Dollhouse #1.10 "Haunted"

[Hopefulsuicide]

I know it's not till next week, but it's just a habit now :(

God I hate hiatuses!

Anyway, should be a good one :)

Here's a preview to keep us going: http://watchdollhouse.com/

[Vergon6]

Looks creepy but thanks for posting the link. I was disappointed to see Prison Break starting on Friday.

[Vergon6]

I missed the first few minutes, but it looks interesting so far.

[Vergon6]

I thought the episode was pretty good, and another interesting addition to the layers of the Dollhouse. Although it wasn't as good as the previous few episodes.

[Hopefulsuicide]

The concepts dealt with in the episode were brilliant and thought provoking. Is it really eternal life? And is Ballard now a client because he 'used' a doll?

But the episode had no punch whatsoever. It was just limp... kinda dull...

I gave it a 7... it just fell flat for me. Though I did love the Topher and Sierra stuff.

It's such a shame, I would have thought that this would be a good time to pick up the pace, but it may as well have ground to a halt. The only thing that furthered the progression of the story was finding all those personas for November in the database.

I really hope the next two episodes are much more exciting, or TBH i'm going give up my enthusiasm for the show :(

[Pamela]

I gave it an 8. I thought Eliza showed more range by playing an older "dead" woman. Plus the episode kept you guessing back and forth between the son and husband as suspects.

[Vergon6]

I gave it as an 8 as well.

[Xanderman]

I gave it a 6. Not a bad ep, not great either. Had a "standalone" feel to it, which I found interesting considering they said they were basically forever moving away from that format, apparently. Granted I don't mind standalones if there aren't too many of them--and that said, this wasn't a true standalone anyway, as there was still some main story/mythology advancement. There really haven't been any true standalones in this series, every ep was at least a mixture--unlike something like X-files, which had a ton of pure standalones (way too many).

After the son kissed Echo and she recoiled in disgust, he said "Okay, well this a new personal worst for me." I laughed out loud at the line, good delivery. What wasn't funny about this scene however was Eliza's acting--I thought she overdid it with the gagging/retching. It didn't seem like a reaction to kissing her grown son to me, a lot more like a reaction to having kissed someone she found physically repulsive/disgusting. Not the right reaction at all (unless the mother considers her son ugly/disgusting? Gee, thanks mom. lol).

As for Topher/Sierra, did Topher imprint a copy of himself into Sierra? lol Did they say who the imprint belonged to? If it wasn't literally a Topher clone, either way since the person seemed to love everything Topher did, does it mean that Topher's "dream girl" is a female version of himself? lol




The concepts dealt with in the episode were brilliant and thought provoking. Is it really eternal life?I really don't understand why they had the characters on the show actually see it and accept it as eternal life the way they did. The woman's brain/memories/personality were scanned/copied and stored away, the original biological/chemical components remained where they were in her brain. The same imprint/copy could have been placed in 10 bodies, and they each would have been every bit the copy that the Echo version was (I mean they can't EACH be the original woman living on, can they?). Reminds me of the movie The 6th Day, where the villain similarly really believed he would literally live forever through cloning. Made no sense whatsoever. Star Trek covered off this kind of stuff too, but mainly with robots/androids. It wasn't true immortality there either. Just copies living on. To me, it isn't immortality unless you keep the body alive, or at least the original brain in the equation.

Besides that stuff, this also bugged me:

Why would November's/Mellie's files be triggered to delete themselves only AFTER being accessed for a few seconds? This would obviously raise a ton of red flags to whoever's reading (for example, that female agent is apparently now a fellow believer). Why wouldn't "November" have simply been erased from the database beforehand? Why wait for someone to access the records first? Doesn't make sense.

[shamville]

This one is good.Topher and echo going to talk.

[Hopefulsuicide]

I gave it a 6. Not a bad ep, not great either. Had a "standalone" feel to it, which I found interesting considering they said they were basically forever moving away from that format, apparently. Granted I don't mind standalones if there aren't too many of them--and that said, this wasn't a true standalone anyway, as there was still some main story/mythology advancement. There really haven't been any true standalones in this series, every ep was at least a mixture--unlike something like X-files, which had a ton of pure standalones (way too many).

After the son kissed Echo and she recoiled in disgust, he said "Okay, well this a new personal worst for me." I laughed out loud at the line, good delivery. What wasn't funny about this scene however was Eliza's acting--I thought she overdid it with the gagging/retching. It didn't seem like a reaction to kissing her grown son to me, a lot more like a reaction to having kissed someone she found physically repulsive/disgusting. Not the right reaction at all (unless the mother considers her son ugly/disgusting? Gee, thanks mom. lol).

I agree, I don't mind standalones, but when the show is so dangerously close to being cancelled, I was hoping we'd have just a straight run through of adrenaline packed, twist filled story lines.

I also agree that Eliza's acting was OTT in this eppie, and that vomiting was a bit too much. Just a very shocked and repulsed look would have made much more sense :lol:




As for Topher/Sierra, did Topher imprint a copy of himself into Sierra? lol Did they say who the imprint belonged to? If it wasn't literally a Topher clone, either way since the person seemed to love everything Topher did, does it mean that Topher's "dream girl" is a female version of himself? lol

Well no, I think it was a combination of a number of imprints. Not all the imprints are actual people, just parts of people combined, and it seemed like Sierra had been imprinted with what Topher considered the best friend he could have. It is kind of sweet though isn't it. Topher such a little kid, of all the things he could have imprinted her with, what he picked was entirely innocent.





I really don't understand why they had the characters on the show actually see it and accept it as eternal life the way they did. The woman's brain/memories/personality were scanned/copied and stored away, the original biological/chemical components remained where they were in her brain. The same imprint/copy could have been placed in 10 bodies, and they each would have been every bit the copy that the Echo version was (I mean they can't EACH be the original woman living on, can they?). Reminds me of the movie The 6th Day, where the villain similarly really believed he would literally live forever through cloning. Made no sense whatsoever. Star Trek covered off this kind of stuff too, but mainly with robots/androids. It wasn't true immortality there either. Just copies living on. To me, it isn't immortality unless you keep the body alive, or at least the original brain in the equation.


So many questions were bugging me about this. For instance, what would happen if someone imprinted a doll with themselves... Does that mean there are two of them? And how would the doll deal with the fact that it knew it wasn't the real thing? It's like Bizarro i suppose, but a much better copy.

And no, it doesn't feel to me that it's like living forever, but it depends on your own set of beliefs. Do you believe in a soul? Do you believe that who we are comes from the actual muscle of the brain (in which case you would need the whole body to survive) or is who we are just the information our brain posesses? In which case, it is kind of like living forever, isn't it? Very very confusing :lol:





Besides that stuff, this also bugged me:

Why would November's/Mellie's files be triggered to delete themselves only AFTER being accessed for a few seconds? This would obviously raise a ton of red flags to whoever's reading (for example, that female agent is apparently now a fellow believer). Why wouldn't "November" have simply been erased from the database beforehand? Why wait for someone to access the records first? Doesn't make sense.

Yeah it doesn't make sense. But it was kind cool though :lol: So I let it go!

P.s. I am so intrigued by the next eppie. Dr Saunders sees Alpha? Paul get's into the Dollhouse!!!! Check out the trailer if you haven't yet.

[CallMeClark]

I gave it a 7. 2 weeks ago they had an AMAZING episode. Kind of lost momentum. Slower storylines tend to do that, even if they are necessary.

Next week looks great! Looks like we meet Alpha. And for those of you who saw the spoiler you should be well aware Alpha is the Firefly Alum in the preview of next week.

[Hopefulsuicide]

Yep... unless they provided that as false info to throw us off and Alpha is someone else... but TBH unless it's an even better Buffy alum, it'll be a bit dissapointing.

[Xanderman]

I agree, I don't mind standalones, but when the show is so dangerously close to being cancelled, I was hoping we'd have just a straight run through of adrenaline packed, twist filled story lines.The funny thing is in theory of course standalones are good for attracting new viewers, and increasing viewership in that way. But at the same time, standalones aren't really as appealing to long-watching fans who follow and know the story/mythology, and want to see it progress to be really engaged. That said, not a true standalone anyway so it's all good. (This show hasn't done any true standalones.)


I also agree that Eliza's acting was OTT in this eppie, and that vomiting was a bit too much. Just a very shocked and repulsed look would have made much more senseYeah, something more like Marty's reaction to his mom kissing him in BTTF would have been far more appropriate. (Shutting his eyes until the horror was over. lol He didn't react in complete disgust.)


It is kind of sweet though isn't it. Topher such a little kid, of all the things he could have imprinted her with, what he picked was entirely innocent. And of course, he probably wouldn't have been able to get away with anything else not-so-innocent. Only the hypocrite Dewitt is allowed to get away with crap like that. lol


And no, it doesn't feel to me that it's like living forever, but it depends on your own set of beliefs. Do you believe in a soul? Do you believe that who we are comes from the actual muscle of the brain (in which case you would need the whole body to survive) or is who we are just the information our brain posesses? In which case, it is kind of like living forever, isn't it?I think it's the brain that matters most. It's only living forever if your brain continues, not just a copy of the information from it. If the information is placed into another brain, it doesn't suddenly become you, in that you don't suddenly leave your first body and start existing in the new one, nor do you exist in both simultaneously. The copy exists separate from your consciousness, and therefore is not you. Just a duplicate.

[Welling_is_pretty]

I thought this episode would not be that great but I was surprised by how good I thought it was.

The mystery of the client's death, Boyd taking to the head of Security position, but the best stuff was Topher and Sierra (who is really turning into the breakout character of the show!).

This was also the first time that I really lost sight of Eliza as Eliza and just saw her character. Usually I can't see past "Eliza" (some corner in my mind keeps waiting for her to say "Five by Five") but this time I was completely submerged in the imprint.

In the last few episodes I feel that the show has really found it's voice (now that it's in danger of being canceled, of course) and I find myself really looking forward to the next ep., something that i wasn't doing before.

[Pamela]

[QUOTE=Welling_is_pretty;4774786
This was also the first time that I really lost sight of Eliza as Eliza and just saw her character. Usually I can't see past "Eliza" (some corner in my mind keeps waiting for her to say "Five by Five") but this time I was completely submerged in the imprint.[/QUOTE]

This is what I kind of meant in my post earlier. I thought she showed more range in this eppie.

The gagging/almost vomitting scene might have been a little over the top as many people feel. However, didn't it almost have to be? (The director probably wanted to avoid any thoughts that he/she was condoning incest!)

[Vergon6]

This is what I kind of meant in my post earlier. I thought she showed more range in this eppie.

The gagging/almost vomitting scene might have been a little over the top as many people feel. However, didn't it almost have to be? (The director probably wanted to avoid any thoughts that he/she was condoning incest!)
I agree. It was purposely over the top because it had to be lol.

[Welling_is_pretty]

The gagging/almost vomitting scene might have been a little over the top as many people feel. However, didn't it almost have to be? (The director probably wanted to avoid any thoughts that he/she was condoning incest!)
I agree that that scene was over the top but I just figured it was Joss and/or Jed playing it up for laughs. I didn't think of it as the director's doing...

[ginnyfan]

I liked the Agatha Christie feel of this episode.

Paul/Mellie makes me sad. I'm curious to see what kind of information he's going to feed her about herself. I really wish she weren't a doll.

Topher/Sierra was cute.

If they get another season I hope it has more of an ensemble feel than this one. With all the main dolls sharing the opening credits. I dunno.

Where's Alpha?

[CallMeClark]

Yep... unless they provided that as false info to throw us off and Alpha is someone else... but TBH unless it's an even better Buffy alum, it'll be a bit dissapointing.
Exactly! If Sarah Michelle Gellar turns out to be Alpha I'll FLIP! :lol: ;)

[Pamela]

I agree that that scene was over the top but I just figured it was Joss and/or Jed playing it up for laughs. I didn't think of it as the director's doing...

Wouldn't it be the director saying to Eliza, "Make it crystal clear that you are SO NOT into locking lips with your own son!" But I guess it could have been those guys playing it up for laughs.

[Hopefulsuicide]

Exactly! If Sarah Michelle Gellar turns out to be Alpha I'll FLIP! :lol: ;)

It's weird, cause at first I just couldn't see him as Alpha... but now when i try to think of anyone better for the role, i come up dry... I'm so excited to see him! :D