Fan trailers are just not fair sometimes.

Yes, I do believe that’s my captain there!

I am perched atop the bandwagon of not liking the sci-fi network’s new name. I do think it’s silly (really, *really* silly in fact); but the frothing rage, angst, and snark I’ve been reading about it strikes me as equally silly. (One cute example here) If you’ve been paying attention to this channel at all for the last however many years, it should have been painfully obvious that it’s run by people who know little about and want even less to do with sf/f fandom.

Having one of the network execs coming out and say it baldly might sting, but if you’re actually surprised I’d like to know what network you’ve been watching. Yes, they gave us BSG and the ‘gateverse. They are not producing those shows out of the goodness of their fen-loving hearts, they’re doing it because it makes money, which is why they showed up in the first place. They’re also running wrestling and those god-awful original movies, among other things, because they figure there’s a market in it. (And fannish disapproval does not mean there’s no money to be made.)

Traditionally, sf/f fandom reacts to change poorly, and to the specter of that negative “dork living in basement” even worse. Combine the two, add a pinch of entitlement, and you’ve got yourselves a wankfest, which is what’s going on now. As the man said, all this has happened before, and will happen again. (And again, and again…)

I’m not sure I should sit down and watch Kings. It looks really nifty, sorta like some odd mashup of AU sorta!northa america and King David redux. Right up my alley, except that it’s so high concept I don’t see how it’ll survive for more than one season. If that.

There’s been a lotta noise about Dollhouse lately. Point one, it seems no one knows what to make of it and there’s a whole hell of a lot of hand wringing ’cause it’s Joss and all (so a lot of fen want to like it on general principal), but the themes he’s touching on are creepy. (Plus the whole “Joss is a Bad Feminist” argument, but that’s outside the scope of today’s ramble, plus I’m not sure where I fall on it.)

Point two, it’s not a user friendly show. There’s no convenient set-up or entry story that explains the rules of this particular ‘verse. You’re stuck learning things the roundabout hard way just like the characters, and to the average viewer, this just ain’t right. Viewers aren’t expecting to have to put in a lot of work to understand what’s going on, and are often un-inclined to put up with a show that plays around with expectations. (Lost is the exception, not the rule.)

That identity thing
The Dollhouse project works as a broad analogy for Hollywood in general, and I think also for a lot of our interactions with the world. We play different roles every day. Parent, child, worker, friend, sibling… often those roles define who we are. Sometimes those roles shift with the needs of the moment. Sometimes we find ourselves disappearing within those roles. Sometimes we cling to those roles and definitions of ourselves, sometimes they chafe and bind and we wonder how we can escape them.

Being what other other people need/want you to be, and letting other people define who/what you are is a huge thing. It happens to everyone on some level, and this isn’t even the first time this kind of trope has been tackled, (I’d toss The Pretender up for consideration) but here the focus character (She’s not a POV or gateway character, but I’ll get to that in a sec.) along with the other actives we’ve seen, are young, attractive, often female, and lack agency.

This brings up all sorts of uncomfortable questions about the female sense of self and how society at large tries to manipulate it. It makes sure that the “perfect courtesan” trope is never far from anyone’s mind regardless of the specific episode plot, and that’s what most people are getting their knickers all twisty about, because the objectification/manipulation/use of Youth and Beauty, and especially Female Youth and Beauty, is Serious Business and anyone who wants to address this must do so Seriously. (Bah on that.)

Good stories are not always comfortable stories. But I do have a fondness for stories that are off or unsettling anyway. The whole Dollhouse set-up reminds me of a Pentex side-project, which I’m completely cool with. (We used to run Pentex based chronicles. I once turned a an undercover HIT Mark into a player character. I am perhaps a bit warped…)

User Un-friendly
Many/most reviews stress how Echo is a lousy or uninteresting gateway/POV character. They’re missing the fact that she’s really not one at all. She’s the locus of a lot of plot threads, but the real story is being told around her, though everyone else and their reactions to her. (Anne Bishop did this with the Black Jewels trilogy.) I do suspect that we’re going to see more of Caroline (as opposed to Echo) as the series progresses.

Buffy and Firefly had an “intro to the ‘verse” voice over at the beginning of every episode. They were, to some extent, laying out the welcome mat every time you came over. Dollhouse just dumps you into the deep end of the pool. This is not everyone’s cup of tea.

Also in Buffy and Firefly, we knew right off the bat who the good guys and the bad guys were. Here, we’ve got Ballard and Alpha vs. the Dollhouse itself, but this isn’t the main thrust of the show. I think that (as with Caroline) this will start coming to the fore as things go on, but it’s yet another thing that viewers are having a hard time swallowing.

So…
For your average TV viewer, even your average genre TV viewer, the show is coming off like a plate full of asparagus and sprouts to a six year old. (Completely foreign and regarded with deep suspicion.) The fact that I’m enjoying it probably proves that fact. :)

Maybe it’ll get canned, maybe it won’t. I’ll enjoy the ride while I’m able.