Dollhouse Didn't Disappoint

Finally TV is new again!

Hopefully I'm not the only one out there who had a little list written up of the fall premieres, though it's certainly very possible. I was looking forward to a lot of my favorites returning, but one that didn't really stand out in my line-up was Dollhouse. I'm one of the biggest fans of Joss Whedon's work, but for some reason the first season (with the exception of the last four to five episodes) left me with a general luke-warminess that I more commonly attribute to eating a turkey sandwich. I mean, a turkey sandwich is nice, but I never think "Man, that was one great sandwich!" after eating one. Come to think about it, I can't remember the last turkey sandwich I've eaten.

But I digress.

Watching the fall premiere of Dollhouse (if you haven't seen it, stop reading now and watch watch! spoilers below!) made me remember why I'd been sad to see it go after the heart-stopping/breaking season finale last spring. And it made me remember why I love Joss Whedon and every brainchild he births (um, gross imagery, sorry).

I think I wasn't sure about Dollhouse for the same reason that most people didn't like it originally, in that it just deals with touchy subject matter, and in a way that is initially hard to navigate until you get the hang of what social issues dwell underneath.

I think Laura over at Adventures of a Young Feminist explains Dollhouse in a way that makes me understand it more than I thought I did the first time around (if that makes sense).

Dollhouse is a story about trying to find who you are while people are telling you who you should be, which is a struggle that almost everyone goes through. What is so great about Dollhouse is not just the writing and acting, but that it is not afraid to touch on those “unpleasant” issues that television producers often think people don’t want to hear about while still being relateable on some level.

She seems to be able to put into words the unnameable feelings I had toward the show the first time through, and also did a very detailed review of the first episode.

I think what I love about this new episode of Dollhouse isn't just that you can tell Joss wrote it (Boyd's answer of "I'm very tall" caught me completely off-guard) but that the characters are becoming real people to me. Maybe it's just that angsty teenager inside of me who loves melodrama, but Echo's need to find her true identity coupled with Dr. Saunders' confrontation of her maker, if you will, made the episode for me. I believe most of the hesitancy I had the first season was that mostly everyone in the show was confused and sort of fumbling around, but this season gave the main characters the opportunity to do something about their fate and their destiny and all those other big life things that Joss always makes his characters confront head-on.

Also, seeing more of Amy Acker wasn't exactly unpleasant.

So this fall I'll be tuning in more willingly to catch up with these characters, and hopefully there'll be more Dollhouse-centric posts wherein we can dive into the details together. Can't wait for Friday!