Your Help Needed

I feel like I should start this journal with "Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears" for what's about to follow may be a bit on the lengthy side. I hope you guys will stick with me here and read through it all, because you might very well be missing out on something fantastic if you don't.

No, this isn't a journal where I'll ask you for help for myself. Though I suppose in a way it is, because this may very well help me personally as well. But I digress. What I'm talking about specifically is a show. Dollhouse, to be exact, which airs on FOX Fridays at 9 EDT. Never heard of it? Not many people have. And that is what I, personally, would like to try and correct.

You see, Dollhouse is once again in trouble of being cancelled. Why? Because, like every Joss Whedon show (and it is a Whedon show), the networks fail to realize what a fantastic gem they have on their hands. (Firefly, anyone?). Anyway, if you don't want to read me ramble on about it, then do me a favor and visit www.whyiwatch.com for a moment and get a succinct version of what I'm about to tell you (and some disturbingly pretty musics).

First and foremost I will address the likely people who gave it a shot and stopped. You see, from a plot standpoint, the show started off slowly. I can understand people who saw the first few episodes and were not only uninterested, but maybe a little disappointed. To those people: Please, give it a second chance. Give it until the 6th episode, Man on the Street, at least. Go to Echoes and tell me that it didn't get more intriguing. Make it to Needs and, if you're still uninterested, then I'll leave you alone and won't try to convert you. Honest. But, please, don't judge the show on the first 5 episodes. They're certainly important, but they don't become so until you have more context for them.

Next, to those people out there who are scratching their heads as to who Joss Whedon is...let me provide a little context for that too. Joss Whedon is, in my humble opinion, an incredibly talented man. He's responsible for the show Firefly, which was unjustly short-lived. Look it up on hulu.com, if you can, and watch the first episode. Right away you'll get a feeling of what his shows are like, how real the characters are, how masterfully he works with every emotion and how easily he sucks you in. He is also the mastermind behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the spinoff Angel. Now, don't go running at the mention of Buffy. I didn't really think I'd like it either until I watched it this summer. And to those manly men out there who look down on it because of some conception that it's somehow Twilight-ish in any way....give it a chance, guys. Buffy is an incredibly witty, incredibly immersing show. I can guarantee your preconceptions about it are wrong. Angel I cannot, sadly, fully vouch for as I haven't seen enough of it yet. But nevertheless, it is remarkably Whedonesque in its writing and, I'm sure, once the plots gets under way, in its story too.

That being said, Dollhouse is easily a class of its own entirely. What is it? It's a journey of self discovery and of self loss, of world politics and of personal struggles. A study of truly noble people and mad scientists. But, to be more specific, it's about a people warehouse. It's about uncomfortable questions being asked, being put to you and then explored. What makes you who you are? How do you know when you've gone too far? What does it mean to be human?



But, I suppose, a more specific summary is called for. The Dollhouse itself is a facility, a business with vast amounts of influential connections that can only be afforded by the richest of the rich. And what does it do? Well. It gives you what you need.

The employees of the Dollhouse themselves is what the story centers around. There's the Dollhouse operator, Adelle DeWitt, a ruthless businesswoman with, of all things, a surprisingly human code of conduct she lives by. There is Topher Brink, the mad scientist responsible for all the technology that is in the Dollhouse (and when I get to the tech, you'll see how impressive that is), there's Boyd Langdon, an ex-cop who has a strong moral center absent from most of the other Dollhouse employees, Paul Ballard, an FBI agent determined to uncover the Dollhouse because it is fundamentally wrong, Dr. Claire Saunders, who has the well-being of everyone in the Dollhouse on her shoulders, and finally (and perhaps most importantly), there are the Actives. The "Dolls". What the story mostly centers on.

Actives are people who have signed away five years of their life to the Dollhouse. In compensation they get a hefty sum of money and a brand new life. In exchange, they are stripped of their memories and personalities for 5 years and looked after, while being sold off as anyone to anyone who can pay (and withstand a substantial background check, and only temporarily, i.e. a weekend). What I mean is, now that they have no memories and no personality, they construct one and put it in their brains. And then they wholly believe that they are that person, and that they love the client, or that they need to help the client, or, sometimes, a completely altruistic engagement where they go and truly help a person in a way no one else has been able to before. Actives are anyone who you want them to be. And then, once again, they're no one at all.

Well, theoretically.

The story centers on Echo, an active who begins to remember who she's been, but not the girl she truly used to be, Caroline. What develops is a split between Echo's personality and Caroline's as Echo begins to remember her engagements, the pure love she felt, or the heist that she almost pulled successfully, or the devout believer sent to infiltrate a cult. And as Echo develops and evolves, questions about the basics of human nature become ever more prominent, and her life becomes ever less simple.

But why do I watch it? Why am I writing this incredibly lengthy journal entry and asking you to stick with it and read it through? Because of the questions that it continuously asks. Because of what Dollhouse is really about. Because it really is the smartest show on tv that you are not watching - and I'd love for you to start watching it. Because it makes me think about what it means to be me, what makes me who I am, and what I would do without that. It raises questions about where the line of morality lies, about where technology that allows something like this to happen will take us. What happens to Topher when he realizes what he's done, what he's been able to create and, above all, what he's ultimately responsible for. What happens to Echo as she remembers, and also remembers that Caroline has abandoned her. What happens to the other dolls as they begin to remember as well and develop, can you really wipe away someone's essence of their being, someone's soul? And if not, why not? What of the "imprints", the personalities dumped in the Actives, do they go away? Do they have a soul of their own that lingers, something that will govern the behavior of the dolls themselves? I watch the show for its potential, for these questions and all the answers to them that it explores. I watch it because it makes me think about the things that will, ultimately, make me a better storyteller once I apply them to my characters. Make my stories more relateable, more real, more intriguing, and more impacting. Improve me as a person and as a writer, and challenge my preconceptions of humanity in new and creative ways. And that, to me, is what makes Dollhouse one of the best shows on tv and one I do not want to see canceled.

And now, dear reader, if you've made it this far and have yet to see an episode of Dollhouse, I'm going to point you to the prologue to the season 1 finale, Briar Rose. The, if you have the time and become hooked like me, please go on to Omega. And you will see what I mean. (if you'll only do one, I say do Omega, but you really need the context of Briar Rose to truly appreciate it). It may be a bit confusing without the context of the others, but it will give you a real feel for everything that I've raised here, and for what the episodes and the Dollhouse really are. And then I ask you to tune in tonight to Dollhouse, help give it the boost in ratings that it so desperately needs for FOX to stop themselves from making a terrible mistake, and, hopefully, have your mind blown by it as I have. And become hooked <3

www.hulu.com/watch/71001/dollh…

The old journal layout will be back, do not worry. This is just something really important to me and, soon, hopefully to you too.