Dollhouse – Bait, meet switch

So this is the way the world ends; a week after a big bang, and in two weeks with another whimper. Last week’s installment of Dollhouse was so good, you almost have to grade this week’s on a curve. The big twisties have twisted, the big shocks have been shocked, and now we’re just left with the resolution. It’s not fair to watch these two episodes in a row, because in the end, you’re just left wanting.

With a week worth of hindsight, some of the developments in  “Getting Closer” make more sense.  Whiskey obviously had to return, and now we know that, even as Dr. Saunders, she was working at Boyd’s direction (So all of that backstory between Whiskey and Topher? Yeah, there was little point, and no resolution). As much as I liked Summer Glau’s Bennett Havlerson, her character has no place in the resolution of the overall series, and death pushed Topher into the man he needed to become. Boyd being the big bad, well, the jury is still out on that one. It’s good, though, that he’ll be there to see what he wrought, and be devastated by it … or … you know, maybe not.

Oh, and Millie/November died. Was that really necessary? I mean, seriously? What weight did that hold? The whole “good half sacrifices so bad half of brain doesn’t succeed” was a big, unnecessary cliché. Sure, she probably doesn’t fit into the future storyline (because I guess you’ve still got to put Echo and Ballard together), but she could have easily died in the “Ten Years Later” period.

And about that “Ten Years Later”: it doesn’t work. In the Terminator series, the theme works — that no matter what they do, the future is inevitable. But only because we see the Connors — Sarah and John — try again and again. In the Dollhouse universe, we come to this big final set piece. November is sacrificed. The Big Bad is dispatched. Only to find out that it doesn’t matter, that by the year 2020 (or, as it won’t be ironically known as, the Year of the Hindsight), our heroes will be in the same hell they were already in for.

After all of the build up of the last three episodes — after the killer twists of last week and after trusting in Joss Whedon to give us a great series, or at least a great finish — tune-in in two weeks to watch the world get saved by a whimper.

Other imprint-ions

• So I guess Rossum made Caroline an offer she couldn’t refuse, eh?
• Nice to see that Sierra and Victor came back, though I guess it was a foregone conclusion.
• Topher still had the blood on his face.
• If Victor had to get imprinted one more time, Topher was definitely the way to go.
• So who was Wiskey last week when she went all, “Bullet in the brain pan, squish?”
• Olivia’s little hand rub when Boyd tried to justify Bennett’s murder was an interesting show of her development.
• “Every time your nervous system blocks an imprint, it leaves nuerochemica….” I guess no sci-fi show can completely avoid meaningless technobabble.
• “I figure if I’m responsible for the end of the world, I get to name it.”

Clacked by Ivey West
on Jan 16, 2010 @ 12:08 EST5EDT