. Actives such as Echo are ostensibly volunteers who surrender their bodies to the organisation for five years in exchange for a vast amount of money and a solution to any other extenuating circumstances in their lives. Echo, however, is unique in remembering small amounts even after personality "wipes", and gradually develops an increasingly cognizant self-awareness and personality. This emerging personality is even distinct in some ways from that of her original identity, college graduate Caroline Farrell. This concept allows the series to examine concepts of identity and personhood.
As Echo continues to evolve, and learn to work beyond the limits of her current personality imprint or default programming, she runs the risk of going to "the Attic", a place for broken dolls. She is an object of fascination for the escaped doll Alpha (a genius and serial killer who sees Echo as a potential mate) and FBI Agent Paul Ballard, whose obsession with the urban legend that is the Dollhouse costs him his career, before he comes to work for the organisation as Echo's bodyguard or "handler". Ballard sees the Dollhouse's activities as immoral and illegal, but becomes increasingly complicit in the business which he equates with murder and sex traffic. Within the house, opinions are divided; director Adelle DeWitt sees her role as honourable, programmer Topher Brink's view is entirely scientific and amoral, and handler-turned-head of security Boyd Langton, like Ballard, is more concerned with the ethical and theological implications of the Dollhouse's technology.
From the beginning, there've always been some fundamental mysteries. Like WTF is going on here, anyway? The purpose of the Dollhouse is unknown. It's a business, but it has a purpose beyond just making money. How do we know? Well, we've been told several times. And even though we know very well not to trust anything, this admission of a hidden purpose is just about the only thing you can trust.
But a little more basic is the question of how the dolls came to be there in the first place. Which is sort of a big deal, since they're essentially slaves--albeit "only" for five years. We're told that it was "voluntary," but this is where the whole "not trusting anything" ethos really kicks in. We've seen bits and pieces of Echo's "voluntary" process--she was in some really serious trouble, though big pieces of the story are missing. We know that another doll had lost a daughter, and probably was suicidal. That kind of thing. But we've never been "fully briefed" as they say in the trade. And this most recent episode was as close to a linear accounting of how one doll--Sierra--came to the dollhouse as we're ever likely to get (told entirely in flashbacks, of course). And in the telling of this tale, a good deal more is both revealed, and altered.
As I noted yesterday, legendary activist/folk singer Pete Seegar just turned 90. In my own little universe this coincided with a whole lot of exposure to William Grieder-also on Democracy Now! as well as two or three local radio shows-and the season (hopefully not series) finale of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, all of which had at least one common thread: the nurturance of an anti-hierarchical vision, which I'd like to ruminate on for a bit as the weekend moves toward a close.
Starting off with Pete Seegar, I won't quote him directly, but instead will repeat a brief passage by Dar Williams that I quoted in the Pete Seeger diary:
AMY GOODMAN: When do you remember first hearing Pete?
DAR WILLIAMS: Let's see. Well, you know, as Peter said, you know, there are certain things that are just in your DNA. So, who knows when any of us first heard Pete? But I do remember a friend of mine working at a camp for disabled kids. And I was just out of college, and I was, you know, trying to figure out what my contribution to society would be. And he showed up and was-he sang "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain."
And nobody really knew he was coming. It was a camp for disabled kids. You know, there was nothing-it was just he was there to sing music that would include people. And kids in wheelchairs were singing; kids were singing in sign language; kids with disabilities, with very limited abilities to, you know, participate, were participating.
All the counselors were in tears. I was in tears, because he was just-and I just thought, you know, that spirit of inclusiveness, that spirit of unity. Of all these different abilities, these kids who have this, you know, desire to express and be a part of it, he's completely succeeded. You know? And everyone was going, "Whoo-hoo!"
That's when I realized what his power was and that the power is-what Spalding Gray called like "horizontal." You know, it wasn't vertical, from on top of a mountain speaking down. It was radiating outwards. And that's when I realized that that's the kind of power, that if I ever had it, that's the way I would do it. So, my cognizance of his power was around then.
Horizontal power-the power of inclusiveness-that's part of the very essence of what Pete's life has been about, because it's true essence of what the left is about: power-with, not power-over. And, of course, that's true of the Net as well.
Last night was the series premier of Joss Whedon's new tv series, Dollhouse, a typically complex, morally ambiguous, multi-genre pastiche about... well, I'll let Wikipedia do the honors:
In Dollhouse, Eliza Dushku plays a young woman called Echo, a member of a group of people known as "Actives" or "Dolls." The Dolls have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas, including memory, muscle memory, skills, and language, for different assignments. They're then hired out for particular jobs, crimes, fantasies, and occasional good deeds. On missions, Actives are monitored internally (and remotely) by Handlers. In between tasks, they are mind-wiped into a child-like state and live in a futuristic dormitory/laboratory, a hidden facility nicknamed "The Dollhouse." The story follows Echo, who begins, in her mind-wiped state, to become self-aware.[3][4]
Beyond Dushku's character, the show also revolves around the people who run the mysterious "Dollhouse" and two other "Dolls," Victor and Sierra, who are friendly with Echo (the names are simply letters in the phonetic alphabet). Although the Actives are ostensibly volunteers, the operation is highly illegal and under constant threat on one end from Paul Ballard, a determined federal agent who has heard a rumor about the Dolls, and an insane rogue Active on the other.[4]
Heather Havrilesky writes about it at Salonhere. And Salon also has an interview with Joss Whedon here. And I have a few thoughts of my own on the flip as I invite any other fans to weigh in as well.
