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Thoughts on Dollhouse

Yes, I am on a bit of a blog frenzy.  I almost posted a political entry the other day, but thought better of it.

OK, so as most of you don’t know, Dollhouse as a show, was awesome.

Now, I am certainly a big Joss Whedon fan.  I’ve watched every episode of every show he’s created, and read pretty much every comic he’s ever written.  Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Fray, Astonishing X-Men?  Move over girls in white dresses, THESE are a few of MY favorite things.  That being said, I don’t think he’s the greatest writer in history, or even of our age (that honor goes to the wonderful Mr. Brian K. Vaughan).  And, as awesome as Dollhouse was, it will never compare to the other things I listed up there.  Why?

Well, the biggest criticism I – and most people – had against the show was somewhat unavoidable.  In a show where half the characters are totally different people every week, it’s hard to form an attachment to any of them.  Strangely however, by the end the characters I cared most for were two of the dolls (Victor and Sierra), and the ones I cared least about were “real people” – Ballard and Boyd.  I don’t know, I guess what that means is that while I would like to blame FOX for forcing the story of the week, start at the beginning crap on me, I can’t; characters who never reset fell flat to me.  Honestly I think the writers just failed to make me care about the people we were supposed to care about (most).

The concept.  Was super cool.  The execution, wasn’t always.  Again, I wish I could lay all the blame on FOX for making the show more episodic and slow, but again, it’s not all their fault.  Look at Burn Notice, the highest rated show on cable.  Or White Collar too.  Both of these are “episodic” in nature.  Every week a different client comes to Michael, and in a fun, creative, interesting way, he and his two friends deal with the situation.  Meanwhile, at the end of every episode maybe 5 minutes is given to the ongoing mystery of who burned him and why.  It works.  In White Collar, every episode is devoted to solving a different crime, but a few minutes are given at the end to help discover what happened to Kate, who the man with the ring is, and what they want.  Again, it works.  Or Veronica Mars – mystery of the week, ongoing mystery of the season.  I don’t think you can blame FOX (exclusively) for making the first season and a half of Dollhouse incredibly slow.  If every episode had been like Epitaph One, the show would still be on – in my opinion.

Anyway, issues I had with the show aside, I really did like it.  Who doesn’t like an evil company (or hate it?)?  The whole question of nature vs. nurture, of real vs. fantasy, and all of that, is really cool, and a lot more intelligent than you normally find on TV these days.  Victor and Sierra were the main relationship I cared about.  Adelle was awesome, except when she saved her people by destroying the world…And Topher was cool when he finally grew a conscience.

Now for the finale itself.  It was cool.  As you may or may not know, I’m passionately in love with Felicia Day, so it was good to see her, even though she didn’t do anything…In fact I thought it was weird that Epitaph One made me care about a random group of characters in one episode and then Epitaph Two basically dropped them.  I guess the “main” characters were more important (they are) but still.  I loved Priya and her son (who was – I’m about to use a girly word so bear with me – adorable), and I loved the dynamic with her and Victor/Tony.  It was cool to see time pass and just have to guess what happened.  I thought the Road Warrior-esque band of techheads was a really cool concept, even if they were random and douchey.  I thought that Topher being able to save the world in one go was kind of out-there, but we’re dealing with a show where people’s brains are re-written, so… I’ll be quiet.  His end had a poetic justice about it.  Adelle was awesome.  Ballard dying should have made me sadder (I did yell WHAT?!?) but it didn’t.  Echo’s response to his death, however, was more-or-less worth it in my opinion though.

Now for the main part I had a problem with.  Echo downloaded her dead True Love into her brain, so they could never be alone.  WHAT.  I just…don’t know what to do with that.  Somewhere over the course of my life, I read or watched something about someone having either a virtual or psychic romance, and I seem to remember the character just basically wasting away, preferring to live in a fantasy than in the real world.  That idea impacted me a lot – I’m incorporating it into one of my comics – and it always stuck with me.  I mean, what’s she supposed to do, walk around like everything’s normal but talking to him?  Spend all day in bed having imaginary sex with…herself?  What.  It actually reminds me of Katherine Heigl’s character on Grey’s.  She had a fantasy affair with someone.  I did not like.  I would have much rather seen Alpha erasing his personalities except for Paul’s (which he had!) and living with Echo forever, but OH WELL.

All in all, I’m sad the show is over, but I’m not going to cry over it, because I can’t bring myself to care on that high a level.  I will probably rewatch the show periodically, but there are no guarantees that I don’t just skip most of the first season because it is frankly boring.  I wish the show had been more fast-paced at the beginning and less so at the end, but I choose to take the good with the bad and no longer complain.

Deuces.

Twitter is Great.

Twitter is fantastic.  I don’t really have anything revolutionary to say about it.  But I love it.

Why?

Because there (mostly) aren’t conversations.  There aren’t apps.  There aren’t photo albums.

It is just people talking about the mundane details of their lives, really.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it can be a great news source or whatever, but honestly the Tweets I enjoy the most are the ones where Felicia Day is talking about playing her video games, or NPH is talking about food, or Sarah is talking about a movie or TV show.  I can follow whoever the freak I want, and whoever the freak wants can follow me.  If someone gets tired of me tweeting 20 times in rapid succession about how I desperately need closure on Buffy and Angel’s relationship, they can stop following me.  And I’m not really offended, because I can do the same thing.  And have.

True, some would say it’s overshare.  Why do we feel the need to tweet about going for a run?  Or eating spaghetti?  Or anything at all?  Well, because someone – apparently – wants to listen.  And even if no one is following you, it’s an outlet.

Twitter is the diary/journal of the 21st century.  You can look back over your tweets, and it will tell you what you were doing, and when.  And no one is dumb enough to put really personal things on it they don’t want anyone to see (I hope), because literally anyone in the world would be able to see it.

So Tweet on restaurant eaves-dropper.  You see a commercial that bugs you?  Tweet the crap out of it.  You don’t like what I’m putting out there?  Just stop virtually listening.  No harm.  No foul.

I really do. With a passion. I hate it.

At first, I loved the Facebook. It was only for college people, and that was sweet. It was simple. You had a profile, which was your wall.  There were status updates, but no newsfeed, no minifeed, no chat, and no EFFING APPLICATIONS.  The only invites you could get were to groups or events.  No fan pages, no emo Jr. High kids, no highschoolers, and no parents (or crazy aunts…).  It was simple. “I have a thought, here it is. I know you, let’s stay marginally connected.”

Now it’s a stalkerfest.  Facebook has rights to what you put on there. It tells people what you’ve been doing. It tells you what others are doing. It literally invites you to know more about someone than you have the right to learn from the outside. And the sad thing is, WE ENJOY IT.  It sucks you in.  Literally stalking people online has become completely acceptable, even encouraged.  I’m guilty of it.  And so are you.  Don’t lie.

So I’m making it official that I hate it, and if it weren’t for the convenience of event invites and important camp messages, I would delete the thing.  Metaphorically burn it to the proverbial ground.

Now, some of you might say, “Waaaa, but it’s a great way to stay connected.”  Well I don’t care what you say.  There is absolutely no reason why that cheerleader you never had a class with in high school should be able to see your pictures, your dis/likes, or your conversations.  None.  And if you’re really a friend, why are you having “community” (my official least favorite word thanks to Baylor) on a public network?  I’m sorry, but the occasional “Hey man, haven’t talked to you in a while, how are?” “Great, busy, tired, you?” “Same.”  doesn’t cut it.  It doesn’t.  That’s not friendship, it’s just an excuse.  I don’t have to email you or skype you or call you or do anything meaningful with you, because I can just say hi once every six months!  If they can see my stupid statuses, they must be part of my life!”

I say no.  If you haven’t seen, or talked to someone in a year, are they really your friend?  Maybe, but not a close one.

I’m not saying you can’t have long distance friendships, or that there are never mitigating circumstances, but really?  I think that’s crap.  Facebook, or at least how we (ab)use Facebook, is really just a cop-out, to give us our interpersonal jollies and assuage our guilt.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but phone calls are fantastic.  Or emails.  I love emails.  I once had an amazing friendship with a person I’ve never met, just through email.  We talked at least weekly, and were honestly part of each others’ lives.  I was invited to their wedding for crying out loud.  Baby pictures were given!

OK, clearly I’m ranting.  And rapidly losing coherence.  But just know that when I graduate, all bets are off.  I’m getting emails, and then deactivating the effing thing.  Or at least taking all my stuff off and losing the password and only getting notifications via email when someone invites me to an event.

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