Alias Grace: A Brief Review

So I just binge-watched the Netflix series Alias Grace, on Netflix (based on the Margaret Atwood novel, which I haven't read). I recommend it. It's a historical drama, focused on women's experiences (even the parts about men are about how they think about, and use, women), and a lot about power and the lack of it. It's also a marvelous narrative contraption, with some real subtle possible interpretations lurking just under the surface of the ending, leaving us with a marvelous ambiguity. Also very well acted & shot. (One other advantage: it's a good length, six 45-minute episodes, and it's a closed story, not an open-ended thing.)

If you don't know, it's based on a true story, a mid-nineteenth century murder case (this is not a spoiler, it's shown in the first few minutes, and then circled back to, repeatedly).

The only negative comment I have, really, is that the actors are required to play a very wide range of ages. The lead actress is superb as the main age she's asked to do, but a scene where she gets her first period was jarring because I'd assumed (just from appearance, not having adequately thought through the timing) that she was supposed to be about 20 at that point. Similarly, one actor at the end (shan't say who, it's a spoiler) is made up to be old & it's quite unconvincing. Not sure how this could have been avoided, though.

One particular thing I really liked is a spoiler, so I'll ROT13 it: Va gur svany rcvfbqr, jura Tenpr fcrnxf va Znel'f ibvpr, vg ernyyl fbhaqrq yvxr gur npgerff jub cynlrq Znel gb zr. Ohg ernqvat hc n ovg, vg'f npghnyyl zhpu pbbyre guna gung: nccneragyl gur npgerff jub cynlrq Znel qvq gur fprar, fb gur npgerff jub cynlrq Tenpr pbhyq zvzvp vg, naq gura gur npgerff jub cynlrq Tenpr npghnyyl qvq jung jr urneq. Vg'f dhvgr n fcyraqvq ovg bs npgvat juvpu uvgf dhvgr gur evtug abgr.

Don't let that stop you, though. It's quality television. (And now I want to read the book!)

How to Survive

Every time I rewatch the trailer for How to Survive a Plague (2012) — and I find it compulsively rewatchable; I keep playing it in the background as I prepare for my lecture on AIDS on Tuesday morning — I tear up when I get to the part where Peter Staley, speaking in 1990 at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS in San Francisco, says "Some day, there will be a people alive on this earth who will hear the story that once there was a terrible disease, and that a brave group of people stood up an fought, and in some cases died, so that others might live and be free."



Well, one small slice of those people will be the students in the course I'm teaching, on Tuesday afternoon. All of them are younger than the drug cocktail that produced the so-called Lazarus effect in 1996; that has shaped their world. But they should hear the story behind.

And if you haven't seen the movie yourself, see it. If you have seen it, see it again. Not only because it is an amazing story. But we have a lot of terrible evils that plague this world. This is how we'll survive them: by acting up. And fighting back.

Very Brief, Spiler-Free Thoughts on Marvel's Agents of Shield, Season 1

So Agents of Shield turned out fun, in the end. For those of you who bailed, the place to start is probably episode 10, when the show got significantly better. To be sure, it took a second step up around episode 13... but I think 10-11 are good enough, and also important enough plot-wise, to make 10 the starting place. 12 is worth skipping; after 10-11, go on to 13, and then all the remainder.  (There are a few threads from eps 2-9 you'll miss references to if you skip 'em... but they're well worth skipping anyway.)

I do worry, however, about Season 2. What made s1 work in the second half was the arc. But the *last* time a flawed Whedon show tried this — Dollhouse, which also had lame standalones in the first half of s1, good arc in the second half — they went back to lame stand-alones early in season 2 long enough to get it canceled before returning to good arc. I worry Whedon comes from a time in TV's history when stand-alones were just expected, and that he tends to try 'em. And I can totally see A of S going back in that direction. Which would suck.

But maybe not. And the second half of s1 was fun. It wasn't as good as Buffy/Firefly, to be sure, or even Dollhouse; but it was enjoyable. Which nine eps in I really didn't think it ever would be.

3/10/2013

I have blogged about palindromic dates once before, and at the time discussed two of my very favorite* palindromes: Georges Perec's Grand Pallindrome, and J. A. Lindon's brilliant palindromic poem "Doppelgänger".  (The latter is posted in its entirety at the link.)

Once you pass out of 2012, palindromic dates become in short supply -- although, of course, it all depends on what date system you use (search for "palindrome", or just scroll down.)  And if you just write the necessary numbers -- thus, "3" for the day and not "03" -- and put them in the European rather than the usual American order (which, to be fair, makes more sense (although not as much as the Chinese manner, which styles today 2013-10-3)), then today, yes, is a palindromic date.

So to celebrate, I thought I'd post** one of my very favorite artistic uses of palindromes -- up there with Perec and the Lindon -- Weird Al Yankovic's marvelous song/video parody, "Bob".

Incidentally, while the lyrics to this stand on their own (after all, they're perfectly balanced), the video itself is a parody of a famous video (avant la lettre) by Bob Dylan of his song Subterranean Homesick Blues.  If you don't know the latter, you might want to watch it first, not only 'cause it's great, but in order to properly enjoy the parody.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Weird Al:



Happy palindrome day!

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* Yes, I'm claiming the Perec as a favorite without ever having read it (see post for details); I like the idea of it, the fact of it, enough for it to qualify.

** Actually repost, but the earlier post was buried in a link dump and you probably missed it (close attention that I know you pay notwithstanding).

A Marvelous Jazz Visualization

Via, here's a fabulous animation visualizing (part of) the title track to John Coltrane's classic 1959 album Giant Steps, by Israeli artist Michal Levy*.  Take a look:

Sadly, she seems to have done only two such animations -- the other, "One", animates music by contemporary jazz musician Jason Lindner (about whom I otherwise know nothing, although I liked what she used in her video).  You can see that video at the artist's web site.



Some canny jazz educator should hire her to make more of these.  The Coltrane one does such a good job of helping you hear what's going on in the music, while also being a beautiful work in its own right.

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* Note the youtube page from which I took the embedded video misspells her name; as shown in the video credits, it's Michal, not Michael.

Quote of the Day: the Murders We Romanticize and the Murders We Don't

The city of Deadwood, they stage the murder of [Wild Bill] Hickok fourteen times a day. People have the security of knowing that that story is going to go on, and they'll be able to see Hickok killed 365 days a year.  Which might be an alternative argument in terms of continuing stories past the point of their utility. ...

All of Chinatown [in the Deadwood series] was intended as a venue for storytelling, to show the people who were invisible to what history takes to be the main story of a place.  And the process of servicing the illusions of those who are telling history what history will take to be the main story of a place -- the process of servicing that is never very pretty.  They used to bring in whores for the people too poor to pay for the white prostitutes.  The only way to make that economically feasible was not to feed the Chinese whores.  So they would just let them get fucked to death, until they starved.

They don't stage that fourteen times a day in Deadwood.

-- David Milch, "The Meaning of Endings: David Milch on the Conclusion of Deadwood" (

The heart of this fabulous little DVD extra -- available, I believe, only in the DVD set containing the complete series (which has a disk above and beyond the extras disks contained in each of the three season sets) -- is excerpted here.  A summary of the whole is here.  (Via Canavan, who comments at the link.)  It's just Milch rambling -- but "just" is very much not le mot juste here.  It's Milch, rambling -- and doing so with grace and insight.  The bit above isn't the best bit, but it's good, and I hadn't seen it quoted or transcribed anywhere, so I thought I'd quote it.

Here's one more sentence, more in tune with the main theme of Milch's rambling:

The biggest lie is the idea that we are entitled to a meaningful and coherent summarizing, a conclusion, of something which never concludes.

-- Ibid.

I Have No Idea How Reliable The Information On This List Is...

...but if it's reliable, then this is fabulous, and quite well put together:


Incidentally, the one famous film moment I'd always heard was improvised that's not on this list is the classic moment in Indiana Jones when some guy jumps out and does some fancy routine with a sword, and Jones just shoots him.  I wonder if it wasn't really improvised?  Or if it was and the makers of this video just didn't know about it?

On the Mayan Apocalypse

CORDELIA
...if the world doesn't end, I'm gonna need a note.

-- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Episode 3.12, "Helpless", by David Fury

Tidbits, Short Takes and Links

• Overall, the Obama win feels less like a glorious victory & more like a near-miss car collision that you're thankful to have walked away from unscathed.

• So if Romney *had* shown his tax returns, would he have won? Or would he have lost even bigger? We'd have to see them to know...

• LBJ famously said, after signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that it would cost the Democratic party the South for a generation.  Perhaps he should have added, after signing the 1965 immigration reform bill, "...and this is how we'll get it back."

• Dear students: folding over one corner does not keep two pieces of paper together. Use a stapler. Love, a grumpy teacher.

• So I understand that we're now all supposed to be interested in former CIA director Petraeus's sex life, and his mistress's enemies lover, and so forth.  My inner paranoid thinks the media's obsessing over Petraeus to distract us from the robbery of the public under cover of deficit hype.

• If you remove Jindal's "we must not be the party that" qualifiers from in front of them, then these seem like pretty accurate descriptions of the Republican party today:

• "the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes"
• "the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"
• "dumbed-down conservatism... being simplistic... [and] insulting the intelligence of the voters"

Sounds about right.  In fairness, the first definitely applies to the Democrats too, albeit less so.

• NPR reporter misreads present-day novel as future apocalypse due to denial about climate change.

• Call it peace or call it treason, call it love or call it reason, but I ain't marchin' any more.

• Yglesias on the larger-picture problem with GOP poll denialism:

Common sense just turns out to be a poor guide to a lot of complicated social phenomena.... sociologically speaking, being on the same side as expert opinion is a high-status concept inside liberal and Democratic Party circles. This sociological embrace of expertise acts to temper the psychological mechanism of confirmation bias. On the right, the idea of academic expertise is held in low esteem. Conservatives accurately perceive that academia is hostile to nationalism and religious traditionalism and thus become much more prone to become out of touch with academic knowledge or to reject valid academic insights even on other topics. The same mechanism that can make you clueless about the meaning of "independent" self-identification can also lead to dangerously misleading public policy conclusions. Common sense and going with your gut are a poor way to understand the world.

• Wow. Or should I say 惊人.

• Buffy episodes summarized in limericks.  They're up to mid-season-three so far...

• I think the Walmart strikes are the most hopeful story in the news right now.

Joss Whedon on the Election

(Via, but what, like I wasn't going to run across this somewhere and post it at soon as I saw it? Puh-leeze.)

Six Brief Notes On Safety Not Guaranteed

As I've alluded to from time to time, I don't really see first-run movies these days -- babysitters are expensive, work expansive. It's just not something I expect to do -- it's not so much that I want to and can't as that the idea doesn't really occur to me. But life happens, friends from out of town visit (thanks, Barry!), the stars align, and exceptions occur. So a few days ago, I actually saw a first-run movie in an actual theater: Safety Not Guaranteed. To mark the occasion I wanted to say a few things about it, none of which will spoil anything beyond the first ten minutes of the movie, except one note about the presence of a particular actor in a minor role.

1) Safety Not Guaranteed has a neat set-up. The idea is this. A reporter for a magazine, looking for a story, hones in on this classified ad:

Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed.

He decides to check out the guy, to see if he is nuts, running a scam or (just maybe) someone who has built a time machine. He takes two interns with him, one of whom -- played by Aubrey Plaza -- is the protagonist and main viewpoint character of the film. And they go meet the guy who placed the ad.

2) Safety Not Guaranteed is fabulous. It's really, really funny. It's a fabulous character piece, with (in particular) the characters of the intern, the reporter and the man who placed the ad all being fabulous, rich characters with multiple sides. It's well-directed, well-acted, well-written. Really, this is a superb film. Go see it.

3) ...but don't read other reviews, or even really see the preview, before you do, because they all give away too much. I went into the film knowing nothing more than I just outlined in #1 (all of which, again, is laid out right at the movie's beginning), and am really glad I did. But the preview gives more away, and most of the reviews I've seen really give a lot away. Things the movie keeps you guessing about -- like what really is up with the guy who places the ad -- reviews spoil. (Hell, Ebert spoiled the very end of the film in his review.) I think it'd still be worth seeing -- there's a lot more here than the bare plot -- but why not have the full experience? If you want to see it knowing the plot, you can always see it again. (I probably won't -- as I said, I don't really see movies in theaters these days -- but I'd love to see it again if I could.) So avoid spoilers: go see the movie on my sole say-so. You'll be glad you did.

4) Kristen Bell, aka Veronica Mars, has a small role in the movie.

5) The ad in the movie, it turns out, is real -- taken word-for-word for real life, with only the P.O. Box and the sentence order changed. The filmmakers just took the ad and wrote a movie about it. Here's a story by the guy who placed the ad explaining the real reason why he did it. No spoilers for the movie, of course, since they made up their own ad-placer and own story totally different from the real one.

6) The second volume in the Hereville series, Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite, is coming out in November and is available for pre-order on Amazon. Here's my review of the fabulous first volume in the series. And if you don't see what this has to do with Safety Not Guaranteed, Noble Reader, then you're not reading carefully.

Summer Batman Entertainment

No, not the film -- which I haven't seen, largely because seeing films in theaters just doesn't fit into my life these days for a variety of reasons -- but rather political analyses of the film, which I, for one, have found quite interesting and entertaining. To wit:

• Aaron Brady, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Dark Knight" (via)
• Abigail Nussbaum, "The Dark Knight Rises" (via previous)
• Henry Farrell, "Men of Stahlhartes Gehäuse: Or, The Dark Knight Rises on Followership"
• Gavin Mueller, ‘The Dark Knight’ is No Capitalist… (via previous)

My favorite is probably the Brady, but I found them all interesting and, well, entertaining. So, if you're looking for some high-quality lite summer popcorn political theorizing, have to.

Update: 2 and 1/2 months later, David Graeber writes a piece on this topic.  Not what you'd call timely, I guess, but worth reading.

I Would Never Have Watched This If It Didn't Star Amy Acker

But since it does, I did, and I'm glad I did. It's a cool little film, a 2-minute short -- sort of the video equivalent of a short story, or maybe even a short-short. Amusingly weird. (Not at all NSFW, but there is a fair amount of screaming, so watch the volume.) Check it out:



File under "why the web is awesome", sub-category, "outlet for low-cost creativity that puts larger budgeted corporate glop to shame".*
(Via Whedonesque)

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* Although come to think of it, that may be damning with faint praise.

A Brilliant Ad, and a Missed Opportunity

So for those of you who (like me) did not watch the superbowl, and who (like me) are a child of the 80s, this (extended version of a) superbowl commercial is highly, highly recommended:



Fabulous.

But I really can't believe they didn't work in the quote "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." I mean, that was a total !@#$%ing gimme. According to this site, the licence plate reads "SOCHOIC" in honor of that. But it's really totally insufficient. You had to have the man say it. How could they not? (Were they scared of the implications of "if you have the means"? I hope not -- it's just so pathetic -- but I can't think of any other reason...)

(The article at that link, by the way, spells out all the references for anyone who might need a refresher.)

The Ogre's Feathers

I just watched a brilliant short film called "The Ogre's Feathers", written and directed by Michael Almereyda. I was interested primarily because I'm procrastinating on grading my exams it includes SF writer, critic and all around Man of Marvelous Letters Samuel R. Delany in a small supporting role as the ill king (the first person on the screen is he) who needs an ogre feather to recover. (That's the reason my friend Ron Drummond, who's done editorial work for Delany, linked to it, which is how I saw it.)

The film is based on the story from Italo Calvino's book Italian Folktales called "The Feathered Ogre". (It's only three pages long; you should be able to read it at the link.)

The film is described by its creators as a "silent" film, but that's not quite right: there are sound effects and music. (Actually, both of those are quite well done and are part of the pleasures of the film.) I'm tempted to say "wordless", but that's not quite right either: there are words, put on title cards (white letters on a black screen), as used to be done in silent films. But there are no spoken words in the film.

(Which raises a question for me: why didn't silent films use subtitles? Was it simply that no one ever thought of it, or was there some technical reason (or aesthetic reason) why they wouldn't work? It seems like a far better (subtler, more efficient, less disruptive) way of communicating words on film using text than title cards. Yet I can't recall ever seeing a silent film use them. Does anyone know?)

I will admit that I'm not quite sure the not-really-silent-silent-film aspect really works. It's a bit odd given the sound -- the really quite gorgeously done sound, including, at one point, inaudible voices of children in the background. (Silent movies had music, but this has sound effects -- doors closing, etc -- which make the lack of voices odder.) And it slows down the movie, and makes it artificial... although that last point may be a plus, given that the entirety is a fairytale, but that it is filmed & set in contemporary New York: the oddity may be necessary to make it work. But it's an interesting (and clearly quite deliberate) artistic choice, and doesn't stop me recommending the film.

What I liked best, though, was the cinematography -- the movie is just gorgeously photographed, in incredibly rich black and white, with marvelous settings, frame compositions, and so forth. It really is plain old fabulous to look at. (It's very well acted too; I particularly liked Rachel Chandler as the ogre's wife.)

-- although here, too, I must admit one quibble: the entire film is gorgeous and beautiful... except for two brief scenes which take place on a ferry. Apparently they couldn't get permission to film on the real ferry, so they used rear screen projection for those scenes -- which looks oddly fake and off-putting compared to every other frame of the film.* (And it's odd, because they make it look like an old movie -- one of the movies in which that technique was regularly used -- whereas it otherwise doesn't, for all that it's a (not-really-silent) silent, black-and-white film.) Given that they updated the rest of the visual setting (i.e. talking and acting as if were a fairy tale but filming in NYC), I would have suggested trying the subway, or a bus, and referring to it as a ferry.

But quibbles aside, I really enjoyed it.

So here's the film. It's about 20 minutes long; the youtube is listed as "unlisted", meaning it doesn't show up in search results but is still available for embedding and linking (unlike "private" videos). So hopefully this (or this link) should work:



Finally, now that you've watched the film (come on, those exams can wait...), one small plot quibble which is a SPOILER for the movie (and the short story too):

In the story, the hero is asked by three additional people (apart from the ill king) to bring feathers, but is asked by four additional people for information. Each time the ogre's wife takes a feather she asks a question, so that the monks, the fourth set of information seekers (who requested no feather) go along with the feather for the king (who needed no information). Four feathers, four questions. In the film, however, the monks are cut out, which means that the wife asks only three questions and takes (or we see her take) only three feathers. Which means that I was counting feathers as they redistributed them to those who had asked, sure that the hero would run short. But he didn't: he gave out four feathers. Which is to say, cutting the monks left a plot loophole that I for one wish they had somehow filled (maybe one of the other three questioners could have refrained from asking for a feather?).

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* Even the scenes on the ferry are beautiful if you ignore the background and just look at the actors. The background looks lousy, though.

Something To Look Forward To...

The buzz on the internet this morning:

....there was some speculation that it could be a hoax (the title certainly would fit), but Nathan Fillion, who broke the news, has confirmed that it's real. (Apparently he's playing Dogberry.) And then so Maurissa Tancharoen did too. And of course Whedon has spoken often in interviews of the Shakespeare reading groups he does with his friends (including people he casts in his TV projects). So I'm guessing it's legit.

So, uh, yay!!

More here.

Update (10/25): So this news is everywhere now -- like, even in the newspaper of record. (Are they still that?) Unsurprisingly, Whedonesque is the place to go for all your MAAN news. The juciest single news source I've seen on it is this interview with Whedon, Sean "Dr. Tam" Maher and Amy "Fred/Illyria" Acker. Apparently the film is in black and white -- which is cool (I wonder if that was a purely aesthetic decision, or if it was also financial?). And it was shot entirely at Joss's own house -- which, who knew, was designed by his wife Kai, who's an architect.

The full cast list is in the official press release, but I'm going to quote this blog post which lists the actors and parts along with Whedon-fan-friendly identifications:

Amy Acker (Angel) will play Beatrice and Alexis Denisof (Angel) will play Benedict. Fran Kranz (Dollhouse) will play Claudio and newcomer Jillian Morgese (The Avengers) will play Hero. Nathan Fillion (Firefly) is Dogberry, Clark Gregg (The Avengers) is Leonato, Reed Diamond (Dollhouse) is Don Pedro.

Additionally, Sean Maher (Firefly) is Don Juan (the villain of the piece), and Tom Lenk (Andrew from Buffy/Angel) plays Verges. And that's it for Whedon alums that I can see on the list.

I don't know Gregg, 'cause The Avengers hasn't come out yet, or Morgese, 'cause she's a "newcomer" (how'd she get so lucky?), but the others are all fun to imagine in their respective roles.

Boycott the New Buffy Movie!

So it looks like they're really making a new Buffy movie... without Joss Whedon's input. (via Gerry.)

Didn't we all learn from the TV show that when things return from the dead they're soulless impostors of what they were before, and the best thing to do is simply to shove something through their heart and turn them to dust?

Joss Wedon is utterly full of humor and class about the situation. (Again via.) Among many other things, he says that "I can't wish people who are passionate about my little myth ill."

Not being as classy (or funny) as Mr. Whedon, however, not to mention not having a career in the industry that the perpetrators of this horror do (as he does), I can wish them ill, and do. I hope the !@#$$%% thing never gets made.

So I am encouraging everyone to boycott the new Buffy movie. Not to protest anything, mind: but simply because it can't possibly be anything but a stain on the reputation of one of the best TV shows ever made. Don't boycott in order to achieve some end: just don't go see it, because it'll be bad. If we're lucky, they'll drop the idea, and there won't be a stain on the good name of a great show. If not... at least people will be saved from seeing the damn thing.

I mean, seriously. We already have one Buffy movie to tell people to avoid while steering them towards the TV show. Do we really need another?

So boycott it. Really. Maybe if enough people sign on, they'll drop the idea and go put out a film that has even a hope of being worth seeing. Or at least one that won't defame a great work of art.

What If... Dollhouse Had Been a Music Video Instead of a TV Show?

It might have been as good as its best parts, and only four minutes long (h/t to Gerry):



The video is, itself, an SF story, staring Fran Kanz (who had a lead role on Dollhouse as Topher) and Maurissa Tancharoen (who wrote for the show, including co-writing Epitaph One, far and away the best episode they ever did (as well as having a bit role as Kilo)). The story, told entirely in images without words, is not itself based directly on the show, but as io9 put it, it "thematically echoes" it. Certainly it's an elegant little tale, given the constraints it was clearly made under.

The song for which this is the video is "Remains", which was used in "Epitaph One", and which was written by the writers of the episode (Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon) as a budget-saving measure to avoid having to pay royalties for an actual song; I think it's fabulous, myself. But go ahead, watch the video and you can listen to the song, and judge for yourself.

This is all apparently a promo for the DVDs of Season Two of Dollhouse, which are out today. Only worth watching if you've already watched the far superior (and more consistent) Whedon shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog; otherwise don't bother with Dollhouse. But if you liked all those, then there's a lot to like in Dollhouse... at least if you stick to the good parts version and don't go doing something silly like watching the first five episodes of season one.

Holy Shinola, David Simon Just Won a MacArthur Genius Grant!

Sure, creating a program that has been endlessly referred to as the greatest TV show of all time -- largely although not entirely because it happens to be the plain fact of the matter that it is the greatest fucking TV show of all time -- ought to qualify you as a genius.

But it's nice to know that people with gobs and gobs of money to give away can see that too.

So yay! David Simon won a MacArthur!

Oh, and a bunch of other people did too. None of whom, oddly enough, seem to have created any TV shows. What were we talking about again?

(Links via Canavan and Yglesias.)

Update: Interview with Simon here.

Dollhouse: The Good Parts Version (a guide)

"When she was good,
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid...."

The first episode of the second season of Joss Whedon's tv show Dollhouse aired tonight, although I haven't seen it yet, because it doesn't go up on hulu until tomorrow sometime (and we don't get broadcast tv).

But in case anyone wants to catch up on Season 1 before watching Season 2 I thought I'd outline for you the good parts version. Because, far more than any Whedon show to date, Dollhouse is really uneven.

Hell, even Whedon & the rest of the Dollhouse crew admitted as much in talking up episode 6, saying that that was when they finally got it right -- stopped telling the self-contained and silly stories of the week (possibly pushed on them by the network executives in a highly misguided attempt to make the show accessible rather than good) and started to tell their overall story.

Now, to be clear, I wouldn't particularly recommend Dollhouse to anyone who isn't already a Whedon fan. Why watch the quite flawed Dollhouse when you can go and watch the sublime Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog? -- shows that, while not without flaws, are overall the best TV made this side of The Wire. But if you are already a fan of those shows -- or if for whatever reason you don't want to watch them but want to try Dollhouse -- here's how to do it.

Almost the entire narrative arc of the 13-episode Season 1 was contained in 6 episodes. You can definitely tune in to the first of these episodes and get caught up right away. And if you just watch those 6, you'll be watching a very solid, interesting, thought-provoking show. Those 6 are:

1.06 - Man on the Street
1.08 - Needs
1.09 - A Spy in the House of Love
1.11 - Briar Rose
1.12 - Omega
1.13 - Epitaph One

Now I'm not saying you won't miss anything watching only those six. To the degree that there was anything good about the bad episodes of Dollhouse, it was the dribs and drabs of the overall story sprinkled about among otherwise mediocre-to-bad stories of the week. But those six are definitely the best, contain the vast portion of the central story -- and certainly are perfectly understandable on their own.

As of right now, four of those six episodes -- all but the first and the last -- are available on hulu for free. But they take down all but the most recent episodes, so tomorrow when they post the first episode of season two they might take down "Needs". Update: Season one is no longer on hulu, but you can by the show for a couple of bucks an episode at itunes or Amazon, or can rent/buy/netflix them on DVD.

("Epitaph One" isn't on hulu because, for various reasons that are too complicated to go into, it was never aired on U.S. tv, although it was or will be aired in most foreign markets; but it is probably the best episode of Season 1 (although it would make no sense without the other five listed) and should definitely not be skipped.)

I think five of those six episodes are very, very good. The one exception is "Omega", the end of the two-parter that was the conclusion as the show aired on U.S. tv. It's good, although in a number of ways it was a bit disappointing. Still worth watching since it is key to the overall story -- and, again, it's pretty good.

So if you haven't watched Dollhouse, and want to try it, watch those six.

The other seven... well, they vary from quite bad episodes with only a few good touches here and there to flawed episodes that have some genuinely good stuff mixed in with the failures. By common consensus, the first five episodes were simply a bad start to the series; the two later ones I am suggesting skipping were the more stand-alone-ish of the good half of the season. If you want to watch a few more episodes, then the ones I would suggest adding in first are those two -- 1.7, "Echoes" and 1.10 "Haunted". Not great, but both have some good stuff in them. If you want to try one of the five misfire episodes that began the show, I think the best of them was 1.4, "Grey Hour", which had some genuinely nice touches. But don't try it first; start with 1.6, "Man on the Street", to see what the show can do when it's good -- and if you're anything less than utterly committed to it (in which case this entire post doesn't really apply to you, does it) then stick to the six above.

As for season two -- who knows. So far the few reviews I've seen have been mostly positive if not overwhelming. If they can stick to the promise of episodes 6, 8, 9, 11 & 12, it should be a very fun show to watch. If they can match the promise of episode 13, "Epitaph One" -- and the only negative comments I've seen from reviewers of it have been expressed fears that they can do anything to match the promises and expectations set up in that fabulous hour of television -- it will be an amazingly fabulous show -- worthy of the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. (If not -- well, we'll always have Sunnydale.)

So if you've liked stuff that Whedon's done in the past -- try Dollhouse. It's good, when it's good. But stick to the path. You know what happens to characters who ignore that advice in stories, and it ain't ever pretty.

(PS: I haven't seen the unaired pilot, included on the dvd, which was scrapped for parts which ended up in many of the later shows in the season. But a number of things I've seen indicate that it started the show out at the level of these six -- only to have Whedon, possibly at the urging of Fox executives, back down to the level of the first five before crawling back up. But it's not apparently good to watch except as an outtake, since it went in a different direction than they ultimately went -- it's not part of the same story. Ah well.)

Update for Season Two (first half):

Of the ten episodes (out of 13 total) that have aired as of this writing (December 19, 2009), no less than seven would fit unproblematically onto the list above, i.e. every episode from #4 ("Belonging") on. Starting with episode four they got their act together and have made a solid show (i.e. it took them just long enough to get them canceled -- or, perhaps, it was the fact of cancellation that made them focus and tell the good central story they have to tell and not waste time with silly stand-alones.)

The second and third episodes of the season are solid stand-alones, comparable to the later-season stand-alones of season one -- i.e. good but skipabble. #3, "Belle Chose", is better than #2, "Instinct", if you're only going to see one. But if you're sticking with the main plot, skip both.

The season opener ("Vows") is complicated: unlike any of the season one episodes, it mixes some key (and awesome) overarching plot material with a pretty blah story-of-the-week plot; basically, the B-plot belongs solidly on this list, while the A-plot belongs solidly on the skip-it list. If you want to watch the B-plot, the way to do it is to hone in on any scene with Amy Acker ("Dr. Claire Saunders") while fast-forwarding past any scene with Eliza Dushku ("Echo") -- with the possible exception of the last ten minutes or so. Otherwise, just watch the whole thing and remember I warned you.

So the current, updated list is:

1.06 - Man on the Street
1.08 - Needs
1.09 - A Spy in the House of Love
1.11 - Briar Rose
1.12 - Omega
1.13 - Epitaph One
2.01 - Vows (*B-plot only*)
2.04 - Belonging
2.05 - The Public Eye
2.06 - The Left Hand
2.07 - Meet Jane Doe
2.08 - A Love Supreme
2.09 - Stop-Loss
2.10 - The Attic