Episode Discussion 1.01 "Ghost" - Aired 2/13/09 (FOX-US)

I was tickled.
On the other hand, I probably would have continued to watch it whether I loved it or not.

Like everyone else has already said, I got all giddy and couldn't keep squeaks from popping out of my mouth at both Amy Acker and the Mutant Enemy part. The Grrr Arrgh guy getting a full out squeal.

Although, my protective Mommy gene was NOT happy with Amy's face being all sliced up. She didn't remind me of Illyria though. More like Fred would act if she were to somehow come back and realize everyone she cared about was dead.
I was wondering about her being a doll, but more that something SHE did had something to do with Alpha and his issues. Since she seemed to hide behind the door when Echo was caught peeking in on their treatment of Sierra. Like she didn't want to anything bad to happen on HER watch...perhaps again?

I've never seen Eliza do anything but "bad girl". Even in her RL interviews she's got an edge. But, to see her smile and the innocence on her face as Echo, it was GREAT! I was amazed!

Topher had me by halfway through, maybe earlier. The beginning when he seemed to be overly explaining things, I didn't like him, but he grew on me quick.

And I really loved her handler. I thought he was VERY well cast. He has a Giles quality to him.

I really liked it more than I thought I would.
Now, hubby didn't "get" a lot. So, maybe I'm just better prepared, and that kinda scares me. Not that I don't think the fanatics could carry the show on our own, there's a lot of us. But, I'd rather we not have to.
On the other hand, hubby was WIPED OUT and didn't even get home until 10:30.

I did have to go back and explain a lot. He didn't understand that she was an active during the party thing with the motorcycles. He also didn't get the FBI guy. Or why she would remember being abducted.....OR that Gabriel KNEW what she was. But, again, he was sleepy. I should be happy he made it through the whole thing.

Now I remember WHY I was happy I didn't watch Buffy in real time. Handling this waiting is REALLY a pain. The worst I've ever had to wait is over the weekend when FX and TNT didn't show Buffy and Angel when I was watching them the first time.

Still, I'm thrilled. I thought the cast was good, Eliza was surprisingly amazing, and the story was VERY easy to follow and interesting with just enough questions to drive me nuts all week.

As for the numbers....almost EVERYONE I personally spoke to totally forgot it was starting last night and missed it. So, if we assume those numbers are dead on...they still should be better next week because I've personally sat while at least three people have set their DVRs for now on. And they aren't even Buffy people but just people who wanted to see it.
 
I really enjoyed it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most the critical reviews of the show were completely lost on me.

Their criticisms of the show were...

that Eliza couldnt pull of multiple personalties

After watching that, i think that's meaningless. She doesnt have to pull of multiple personalities. She's got a personality, thats what stays the same, its the memories that change and only subtle differences in her personality. She's crazy action chick and pulls this off REALLY well (obviously) but then how does that mean Eliza can't pull off a really emotional scene? It doesn't need Eliza to be able to pull off different roles as much as get in the mindset of where Echo reacts with all the different sets of memories.

the blank-stare problem

Their blank stare isnt a state of no memories or personality, I could quite clearly see how their 'deactivated' state was just another set of memories, that they are conditioned into a state of relaxation.

high tech gimmicks

Umm, thankfully this didnt exist either, all the tech was taken out, it was just a chair they sat in with some lights. Joss is about the characters and the tech takes a sideline, i certainly saw that.

lack of Joss banter

To be fair we didnt see a lot of banter whatsoever, just Echo at work so ill wait to see

So...
At the end of the day i think it was a good pilot, brought out all we needed to know about the show and got me more excited to see more of what Echo gets up to because more than ANY other show i can imagine... this really does have the ability to got in SO many directions.
 
T
Tsquared
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charmingslayer
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charmingslayer said:
BTW is anyone else gonna miss Ms.Penn i loved her she was awesome.
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Yeah, I tensed up when Boyd was rushing to save her before she was wiped. Then afterwards, when she wasn't, I did a dance of glee. Lol. I hope the following episodes skip quickly to Echo's character/personality.. I'm not good with attachment. 🙁
 
I wonder how we will get attach to Echo if she changes personnality every two seconds 😵

-Blaze-
 
Blaze said:
I wonder how we will get attach to Echo if she changes personnality every two seconds 😵

-Blaze-
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That's just the show's original premise, no way in hell is Joss going to allow .. well, every episode for Echo to play a different character. We know him a little better than that. 😉
 
Blaze
Blaze
Hopefully:) I'm just scared that he'll do that to late. What if there isn't a second season:(
I figure that is why we got to see the video of her before the Dollhouse. A few more scenes like and we should know her quite well.
 
EmptyColours said:
That's just the show's original premise, no way in hell is Joss going to allow .. well, every episode for Echo to play a different character. We know him a little better than that. 😉
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Who's this "We" of which you speak? 😉 Myself, I fully expected Echo to be doing different characters pretty much every week. And not just Echo, Sierra too. And I think there's another character coming who joins Echo's dollhouse clique, isn't there? I saw it in the Fox promo stuff from months ago, so I don't think that qualifies as a spoiler. Maybe him too though. Different personality implants pretty much every week. That was the impression I got. You say I shouldn't expect that though, right? Why not?
 
nerd4hire said:
Who's this "We" of which you speak? 😉 Myself, I fully expected Echo to be doing different characters pretty much every week. And not just Echo, Sierra too. And I think there's another character coming who joins Echo's dollhouse clique, isn't there? I saw it in the Fox promo stuff from months ago, so I don't think that qualifies as a spoiler. Maybe him too though. Different personality implants pretty much every week. That was the impression I got. You say I shouldn't expect that though, right? Why not?
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Lol. So you're saying you were expecting the entire show, throughout its whatever-how-many seasons, to be based on Echo being wiped and reimplemented with a different personality... every episode? I mean, if so, we obviously would not have to deal with repetitiveness in the character department, but we'd get no character growth either. How would we grow to hate/love Echo if that were to happen? I say you shouldn't expect it, because the chances of it happening are incredibly frail. Even the first scene, I believe, was behind the true Echo.

BTW - wubb your name, nerd4hire FTW! 😛
 
nerd4hire
nerd4hire
Not every. Nothing is every. But pretty much every episode. Yeah. That's where my head was at going in.
Faith said:
My first thought on the first 'engagement' was 'wow that dress is short.'
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So hot.

Kean said:
Also did any One Tree Hill fans notice tha Tim was that Matt guy? It was cool🙂
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that was cool, but also odd, cuz he wasn't being a big loser, lol!

I really liked it, It was totally different and new, It didn't feel like a Joss show, which I think is awesome, cuz I think the series is a little more grown up then BtVS,A or FF, and I think that if they had put in the same amount of witty banter that is normally in his shows, it wouldn't have worked at all!

It will be interesting to see how to will grow to love Echo, like technically we didn't see allot of her, so it will be fun to see how her personality builds up!

What I really loved about the series was, firstly, Caroline, that was brilliant opening the show with that, and making Caroline someone we want to find out more about.

And secondly I loved that they don't just draft up a personality and apply it to the Active, but instead they take the pieces of actual personalities, that gonna be interesting to see and to figure out how they do.
 
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers
Totally thought the same thing about the dress ;)
Forget Alpha, Echo and Sierra. I wanna find out when we get a shot of Whiskey! 😀

Or maybe we'll get to see Juliette (.---) and Victor (...-) dancing the Foxtrot (..-.) or a Tango (-) in the Lima (.-..) Hotel (....). We'll clap and shout Bravo!!! (-...)

Okay, I'll stop now.
 
Friendly Lurker agrees: I would have preferred Alexis Denisof. 😉
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OMG, he would have been perfect!

The FBI guy doesn't bother me. I think his character needs a little development, because I'm not exactly sure where he's coming from yet. Ok, so he wants to find the Dollhouse...why? I get that it was initially an assignment, but he's been warned off of it, or at least told not to pursue it so diligently. Why does it matter so much to him? He's personally invested for some reason and I don't know why.

Amy Acker's character is really interesting! I'm wondering what her story is. She seems a little skittish in the personal arena, or maybe the regular people that work for the Dollhouse aren't supposed to interact with the Actives on a personal level? I don't know. But she's hiding something, and it's a painful something. Not just physically painful, it's emotional. I had the thought that she's a former Active, too, but I'm not sure they'd keep a former around after they've served their usefulness, so I guess time will tell.

I LOVED THE SHOW. LOVED it. Eliza was PERFECT. I have to echo (ha - get it? LOL! Actually, I didn't intend that, it just happened) n4h's sentiments, I don't think there's another actress that could have done better. I'm always a little worried when I start watching an actor play a character different from the one I know and love them the most as....I look for little signs of that previous character in them. There is nothing of Faith in Echo, nothing. Eliza's AMAZINGLY talented, it's just huge.

I love the look of the show. It looks like real life, not Hollywood. Did anyone else thing the Dollhouse looks a little W&H in s5? Kind of the same open area, with the stairs? Maybe it's just me. It looks bigger than W&H was, tho. (oh, I just noticed, Kean saw the W&H likeness, too. Sorry, missed that the first read-through!)

Anyway, I'm excited. Can't wait for next Friday at ALL. I'm hating that Dollhouse is in the Friday night death slot, I'm hoping that doesn't hurt it's chances. Would suck if yet ANOTHER great show gets cancelled because it couldn't pull in good ratings.
 
IIRC, didn't the X-Files have a Friday night slot for quite a while? And that show did pretty darned well in the 90's! It was my fave until Buffy came along in '97.
 
Well, the poor reviews did me a favor because I lowered my expectations and the pilot greatly exceeded them. It was a lot better than Buffy or Angel's first episodes. I did miss the witty banter of Whedon's other shows. Still, this show's concept should allow different episodes to vary a great deal in terms of content. A kidnapping is pretty serious business, but the dolls could also be hired for lighter things in other episodes and then they can work in some humor.

The only bad thing I can say about it is that after watching it, I didn't know 70% of the character's names....that I like others, I thought it started out a little slow. It got much better as it progressed. Amy did not remind of Illyria at all. I just didn't really see it. Love Amy no matter what she plays though. Anyone know how many episodes she is going to do? Is it a set arc for this season or is she going to be a recurring character throughout the series (assuming it doesn't get cancelled)?

Eliza did fine. I don't know that I would go as far as some people and say she was amazing or that there wasn't a trace of Faith in there, but she was good enough. And she's definitely got enough charisma to carry a series.
 
Revolver said:
Love Amy no matter what she plays though. Anyone know how many episodes she is going to do? Is it a set arc for this season or is she going to be a recurring character throughout the series (assuming it doesn't get cancelled)?
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I read that she's going to be doing 13 out of the 14 episodes.
 
S
StuckinTraffic
Ooo, that's excellent!
I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what the critics saw when they reviewed this episode. I really liked the premiere and it has me anticipating the next episode. I'm not a big Joss Whedon sycophant, so I don't think that everything he does is perfect. But I really like this show. I thought Eliza was wonderful as the lead. A lot of questions were posed and I can't wait to get some answers. I can already see some of the dynamics between the main characters and overall think this was a great set up for the rest of the season. I'll try to stick with TSCC at 8:00pm and hopefully both shows will do well. This is a great lead in for me to BSG at 10:00pm. I wonder what Ecko did to be made into an Active. The beginning made it seem like she was being punished for some crime. I just hope Fox doesn't cancel this becasue I know I'm going to get invested in this story.
 
Revolver said:
Well, the poor reviews did me a favor because I lowered my expectations and the pilot greatly exceeded them.
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Oh yeah, exactly. To be honest, I expected much worse. It's a shame that those negative reviews may have scared people away.

On a different note, WhiteHat's post got me wondering, I think we saw way more than 26 dolls walking around there. What do they do with the names after they got/get at Zulu? Would they just start over? That would give an interesting twist to the question of how many Dolls are out there, and how long they've been doing it. Echo may in that case well be the umpteenth Echo.
 
Friendly Lurker
Friendly Lurker
I don't think I saw that many. Maybe I was sleeping!
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