elements

So, Dollhouse ep 12 ("Omega")? OMG. I need to babble, but I also want all your reviews, everything you've read, every last detail, rumor about if it's being canceled, leads on campaigns to get it not-canceled, everything. I'm ravenous.

I've heard that the ratings for this ep continued the trend of worsening each week. IMHO that's because FOX screwed up the demographic to target (when your commercials aim at the fratboy hornball demo, and they show up and see a show about morality, all the sex involved in that morality doesn't keep 'em), and because TV execs STILL haven't figured out that the audiences for niche shows like this aren't the same as the Nielsen families. We watch on DVR or Hulu cos we're used to consuming media on our own terms, and we're the type who buy the DVDs and the merchandise. The way you make money off us is different. And you wouldn't think it would be so fricking hard to measure our engagement.

Anyway, the episode.

One thing that really sticks with me is Topher. Not just his reactions, the fact that the events of the episode bring back his guilt over Alpha and Whiskey, or that he HAS that guilt, but the vulnerability of the way he needed to make Whiskey-as-Saunders hate him. In a small staff community, where there aren't many non-handlers around much, he has to interact with her a lot - this woman who used to be one of the people he views as non-people and imprints, now thinking she's the same person Topher may well have been friendly with before he died. It's not just guilt that made Topher program Whiskey to hate him, it's his inability to cope with interacting with the reminder of his dead colleague and the in-your-face embodiment of the fact that what they're doing is just plain creepy. It's easy for Topher to play that everything is fine, safe, all a game, all a chance for him to do neat things with his talents, but Whiskey is a blatant reminder of how things can go wrong, and that it's not that simple.

Also: ECHO! OMG! How proud was I of her in those scenes with Alpha, when she's fully aware? THAT is the feminist message of this show: That a man may believe he can create a woman as his plaything, make her into the person that suits his needs, but he's dead wrong. That "I'm not your girlfriend." That a person owns herself, no matter who is pulling the strings that control her life. What Echo says to Alpha is Joss and Eliza's fuck you to every jackass male director, writer, producer who writes women as victims, pawns, shadows, bit players and window-dressing in the playing out of a man's story. To every male viewer who tuned in to Dollhouse because of promo shots of Eliza in schoolgirl thigh-highs (and somehow kept watching this far). Yeah, maybe a little too blatant, a little too meta, but it's there, and I love it.

And also: I'm not your girlfriend. Man, do I love this line. To get a little personal for a moment, one of my issues in dating is that I often feel that guys are looking for someone to fill a niche in their lives, part of the checklist of "things one ought to have by a certain age:" job, house, car, girlfriend. They don't know they're doing it, but what they're doing when they're dating is casting the role of "Girlfriend" in the drama of their lives, starring them, and only them. It's their story. The woman's along to complete the decoration. I know not all men are this way. I know the straight men I'm friends with who are reading this aren't that way. At least not consciously. But this culture trains men to believe that they are the starring players in their lives, in a way it doesn't train women. And Echo's line is a big fuck you, a big "wake up and pay more than lipservice to equality," to all those guys, too.

ETA: Oh, and Alpha as *Alpha Male*! I mentioned that in phone-squee with aquaflame16 but forgot to say here. I mean, it can't get more blatant than that. This show is about saying it's time to trash the Alpha Male trope, the cultural ideal, and what it means for men as well as for women.

I love that when Ballard decides who to "rescue," he finally picks November. It's not entirely altruistic: he knows he's fixated on Caroline, knows he's been unfair to Mellie and to November, but he also gets the heebie-jeebies being around her. He doesn't want her in the Dollhouse if he has to be involved in it. I do hope that if the show's renewed, we get to see Miracle Laurie again, but I kind of doubt it. It's a shame, in no small part because she was the only non-super-skinny woman around, and that was kind of nice. (I really, really miss Eliza Dushku's body circa when she was playing Faith. She was a lot hotter with some curve, and it breaks my heart to think that she might have forced herself thinner in order to star in this show.)

I'm a little torn on Ballard becoming a contractor. I think he's well aware that he now knows way too much to get out easy. He's now also even more directly invested in keeping Caroline safe - and hopefully he has a better sense of the need to protect the other Dolls, too. He also knows that he has the skills to track Alpha, and that the Dollhouse isn't going to just turn the case over to the normal authorities, so he also has a mission to protect any potential future Alpha victims.

Anyway, WOW, wow again, and I may just watch for a third time in one straight day, except I'd better get to bed and not spoil my return from nocturnality. PLEASE share links & ideas cos like I said, I'm ravenous for more here.