Dollhouse, Season 1
Mar. 17th, 2010 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroY'know, everyone told me the series really picks up after episode 6, but I think the first half of the season is really necessary to explore the concept and set up the tension in the second half, and it was definitely entertaining throughout. (The early episodes, with their "monster-of-the-week" style, were on par with most episodes of Pushing Daisies in terms of wit and concept, and you can get me watching for quite some time on wit alone.) If you like Whedon in general, it's worth the time. (Also, however Season 2 turns out, Season 1 is perfectly fine as an independent arc.)
It's a really dark series, and actually kinda caught me off guard, as it's much darker than Buffy, Angel or Firefly pretty much ever was, even in the later seasons. It doesn't pull punches, but it does try to force you to think about the ramifications of the setting.
I mean, the ramifications of the setting are the entire point of "Epitaph One"--if this technology exists, what will eventually happen? (One character notes during the series that the first thing people do with new technology is to use it as a weapon. That's incorrect: The first thing they try to do is have sex with it. The second thing they try to do is use it as a weapon.) The idea that this technology would destroy civilization, given what was presented as the track it was developing on? Totally believable. Cruel to do to your audience when you think the show is cancelled, but even so.
The thing is, there is some hope in the otherwise, "Fuck you, audience!" last episode, if you were paying attention to the message of the episode before it: Alpha is insane because his non-imprinted personality was insane. The original him is still in there, no matter what they wipe. And that's presented to use right before we see the results of Echo's "composite event"--that she remains sane, if overly noble and idealistic. Because Caroline was overly noble and idealistic. And every imprint we see Echo take eventually follows a noble, idealistic path, whether that's on- or off-mission. We only see the same imprint in different people a couple of times, but you can see the subtle differences between Taffy-in-Echo and Taffy-in-Sierra.
I think the idea they're pretty clear about is that this technology is new, and there's still a lot that even the Dollhouse builders don't know about it. They put it into production without a real awareness of side effects or reprecussions.
Which brings me to ostensibly the scariest (because it's most realistic) application of the technology presented--rich people "trading up" to new, younger bodies and living forever. The problems with this all surround the idea of "self"--where is the "real" you? For all the standard sci-fi conceit of uploading yourself into a computer, that's not "you". Your awareness, your consciousness, for good or ill, stays in the meat. Echo without Caroline's memories is still fundamentally Caroline, and the consciousness that experiences Echo's actions is Caroline's. If you download a dead person into a Active, they talk and act and think they're the dead person, but they're the active doing an amazing imitation. They're a photocopy, not the original person somehow transferred. (To pull in another source, they're the man in the prestige--the original is the man in the tank.) It's the classic teleporter question: Am I stepping into a gateway, or an incinerator?
So when D. Gustingly Richguy III gets himself downloaded into, say, Victor and lets his old body die, he dies. The new entity, Richguy-in-Victor, is a fundamentally different person than the original Richguy, because his core personality and his consciousness are Victor's. The show seems to indicate that he'll eventually glitch (like Whiskey did, even though she seemed comfortable in the Dr. Saunders persona), which means he'll revert to being Victor, albeit a screwed-up Victor with conflicting memories.
So the hopeful message to take away from all of this is that, yes, if this technology existed then society would be fucked because memory would no longer be trustworthy. But for all that the "software" of memory defines you, the "self" is independant and inviolate and will eventually come through.
"You're asking me to believe in thinking meat? Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal!"
It's a really dark series, and actually kinda caught me off guard, as it's much darker than Buffy, Angel or Firefly pretty much ever was, even in the later seasons. It doesn't pull punches, but it does try to force you to think about the ramifications of the setting.
I mean, the ramifications of the setting are the entire point of "Epitaph One"--if this technology exists, what will eventually happen? (One character notes during the series that the first thing people do with new technology is to use it as a weapon. That's incorrect: The first thing they try to do is have sex with it. The second thing they try to do is use it as a weapon.) The idea that this technology would destroy civilization, given what was presented as the track it was developing on? Totally believable. Cruel to do to your audience when you think the show is cancelled, but even so.
The thing is, there is some hope in the otherwise, "Fuck you, audience!" last episode, if you were paying attention to the message of the episode before it: Alpha is insane because his non-imprinted personality was insane. The original him is still in there, no matter what they wipe. And that's presented to use right before we see the results of Echo's "composite event"--that she remains sane, if overly noble and idealistic. Because Caroline was overly noble and idealistic. And every imprint we see Echo take eventually follows a noble, idealistic path, whether that's on- or off-mission. We only see the same imprint in different people a couple of times, but you can see the subtle differences between Taffy-in-Echo and Taffy-in-Sierra.
I think the idea they're pretty clear about is that this technology is new, and there's still a lot that even the Dollhouse builders don't know about it. They put it into production without a real awareness of side effects or reprecussions.
Which brings me to ostensibly the scariest (because it's most realistic) application of the technology presented--rich people "trading up" to new, younger bodies and living forever. The problems with this all surround the idea of "self"--where is the "real" you? For all the standard sci-fi conceit of uploading yourself into a computer, that's not "you". Your awareness, your consciousness, for good or ill, stays in the meat. Echo without Caroline's memories is still fundamentally Caroline, and the consciousness that experiences Echo's actions is Caroline's. If you download a dead person into a Active, they talk and act and think they're the dead person, but they're the active doing an amazing imitation. They're a photocopy, not the original person somehow transferred. (To pull in another source, they're the man in the prestige--the original is the man in the tank.) It's the classic teleporter question: Am I stepping into a gateway, or an incinerator?
So when D. Gustingly Richguy III gets himself downloaded into, say, Victor and lets his old body die, he dies. The new entity, Richguy-in-Victor, is a fundamentally different person than the original Richguy, because his core personality and his consciousness are Victor's. The show seems to indicate that he'll eventually glitch (like Whiskey did, even though she seemed comfortable in the Dr. Saunders persona), which means he'll revert to being Victor, albeit a screwed-up Victor with conflicting memories.
So the hopeful message to take away from all of this is that, yes, if this technology existed then society would be fucked because memory would no longer be trustworthy. But for all that the "software" of memory defines you, the "self" is independant and inviolate and will eventually come through.
"You're asking me to believe in thinking meat? Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal!"
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 06:26 pm (UTC)Some parts of this show remind me a lot of the Prestige, actually. I think Topher is really Hugh Jackman's character--creating a life and then killing it, over and over, without ever letting himself grasp the true horror of what he is doing.
One thing that I really liked as the season developed was that, at the start, it looks like Echo's supposed to be the Kwisatz Haderach or something. That she's soooo special, that she's fighting against the imprint. Then you realize that she's not special at all. (This underlined by finding out that Alpha isn't focusing on Echo because she's special, but because she fights his victim type--a very nice touch.) They just have no idea what the long-term effects of imprinting are. They have a house full of potential Frankenstein monsters and they only have the illusion of control. The guidelines they have are really mostly made up, based on supposition--they're playing with dynamite. So you get this creeping sense that something will go horribly wrong, inevitably.
Once you see some of the behind the scenes stuff, you'll learn that Epitaph One never aired, actually, and was made as part of some kind of requirement for 13 episodes for syndication, since they trashed the pilot. So I don't think it was ever meant as an audience (or network) fuck you over the potential cancellation. It was what it was because, since they knew it wasn't going to air, they knew they could get away with far crazier stuff.
In the commentary for that, they also point out that Whisky has potentially just put everyone to sleep at the end. That she has, in fact, led many people to finding the Caroline imprint, then sending them on their way. Which means that the kid really isn't in any way Caroline, just one of a number of a copies, who will all wake up and do the exact same thing. Creepy.
And I'm sorry, but the MotW episodes of Pushing Daisies were never as crap as Dollhouse's MotW episodes. You need the world building of those eps, but the actual storylines of the first few were utter shit. This is a show that needs not to have episodic plots independent of the mytharc. Pushing Daisies' MotW storylines, on the other hand, were always well written of themselves.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 07:11 pm (UTC)I don't know about that. I think if there weren't some episodes at the beginning at least playing with the "new character every week" thing, I would have been disappointed. It is part of the appeal of the idea. Otherwise, it's all squick.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 01:46 pm (UTC)Also, while yes, I agree that Dushku is one of the weakest actors on the show (honestly, though I thought November was very cute and played her role well, her range seemed to be all variations on the same character, too), it does work with the revelation that every active is fundamentally the baseline Caroline/Echo with something else pushed on top of it. Despite the show's claims that she's a different person every week (as per my thesis above), she's not.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 01:40 pm (UTC)Hugh Jackman's character was different, though, because he was doing it to himself. He was setting himself up to be killed over and over, which is why the simile is closer to the rich people trying to "trade up". Topher actually makes me think of the Voyager episode with Tuvix, except that Janeway aknowledged what she was doing and why it was an evil done for the greater good.
Then you realize that she's not special at all.
I hadn't really been thinking about that, but you're right. The show starts with the implication that Echo is particularly special, but as we see Victor and Sierra's glitches (and Whisky's, eventually) and the reasons behind Alpha's actions, it becomes clear that any doll could potentially be Echo or Alpha, it was mostly just dumb luck.
Which means that the kid really isn't in any way Caroline
The kid is now Caroline-in-kid, who is a fundamentally different person from Caroline-in-Echo. They didn't make it clear whether the wedged Caroline was a version that has the composite imprints, but it seems likely that it is. Which means that the kid potentially has access to 50 people's worth of memories and skills, but knows that none is "really" her, giving her the motivation to build a new identity. I wouldn't be surprised if, in Safe Haven, there are dozens of people with the Caroline imprint who go by "Carolyn", "Carrie", "Lynn", "Chuck", or "Margaret" and each act in subtle but significant different ways, driven by the body's original persona.
lots of Carolines
Date: 2010-03-24 06:44 am (UTC)Re: lots of Carolines
Date: 2010-03-24 12:43 pm (UTC)