The Last Few Weeks

Alright let's catch up on the highlights from the past few weeks.

South Park's Whale Wars episode was just awesome from start to finish. How many people still have Cartman singing Lady Gaga in their heads? From the shouting Japanese in their robes to "Chicken and-a COW!?!?", this was easily one of the best episodes of the season.



The Office is really coming back lately. Some of the best moments of this season have been humanizing Michael Scott. While he acts like a child all the time, the honest truth is that no one else can manage his office. We've seen it with Charles and we're watching Jim learn now.



Sadly, the opposite has been happening for 30 Rock. I'm not sure what it is but I think the show is relying too heavily on the characters doing the same things. Jena, Tracy, and Kenneth are always the same. The chaotic-level is running a little high with the plots and reminds me of the similar season 3 of my beloved Arrested Development (remember Rita?). Maybe they need to slow down the pacing of the show just a tad and rebuild new structures for the characters. Ugh, that sounds so critical.

Finally, the goldmine came from Curb Your Enthusiasm with The Black Swan. Unlike most CYE episodes, this was pretty self-contained, taking place mostly at the golf course. If you ever watch an episode of Curb, make it this one. Essentially? Larry David commits his first (and second) murder on this show.



Anyone notice these are all comedies? What happened to all the 1 hr dramas? Dollhouse is cancelled by the way. There is no God.

Dollhouse Season Two

Holy! Without spoiling too much, let's just say the Dollhouse cast is about to get some seriously familiar faces.

The eventually-incredibly-good show comes back September 25, 2009.

Did I Fall Asleep?

Back in the fall, I checked out the Pilot of Dollhouse because of my first love of Joss Whedon's Firefly. To my (and many others) disappointment, it seemed awful. With such a fantastic premise of loading unique personalities into child-minded dolls (or "actives"), the episode was just about some lame hostage negotiation. With the mountain of fall television to plough through, I immediately stopped watching Dollhouse.

10 months later, with a $24 steal from Amazon.ca, I picked up Season 1 on Blu-Ray. Hearing good things about later episodes and wanting to see more Eliza Dushku on 1080p, I started watching the show again from the beginning, putting faith that the episodes will get better in time.

It certainly did. The mythology just builds and builds exponentially in every episode. A couple episodes later, you'll realize that the early episodes were just ways to demonstrate the capabilities of the Dollhouse technology. You become more invested in the morality of the Dollhouse management and the slowly becoming-self-aware Echo (hottie Eliza). As a viewer, you get the feeling that the Dollhouse concept is wrong--using clueless people for sex, adventure etc--but the writers make the management look like their actions are justified. With the 13 episodes, things move pretty quickly.

8/10



"I know you've heard colorful rumors about what an 'Active' is. Robots, zombie slaves — they are, of course, quite the opposite. The 'Active' is the truest soul among us."

"Tell me about the Dollhouse."
"Uh, it's pink and it opens up and there's teeny furniture and you put the boy doll on top of the girl doll and we learn about urges."