And yet, here’s a second season!

Yay!

Beware of spoilers ahead.

Speaking as one of those two people who actually liked the bulk of the first season, I was beyond thrilled when Fox decided to try and atone for Firefly by bringing Dollhouse back for a second go-round.  Primarily, I hoped Whedon would find a way to not squander the opportunity, and based on “Vows,” the second-season premiere, I think I’m gonna have to say that he mostly did just that.

Found a way, that is; not squandered the opportunity.  I suck at sentence construction sometimes, and there went one.  What’s that you say, “go back and change it”?  No can do.

Anybody who has ever been a fan of one of Whedon’s other shows — Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and the aforementioned Firefly – knows that one of his greatest strengths is in assembling a great cast of characters to bounce off of each other.  The series struggled a bit with this during its first season; all the pieces were in place, but nobody seemed to be moving them about very well for most of the season.

That began to change at some point, and in tonight’s season premiere, it is far and away the best element.  There are numerous excellent interactions between the characters: Boyd has great scenes with DeWitt, Ballard, and Saunders (that last one is particularly great); Topher also has a great scene with Saunders; Echo has good scenes with Ballard and with Saunders/Whiskey; DeWitt has a fine moment with Victor; Sierra — and God almighty does Dichen Lachman look good in this scene — has a great scene with Ivy in which she has an anti-Asian racist imprint.

Unless I missed it, it’s not immediately clear how much time has passed since Alpha went on his rampage at the end of the first season.  Clearly some time, probably several months, have passed, but the ramifications of that incident are still being felt in some ways.  Boyd is still very suspicious of Ballard; part of this is clearly due to his promotion to head of security, but part of him is doubtless also resentful of not being Echo’s handler anymore, and is maybe even a little jealous of Ballard’s proximity to her.

Not that Ballard is Echo’s handler, either.  No, they’ve got a more complicated relationship than that.  Apparently, Ballard’s deal with the Dollhouse is that he’s allowed to be a client, renting out Echo to use as a weapon in taking down criminals he wasn’t able to take down while at the FBI. 

This is an unexpected turn of events, and Whedon — who’s in the director’s chair tonight, and also wrote the screenplay — gets in at least one terrific reversal-of-expectations moment when he reveals that this is what’s going on with Echo’s engagement.  Initially, we’re led to believe that her engagement this week — she’s getting married to Apollo Jamie Bamber — is just another example of a kinky rich dude paying for his ya-yas.

Echo, in her guise as Mrs. Apollo, walks into the back room of a shop at one point, to find Ballard sitting there waiting on her; she greets him with a cordial, “How’s it goin’, partner,” or something like that.

Now, if you’ve seen “Epitaph One,” you know that at some point in the future, Echo/Caroline develops the ability to retain her own personality while she’s also imprinted with another, and you also know that she and Ballard end up working together.  So my first thought upon hearing her switch into a different tone of voice and call Ballard her partner was that this plot element was already starting.  Instead, it’s then revealed that Echo’s real current imprint is of an FBI agent Ballard is partnered with; she’s gone undercover, seduced an arms dealer, and is on a long-con sort of engagement designed to take him down.

So, what you’ve got here is a person named Caroline, memory wiped and turned all tabula rasa in the form of an active designated Echo, imprinted with the personality of an FBI agent who in turn is pretending to be somebody else.  Um, that’s, like, pretty fucking deep.

Even deeper: Echo isn’t really Echo anymore.  She’s still dealing with occasional flashes of memory of other engagements, so in some ways, she’s still a bit of that superintelligence — or whatever you want to call it — that Alpha made her into last season.  But only Ballard knows this, so in a sense Echo isn’t Echo anymore; she’s somebody else pretending, at times, to be Echo.

This isn’t as confusing as it sounds.  I wouldn’t say confusing; I’d lean closer, this episoe, to “compelling.”

Also compelling is the sad case of Whiskey, who seems to be well on her way to the loony bin.  She’s fucking with Topher’s mind, trying to repay him for creating her.  Not at all happy with knowing she’s a fake person, she’s doing things like putting rats in cabinets for him to discover, and showing up to sppon with him and give him morning wood.  She’s supposedly trying to conquer her own self-loathing through conquering an object of external loathing, but it doesn’t work too well … or does it?

She’s been designed to want to never leave the Dollhouse, but at episode’s end, she runs away in a convertible, headed for a new role on a new series on a different network.  (Amy Acker has a role on ABC’s upcoming Happy Town, alongside Sam Neill and Steven Weber; however, she will be appearing on Dollhouse again at some point, or so “Epitaph One” assures me.)

The performances are all pretty great this week.  Starting at the top, I know a lot of people don’t like Eliza Dushku, but when she’s playing within her range, she can be really good, and she’s really good in this episode.  Whedon had to play to Sarah Michelle Gellar’s strengths and avoid her weaknesses on Buffy, and it worked; if he can keep doing that here with Dushku, it’ll work out fine.

Amy Acker is particularly good in her role; she’s got a sort of crazed, doomed, defeated thing going on, to the extent that she even professes to want to keep her scars.  Acker, as Angel fans know, gives good crazy.  That fucking Happy Town had better be quite  a show; she’s going to missed on this one.

I was also impressed this week by Fran Kranz.  Topher, as a character, was a bit of a hemorrhoid during the first season, but starting with “Epitaph One” and continuing into “Vows,” he’s growing into an interesting character.  Kranz is obviously up to the challenge, too, and that pleases me.

Everyone else is good, including Jamie Bamber, who is largely wasted, true, but it’s nice to see him anyways.

There’s also a new character introduced, Senator Perrin, played by Angel‘s Alexis Denisof.  Perrin is seen on television publicly declaring a private war against the Rossum Corporation for holding out technology that could benefit Alzheimer’s patients.  Both Langton and Ballard suspect each other of having tipped Perrin off about the Dollhouse(s); this can lead nowhere good.

I’m pleased to see Denisof back in the Whedonverse, and I can only hope that Dollhouse can stick around long enough to properly take advantage of his tremendous talents.

If the rest of the season is as improved as this first episode, then I suspect that might well come to pass.

And if the people in the photo below don’t look familiar, well, that’ll give you an indication of the sort of crazy this episode brings.

In some ways, I’m not quite sure what to make of “Epitaph One.”  I enjoyed it, and would happily watch it again (something I plan to do whenever I’m able to afford the DVDs), but it also frustrated me at times.

Spoilers definitely lurk ahead, so proceed with caution.

The setup is that the bulk of the episode takes place in the year 2019, after some sort of apocalyptic war has broken out and devastated much of Los Angeles, and possibly America, and possibly the world.  The fan blades are definitely poo-spackled.

A group of survivors somehow find the Dollhouse — our Dollhouse — and get inside.  It’s abandoned, or so they think.  Here, things started to get a bit confusing for me.  These survivors have no idea of what the place is that they’ve found, and yet they seem to recignize the imprint chair for what it is.  I’m going to assume that I simply wasn’t paying close enough attention, and that’s plausible enough; maybe a second viewing will clear up some of those type issues I had.

Intercut with the flash-forward-to-2019 story is a series of flashbacks, most of which still constitute flash-forwards relative to where the story left off in the previous episode.  Christ, I know exactly what I meant when I typed that and it still sounds confusing, ’cause, well, it is.

From what I recall, the one scene that is genuinely a flashback involves seeing Topher’s first day on the job, and learning that not only did he not get along with Dominic right from the get-go, but that he was also responsible for developing some serious upgrades to the existing Dollhouse tech as of his hiring.

If I recall correctly, all the other non-2019 scenes take the story forward from the end of 1×12.  We see all of the main Dollhouse cast in one or more of these flash”back” scenes, and boy howdy, do we find out some interesting stuff.  For example: Echo at some point becomes able to retain what I assume to be Caroline’s personality while she is imprinted; Dominic isn’t dead, but gets out of the attic at some point and then later returns with a gun to properly chastise DeWitt for what’s happening out in the world; Boyd, who apparently gets romantic with Saunders 2.0, flees the Dollhouse; November — a November, at least — has had something bad happen to her; Caroline and Ballard become gun-totin’ pals in badassery, and possibly something more; Topher goes insane, possibly from guilt over what his tech has done to the world; and so forth.

It’s pretty gnarly stuff, and really, that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

This is ambitious, heady stuff, and it’s clearly trying to serve a dual purpose: it’s insurance against a first-season cancellation, acting as an impromptu series finale; and it’s also a proof-of-concept episode, designed to show executives the type of direction the story was headed in.

Clearly, the series got a second season, so the proof-of-concept aspect must have worked.

So now, here’s the downside: we know where the series is headed, and while the journey in getting there seems like it could be interesting, it doesn’t change the fact that a great deal of the mystique of the show has now been permanently altered.  I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, but I’m not sure it’s a good thing, either.

If that sounds wishy-washy to you, well, that’s indicative of my reaction to the episode as a whole.  Years from now, it might well strike me as one of the best things ever made, or it might feel like little more than a failed experiment.  Only time is going to really answer the question.

The cast is typically strong, with Fran Kranz making a bigger impression on me than he ever has in the past; Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman deliver their typically awesome work, as does Olivia Williams; Reed Diamond is always a welcome presence, as is Amy Acker.

Making the biggest impressions amongst the guest cast: Felicia Day, who is given little to do other than react, but she reacts capably and is very attractive, so score.  Backing her up is Zack Ward, playing a hardass named Zone.  Ward might look familiar.  Does this help?

He had yellow eyes … so help me God, yellow eyes.

And as it turns out, Ward is pretty good at playing a hardass.  Who’d a-thunk it?

I’m curious to see whether the second season of the show picks up any of these threads, or if Whedon will now hang back a while and see how long the train can run before he starts steering the story in the directions “Epitaph One” points toward.

Here’s hoping the series is able to hang around long enough for Whedon to get his way … and if the episodes Fox chooses to air are in the vicinity of being this good, minus some of the confusuion factor, then it just might happen.

HitFix has elaborated, offering up some possibly spoilery details of who and what Glau will be playing.

The second season of Dollhouse begins on Fox on September 25.

Green Lantern is by far the mainstay DC character I k now the least about   so when I sat down to watch First Flight I was blissfully ignorant of any canon.

First Flight is not just a Good animated feature it is a genuinely good movie.

this marks the third near perfect outing for DC Universe animation studios first Justice League: Final Frontier, than Wonder Woman, and now Green Lantern: First Flight.

Next up on DC’s list is Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

Public Enemies is a fantastic graphic novel and I cannot wait for this animated feature event.

the cast that DC puts together are by no means  light weights Green Lantern starring John Larroquette, Michael Madsen, and Battle star Galactica’s Tricia Helfer. The Wonder Women cast which is Nathan Fillion, Keri Russell, Alfred Molina, And Oliver Platt amongst others. and finally Final Frontier with David Boreanez, and Lucy Lawless and many more.

In the end I really liked this movie and would recomend this for any comic fan in need of a good movie

In the Blu News

the Blu-Ray special features on this disk are fantastic five specially selected green lantern cartoons’ a Lantern themed episode of Duck Dodgers, a preview of Blackest Night the latest DC comics event, amongst others

so n the end 9 out of 10

This issue was written by Jane Espenson, who somehow — between her gigs on Dollhouse and Caprica – managed to squeeze in some time to return to her old Slayerverse stomping grounds.  Espenson, of course, is an excellent writer, and she doesn’t disappoint in this issue, which is crisp and epic and all the good things we tend to hope for from the Buffy comics.

In other words, after several slightly disappointing issues, #26 is a return to form for the series.

The issue opens with Willow transporting Buffy the the secret slayer stronghold by having them both in animal guise: Willow as a seagull carrying Buffy as a fish.  It’s a humorous image, but it also gets at what promises to be a key point of this story arc: Willow’s dangerous relapse into the overuse of magic.  The image of Willow clutching Buffy in her talons is funny, yes … but it’s also ominous.

One of the happier story developments is the reunion of the whole team, including Faith and Giles rejoining the main slayer group (for the first time in season eight, if my memory serves me).  This leads to Buffy confiding in Giles her fears over Willow’s impending fall back to the dark side, and that’s a good, welcome scene; the Buffy/Giles relationship is one of the most important in the series, and it’s never quite the same without it being present.

There is a cool battle sequence involving, amongst other things, tanks, and it culminates in the slayers having to abandon their hideout and go on the run … which they do via sumbarine.

The comic ends with the submarine being magically transported to a Buddhist temple, where we meet — wait for it! — Oz.

Yep, that’s right, Especnson has the good sense to bring Oz back into the story.  Of course, I wouldn’t know it was Oz if the letters column didn’t clue me in; that’s one problem with comics, they sometimes think that artwork which only sorta looks like the original character will be immediately recognizeable.  Me, I wouldn’t put too much stock in that assumption.

This will mark a reunion of sorts for Bamber with his former Battlestar cast member Tahmoh Penikett.

There are no details on what Bamber’s role will consist of, but it appears that he will be a part of an engagement Echo is sent on.

On the second season of Dollhouse (which is currently two weeks into the planning phase in the writers’ room): “We don’t have the onus of trying to be a big hit sitting on our shoulders.  We can just be ourselves.  And so the stories we’re breaking are pure, and exciting, and everybody’s on-board in the room, and it’s never flowed better.”

On the in-development feature film reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “I think that’s something better left untouched by me.”

Airing Fringe against those other heavyweights is likely a tremendous sign of faith in the J.J. Abrams-produced series.

In other Fox news, James Hibberd spoke with Joss Whedon about the renewal of Dollhouse.

Hibberd cites the strong DVR and online streaming numbers, as well as Fox executives’ actual appreciation of the series (!), as the deciding factors in the decision.

Also expected to be announced on Monday: NBC’s decision on the future of Chuck.

The Whedon-produced comic finally gets around to dealing with the whole Dawn thing, and it’s an entertaining conclusion, though after a 25-issue run, it can’t help but feel anticlimactic.

In fact, the whole series is feeling rather anticlimactic to me these days.  Maybe it’s just the fact that we’ve gotten a long string of stand-alone stories, I dunno, but this title is starting to feel like it’s got no direction.  That’s a shame, as for a while there, this really did feel like a genuine Season Eight of the show.  I’m certainly not ready to give up on it yet, though; as long as the individual issues can manage to be as entertaining as this one, I’m okay with the overall series feeling a bit aimless.

Written by Doug Petrie, this issue has, if absolutely nothing else, some of the sharpest dialogue the comic has seen in many a month.  This might be due to the fact that Petrie worked in the Buffy writers room from seasons three through seven; this guy knows his way around a Hellmouth.  Which is not to say that there’s a Hellmouth in this issue; there isn’t.  There is a lot of Xander, and a decent amount of Andrew, though, so score.

There is some weird, creepy stuff involving dolls, and the relationship the painting at the end of this review references is strangely touching in that way only a show comic like Buffy can provide.

Oh, and a plot point revolves around Veronica Mars.  Gotta love that.