Doctor Who News From A Month And A Half Ago

(because, yeah, I'm that much out of the loop)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/12/doctor-who-immortal-reveals-bbc

So, yeah. Time war. Not only can it make Silurians look like Jem'Hadar, not only can it make Daleks actually frightening again, not only can it suddenly make the Doctor susceptible to romance... it can make him fricking immortal as well.

At least address the Valeyard thing when you get to 12, huh?

Okay, dude, no, I am not in any way upset that the 13-life limit has been quietly brushed aside. It was a plot device back in bloody 1976. Okay, that's a bit like plucking another random plot device - let's say the time agents from The Talons of Weng-Chiang... oh wait, never mind...

Here we go. Two hearts. At no point during the 60s did any character examine the often-unconscious Doctor and comment on his double heartbeat. Guy can grow an extra heart, guy can trump the 12-regeneration limit.

AFTIRTM: Jurassic Park

I did The Matrix way back when (and honestly, I don't remember the entire list), but Jurassic Park is definitely on it.

Why?

What it was:
An epic adaptation of an epic novel by an awesome (now sadly departed) author, realized by an awesome director and an awesome (now sadly departed) effects wizard.

What it gave the hacks:
Look! CGI! Now we don't need to hire real actors!

Look, Sam Neill can act. I'm not saying anything contrariwise in that respect. Spielberg explicitly cast people who would not overshadow his dinosaurs, and who could act convincingly against golf balls (both on sticks and being fired at them from behind - how did you think they did the Gallimimus chase?) Also the film had Richard Attenborough in it (who according to Wikipedia hadn't had an acting job since 1979), and some guy named Samuel L. Jackson... but none of these people were real stars back in 1993. No, not even Jackson.

Some background here on my own philosophies: I'm now burning through the back catalogue of How I Met Your Mother because Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan are in the cast. You're not going to convince me to see a film or a television show because the monster looks particularly convincing; you're going to convince me to see a film based on who's in it, or who wrote it, or who directed it, or even who did the score or the freakin' cinematography (The Omen -the 1976 original - has direct connections to Star Wars, Star Trek, and Doctor Who in this way; Star Wars's cinematographer, Star Trek's most epic composer, and Doctor Who number 2 Patrick Troughton). (And for that matter, I got hooked on Doctor Who after seeing City of Death, which was written by Douglas Adams.)

So anyway, yeah, acting's important. And as I mentioned in one of my Who Reviews, I generally don't knock acting unless it's impressively bad... which brings us directly to the hacks. Let's look specifically at Transformers. ...Okay, once you're done ogling Megan Fox and the CGI, notice what a terrible, terrible actor Shia is. You get the feeling he was cast to offset the special effects budget (again - Sam Neill, not the biggest-name star in the business in 1993, but at least the man could act). And then he got to pop up in Indiana Jones IV: Lucas Kills His Other Legacy. And thus a "star" is born. Ugh.

And then there's the other complaint about Jurassic Park, the obligatory nerd one: with both of the movie's most famous monsters hailing from the Cretaceous Period instead of the Jurassic, the whole thing was misnamed. (In fact, of the 7 dinosaurs, only Brachiosaurus and Dilophosaurus came from the Jurassic Period.) So it set a precedent for not doing the research.

Oh Well, Whatever, Wherever You Are...

Yes yes, I know the title isn't a direct accurate quote of some certain song lyrics. Tough beans. Here's a bunch of random thoughts that I've had since whenever-it-was I last updated this thingy.

First off: though it's been raised a few times (mostly in jest or as a sort of "long-shot" guessing), turns out that if Sydney Newman had his way, the Seventh Doctor would have been a woman. Not only that, but they would have brought Patrick Troughton back to ease the transition...? Uh, okay, but bear in mind that a) the big complaint about mid-80s Doctor Who was the endless continuity references, and b) by the time Time and the Rani aired, Troughton was, er, dead. He was alive when it was made, though, but still, that would be a little... odd.

Okay, dude, can you say "ratings stunt?" Look, on the one hand, yes, if there was a time to make the Doctor a woman, 1986 was it. We were coming up on the halfway point of the Doctor's lifespan, and it wouldn't have seemed so absurdly out of place as it would have either in the 60s, when Women Simply Didn't Do That Sort of Thing, or now, when yes, the Doctor is unambiguously male and capable of "dancing." Furthermore, this was exactly the sort of bold all-or-nothing push that might have saved the show (see also what Mutant Enemy did with Season 2 of Dollhouse).

On the other hand... dude, can you say "ratings stunt?" (And Dollhouse was cancelled anyway.) Weren't we, the viewing public, sick of the ratings stunts by 1986?

...anyway, talking about 1986 and the end of the Sixth Doctor brings me directly back to Trial of a Time Lord, which, as you might remember, was done in a Christmas Carol style format wherein the Doctor is cast as Scrooge and must re-live an adventure from his past, present and future. So, yeah Doctor Who's already done A Christmas Carol before.

But that doesn't mean that this year's Christmas Special doesn't look awesome. And yes, it's only going to be 60 minutes long whereas the last special was some 75 minutes. This is okay. We don't really need overblown productions and spectacles. Remember, Classic Who could never fill out six episodes without some padding. The best New Who episode - "Blink," like you needed to be told - was the cheapie of Season 3. Still, yeah, Christmas, big overblown story with a big kabloom at the end. Traditional, you know.

...on a completely unrelated note, I don't know where I read it, but I saw something on the internet today suggesting that if Jane Espenson was writing the new Buffy movie, there would be a lot less whining. Well, yes. Jane Espenson wrote for the show. Again, not getting into that whole give-the-fangirl-the-key-to-the-asylum argument...

For crying out loud, protect your intellectual property.

There are really only three cultural things I worship: certain albums that came out between 1965 and 1985 (generally but not exclusively referred to as "classic rock"), Doctor Who, and the output of Joss Whedon. So naturally I'm somewhat distressed that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise is completely out of his hands.

(Imagine for a moment a super-writer with Joss Whedon's writing talent and George Lucas's business sense. No, this isn't going anywhere, but it would be awesome.)

Look, fanboys are perfectly capable of writing for the franchise they worship - Doctor Who is proof of that. On the other hand, fanboys are crazed rabid people who should never ever be allowed to write for the franchise they worship - Doctor Who is also proof of that.

I'm not saying that the new Buffy reboot is going to (no pun intended) suck. I'm also not saying that if it doesn't suck, that Joss Whedon is somehow overrated. Without him, there would be no Buffy, and by extension, Nu Who would look just a tad different.

What I'm most afraid of is the new movie turning out like the Hitchhiker's Guide film, or even the TV miniseries. That is to say, something that hits all the right notes and plot points and still comes off as limp and uninspired, as if we're just killing time until the crowd-pleasing moments show up, jumping from one set-piece to the next without a real understanding of how they connect. I just saw Doctor Who and the Daleks, and it was just like that. I stopped watching the Harry Potter movies because that's what they were turning into. The magic was gone.

...and, frankly, the magic was running awfully thin on Buffy nearly 10 years ago, during its last two seasons (again, pun not intended, since by that point Willow was a hyperpowerful witch...) But my point is this. That story's been told. It was told extremely well. It even outstayed its welcome a little, so bringing it back doesn't make a lot of sense and seems to be just a cheap cash-in.

Special Hells

"If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to a very special hell. The one they reserve for child molestors, and people who talk at the theater."
-Firefly

I sincerely hope there's a special hell for all of the above, but also the following:

People who park so close to you that you have to enter your car through the passenger door and climb over the armrest.

People who get all the way to the front of a line at a fast-food place without deciding what they want to eat.

People who wait until the very last second to merge on the highway, despite the fact that there have been signs saying to merge for the last mile and a half.

People who renege on a contract (written or otherwise) and offer either no excuse or an excuse as lame and vague as "something came up."

Politicians who pass bills without reading them.

People who rig elections.



(there's more to come...)

IG2EUS: Really Stupid Ideas

The Irreverent Guide to Everything Under the Sun has this to say on the subject of Really Stupid Ideas:

Really stupid ideas are ideas that are really stupid. Here are some examples.

Firing Phillip Hinchcliffe from the producership of Doctor Who.

Cancelling Firefly.

Insisting that the same people who will blindly follow orders at the expense of an innocent person's health are eligible to vote.

IG2EUS: Political Parties

The Irreverent Guide to Everything Under the Sun has this to say on the subject of Political Parties:

Political parties are sinister polarizing forces that conspire to turn man against his brother until man exists no more.

In the Decadent Wayward Colony known as America, there are two main political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicans believe that the government must have every power necessary to fight the threat of global terrorism, but only when the adults (e.g, themselves) are in charge. In contrast, the Democrats believe that the government must have every power necessary to fight the threat of global poverty, but only when the adults (e.g, themselves) are in charge.

Every two years, both parties spend a fantastic amount of money to elect one candidate who loves their country and who has strong convictions over another candidate who loves their country and who has strong convictions. Americans (and indeed, most citizens living in democracies) see this as perfectly reasonable. Remember, a democracy is a form of government that posits that the people are intelligent enough to elect their own leaders.

Every four years, the American political parties spend enough money to fund a minor war in order to get their candidate elected to occupy the White House, and also the Presidency. On paper, all the President gets to do is execute the law. This does not, thankfully, involve a firing squad. In reality, however, the President must be the voice of the free world. And this, thankfully, does not involve a firing squad either. Once it does, you can take comfort in knowing that it's already too late and there is nothing you can do.

See also:
The End of the World
Really Really Stupid Ideas

Dollhouse: Stage Fright

Here we are, kiddies. It’s the one with the pop singer, the one where Sierra gets her lamest imprint, and the one where Echo flashes a bunch of people just out of the camera’s field of vision.

It opens with one of those concerts that’s honestly more burlesque than music – but fortunately this doesn’t last long because one of the backup singers gets brutally burned by a pyro effect gone wrong. The singer bolts and the camera lingers on a creepy guy.

Then we get Saunders telling Boyd not to tear arrows out of his body himself. He tells her that she can call him Boyd – is he already flirting with her?
Melanie catches Lubov trying to sneak into his apartment. She’s barefoot (foreshadowing!!) and they do a little bit of talking – basically so we remember who Lubov is, so that it comes as a shock when we see him later in the Dollhouse.

The starlet needs to “remind everyone that she’s an artist [who] actually sings the damn songs.” Ah, what a jolly version of my own take on the pop music scene. Seems there’s been lots of sabotage – someone’s trying to kill the starlet, whose name is Rayna. Her manager asks Adelle for some help, so away we go. She doesn’t need bodyguards, she needs a friend. Aw.

So to recap, thus far Echo has been programmed to be a hostage negotiator (after briefly being a girl wearing a shirt), a date who gets hunted, and now someone who gets to hang out with a “musician.” For a show that claims its going to be exploring human sexuality, it’s not delivering in these early episodes.

(For the record, those of you so inclined might want to flip back to my review of “The Mysterious Planet,” where I spent some time blasting Robert Holmes for giving us some subpar nonsense. The same principle applies here. Joss Whedon is better at setting up shows than this.)

Okay, Elisa Dushku can sing. Not exactly lead-singer quality, but she can definitely carry a tune. The little duet she does with Rayna is pretty cool. Though it is a song about freedom, and let’s remember that she’s not going to have any of that until Season 2.

Saunders berates Topher, revealing in the process that sometimes they do “altruistic” engagements. We’ll get exactly one (possibly two) of these in the series.

Despite the fact that we’re three episodes in (and therefore in Fox-mandated “Stand-alone-ness”), there is some continuity – neither Echo nor Boyd are really on top form. Though in the next scene we get to see her in her bra, so yay female empowerment!

Rayna flips out over a mint, thus eradicating the last shred of sympathy I had for her, and then it’s back to the Enver Gjokaj show as Paul and Lubov meet for the last time. Hilariously, Lubov suggests that he should sign up, and someone who I had to rewind the disc to make sure wasn’t Echo walks past in the background. Come on, casting director, don’t do that to us. The music gets all dramatic and we know that Paul’s about to touch on one of the themes of the show: “We come up with something new, the first thing we do is destroy, manipulate, control.” “People are mostly crap,” Lubov says, in a great line.

Boyd says he’s “happy they double-tracked this.” (meaning he’s glad there are two Actives on the case, but anybody who knows about music production knows that double-tracking is something else). But Paul also says that Rayna is “shallow, vapid and narcissictic,” which explains why I don’t like her. Topher mentions that Joe Hearn is handling Sierra – more subtle foreshadowing. Then Topher wipes Lubov, revealing that he’s really Victor. Shock!

This is one of those episodes that are a paradox of early Dollhouse. It does stuff for the arc, and I like some of the little details, but the actual plot of the episode isn’t particularly… good. It just doesn’t work for me.

Part of the problem is that it makes us listen to the same godawful pop song and dance routine twice. The second time, there’s a sniper setting things up, and ooh, suspense, but the soundtrack’s trying to be all ominous and not in any way pulling this off with that wretched beat in the background.

After the commercial break, the show’s suddenly, um, over. Any hope we’d had that the plot would wrap up halfway through the episode gets horribly dashed. Sierra is Rayna’s number-one fan, and Rayna, disgusted, actually manages to act sympathetic. Huh. But, um, why did the Dollhouse think this was a good idea?

Echo asks Sierra if she’d take off her clothes and run down the street if she told her to. No, but she would if one of the handlers did. Bwahaha.

Lubov sets Paul up for a date with a bunch of gunmen. It ends with him being shot in the gut. This is going to be a recurring theme of the series. Nevertheless, because he is a badass, he is able to take out all his assailants even with a gaping wound in his side.

We meet Hearn, who seems more lazy than evil, though he mentions that the previous Sierra “got the job done.” Not creepy yet… just wait…

Echo realizes that Rayna has a death wish, and the scene ends with her saying “I just wanna be free” from inside the cage that’s going to take her to the stage. When we get back from the act break, Rayna’s singing a song about a stalker. How convenient.

Sierra gets up on stage because of a fantastic coincidence. Then Echo beats up a bouncer, gets on stage, and uses a spotlight to find the sniper. Okay, I get that dolls are programmed to be awesome and all, but, um, she doesn’t have superpowers.

Echo and Rayna have it out. “Are there any drugs you’re not on?” Awesome line. Rayna complains about how she’s not real, she’s just everybody’s fantasy, blah blah blah, Whedon used to be a lot more subtle when he had one character talk about another character without really intending to. Still, despite the blatant analogies, this episode still tends to work a tad better than the previous one, bad music and all.

…but then Sierra gets kidnapped just because the plot’s not over yet and we still have 20 minutes to kill. Yup, double-tracking was a great, great idea. Just like it was in “The Final Frontier.”

Echo notices the hostage is Sierra, who she met in their mutual blank slates at the beginning of the episode. But more importantly, her manager realizes what a self-centered brat his star really is. Yay! And yet, because Echo is programmed to like her, she still wants to help. Yup, that’s the only way for shallow pop stars to have friends. Tell it like it is!

Dominic doesn’t quite subscribe to this; when Adelle asks him if he likes Rayna’s music, he dodges the question like the smooth bastard he is.

Sierra gets menaced in a well-directed scene. Yay. Fanboy is suitably creepy. Meanwhile Rayna’s going through the same routine again, alone in her warehouse. She’s as much a robot as Echo is, really. Not very subtle. But Echo actually has something else in mind, because she actually does recognize Sierra. Topher explains that Echo’s hardwired to protect Rayna (she’s preventing Rayna from committing suicide), but that doesn’t seem to be a possibility because she’s going to use Rayna in a hostage exchange. Let me repeat that: it doesn’t seem possible to Topher or Dominic – two people who absolutely, as prerequisites for their jobs, should understand the nuances of the Laws of Robotics.

It turns out of course that Echo’s just doing the big old hostage therapy thing, getting Rayna to realize that yup, she actually does love her life. Still, there is that underlying current of “I remember Sierra.”

Also, Hearn shows up again and is a bit creepier towards Sierra.

Dominic recommends they send Echo to the attic – because again he can’t sort out that whole Second Law thing. It’s a nice touch, but it calls into question his qualifications – and not in the way we’re probably intended to question.

Saunders says that “Echo wasn’t always the best,” which Boyd interprets as meaning that Alpha was once the best. Ha ha.

This isn’t my favorite episode, for a number of reasons. I don’t really like the bratty pop star, which makes me glad that she gets some comeuppance at the end. Still, it’s got plenty of redeeming qualities. The creepy fan is a much more believable and identifiable villain that Mr. Most-Dangerous-Game in the previous episode. This episode got better after it started, just like the show did as a whole. The only problem is, nobody stuck around to watch it.

Dollhouse: The Target

The problem with the early episodes of this show is this: the writers are too intent on setting up the verse and the arc at the expense of any given individual episode. It's like someone told Joss one time too many that the biggest problem with the second episode of Buffy was that Angel seems to be in the sunlight in the tomb scene. I get it; keeping characters consistent is important. But that's no excuse for letting individual episodes suffer.

Now if it seems odd for me to lecture someone like Whedon, who after all has made several awesome TV shows whereas I am a college student whose greatest accomplishment to date has been learning how to play and sing "Money" at the same time, let me just put on my Stephen Colbert voice for a moment and remind you that Joss has also had shows cancelled, whereas I have not.

Anyway, episode 2 opens with a flashback to three months ago. It's Alpha's big composite event, Doctor Saunders looks like a jigsaw puzzle, etc. Echo is in the shower - does this jar with what we see at the end of the season? Must remember to check. Anyway, roll credits.

This week, the Dollhouse is selling the truth. "Everything you want, everything you need, she will be, honestly and completely." Adelle tells the client to return her safe and sound. Yeah, right. Flash cut to epic outdoorsy stuff - because every couch potato who's going to watch the show and care about the ongoing arc is exactly the same sort of person who routinely goes kayaking and mountain climbing.

Back to Topher and Boyd, generally bitching at each other but not actually being overtly annoying.

Paul arrives at the scene of the previous episode, because it's still an entire frickin month before he actually gets to intersect the plot in any meaningful way. This is what we call a guest star, not a regular. Nothing against Paul, or his actor, but he's not moving the plot, and in these early episodes the audience needs moving plots.

Meanwhile, Echo's client decides he's going to kill her for funsies. Does the Dollhouse screen its clients at all? Given what Alpha manages to pull in the next season, the answer is "um, no."

There's a flashback where we learn that Langton showed up after Alpha's incident, and that he came "highly recommended." Also, that Alpha can kill a man in 8 seconds with a series of highly precise cuts. Fun!

There's some stuff with Lubov, because he's got to be in this episode too, and then Ballard gets a photo of "Caroline," the woman we know as Echo. Also, nobody else in the FBI believes in the Dollhouse.

The hunter gets in a few shots with the crossbow, but Echo doesn't do the intelligent thing and take the arrows.

In another flashback, Boyd shuts down Smug Topher with just a couple of words about Alpha. Two minutes on the job and he already knows which buttons to push.

More running, more really sketchy stunt double shots. Finally Echo drinks something she shouldn't, because, hey, taking a trick that didn't work in Doctor Who can be reused here.

In yet another flashback, Echo tells Boyd he's tall - oh, Boyd, I know how you feel - and then we do the Big Imprinting Thing for the first time. Topher says "All right, Brando, let's see what you've got." And then Boyd does some fantastic acting, pretending that they haven't done this dance before.

Echo, under the effects of the drug, has a flashback to the massacre at the Dollhouse, only "Alpha" is holding a knife instead of some scissors - again, must check "Omega" once we get there.

Seriously, what is it with the flashbacks in the second episode? Since when has that ever spelled sucess?

The next flashback - Boyd really not getting into the handler role after Echo's gotten hired out to a fat dude - really does work once you've seen the whole show. So yay for that.

Also, Boyd becomes the first person to get shot in the side. He won't be the last - Adelle, Echo and Boyd again. Also he has two guns, which is awesome, but this never comes up again.

So Echo and her psychotic date have their big old fight scene, because it's not a Whedon show if a girl's not beating a bigger guy up.

There's one last scene where Dominic taunts Echo a bit. What a charmer.

Compared to the previous one, this episode's got its share of strengths and weaknesses. For one thing, Echo doesn't have a big glaring psychological flaw in her imprint this time. On the other hand, the flashbacks really don't help the story that much.

The point of the early episodes of a show is to give the audience a taste of what's to come. The thing is, Whedon's shows evolve. Trying to sell a standalone episode as a template even for the end of the season is a silly thing to do.

Still, there's plenty of worse crap on TV.

Dollhouse: Ghost

As I hinted at the end of my review of The Robots of Death, I have the intention of reviewing other shows. Most of these were made by Joss Whedon, and so...

First of all, I'm going to lay down some ground rules. I don't intend on rating the Dollhouse or Firefly episodes out of ten. The reason for this is that the former took forever to find its stride, and there's so little of the latter for any serious comparison. And if that sounds like a cop-out, then sorry.

So. "Ghost" sets up the world of Dollhouse. Caroline, who was just trying to find her place in the world, "just like she said," is coerced into becoming an Active. Actives are people who get programmed to be whatever their clients want them to be. Her handler is Boyd Langton, alias that jerk from The Matrix Revolutions. He apparently has some moral qualms - when Echo says "you're good people," he doesn't really seem to believe her. Anyway, her memory gets wiped - in reverse chronological order - and she returns to her blank state. Get used to this character, because we're going to be seeing her a lot for a season and a half.

The guy who wipes her is Topher Brink, a smarmy geeky tech who calls Boyd "man-friend" a lot (again, this is going away in Season 2). Basically think Andrew from Buffy with a lot more brains and a lot less sexual ambiguity (...maybe).

After this, we see a kid get abducted from her home, and roll opening credits.

"She's completely helpless" is the first line after the credits; does this mean Echo or the kid?

The kid, as it turns out - her father asks DeWitt to program a negotiator. This scene also introduces Mr. Dominic, one of the more-interesting-without-being-annoying characters (sorry, Topher). After that, we meet the doctor, Claire Saunders, played by Amy "Fred" Acker. Her first scene is a one-on-one with Echo, and the Faith-Fred shippers (you know there must be at least one of them) rejoice. Something fell on Echo, it turns out, and she can't remember it (it was probably her lover, but I'm amused by the fact that things falling on limbs was introduced in the very first episode).

Echo wanders upstairs and meets Important Doll #2, Sierra, formerly Priya. Her mind's being wiped, painfully. Topher explains that because it's her first time, they need to do more extensive work on her. The phrase "active architecture" obviously isn't being thrown around in front of the dolls - or maybe it just hasn't been invented yet.

Two things to point out: Saunders slinks through the back of the scene rather eeriy right when Topher starts talking about "forgetting all this." Secondly, Ivy's not in that scene.

Moving right along, we get introduced to Paul Ballard, an FBI agent who's not getting anywhere in his investigation of the Dollhouse. He's physically threatened a Senator - obviously not Daniel Perrin - and gone through a divorce. "If you have everything, you want something else," Paul says. This is all intercut with a boxing match to demonstrate that Paul isn't the giving-up type. His superiors tell him to stay away from a human trafficking case. He says it won't be a problem. Guess where we'll see him next?

Meanwhile, Echo gets imprinted as the negotiator in the kidnap case. Anybody thinking the writers could save themselves a lot of bother by making the kidnappers in league with the human traffickers is sadly mistaken. In a clumsy infodump, we learn that Boyd is an ex-cop (I say clumsy because Dominic never says anything about ex-cop heroics ever again for the rest of the season).

The father namedrops Edward James Olmos, because Whedon is obsessed with Battlestar Galactica. We also learn that Topher can mess up people's bodies - or at least the way they percieve their bodies. Topher watches Sierra on a treadmill and says that whever someone's running, the question is are they running to something or from something, and the answer is always both. "Achievement is balanced by fault," Topher says, and "Everyone who excels is... hiding from something." And he looks at Saunders - she with the facial scars - as he says that.

There's some plot stuff that pertains just to this episode, but as I said, I'm not really doing reviews of each episode on an individual basis.

Paul watches Lubov, one of the Borodin goons. Lubov - spoiler alert - is really Victor, another doll, and he's basically the same character as the art critic in "Belonging."

Echo's imprint - Eleanor Penn - was kidnapped as a kid. So that's three outright kidnappings in this plot, and yet they don't use this as an easy way to bring Paul into the picture. That's not to say he gets nothing to do - he gets to menace Lubov in the men's room.

The exchange gets shot to hell - literally - when Eleanor Penn recognizes one of the kidnappers. Note that this is the only time Echo gets so severely hamstrung by just random stuff Topher put in her brain.

Dominic goes ape about everything that went down at the dock - he's a great character, he's interfering and making the plot take longer, but he's doing his job and he's got his reasons. Reed Diamond sells it so well. He's not an obstructionist on a power trip, he's a guy who's seriously concerned with doing his job, even at the expense of one single mission.

DeWitt tells Boyd that he hasn't been here "as long as some of the others," which is slightly less jarring an info-dump that the earlier one, and it's arguably more important - though it does make his eventual promotion a bit stranger. Surely there's a handler who can actually, uh, handle their Active? (Whoops, that was a bad choice of words considering what happens with Sierra).

When Boyd finds out how emotionally damaged the imprint is, and what it might do to Echo, he has another conscience attack. Apparently.

Also, the serial rapist in this story has been going through girls, more than a bit like the Dollhouse itself.

Echo tries to get the kidnappers to make the exchange fairly, but Sierra comes crashing in with a shotgun and spoils the whole thing. Too bad that never goes anywhere - Eleanor Penn's not coming back until she's one of many voices in Echo's head, and Sierra's imprint's never coming back.

Lastly, as the dolls get into their beds, you can see the back of Victor's head.

There are some flaws in this, as far as first episodes go - some of the infodumps are just a bit too brazen. It works in most places though. We know who the Dollhouse staff is, and we have a few hints about how the rest of the first season - and beyond - will unfold.

The Newspeak Guide to Rock Albums

Perhaps you have heard of Led Zeppelin IV. Some of its track titles are politically incorrect these days, so we've taken to renaming them. "Black Dog," "Stairway to Heaven" and "When the Levee Breaks" have become "Dog of Color," "Stairway to an Unspecified Nondenominational Afterlife" and "When the Levee Breaks (It's W's Fault)."

In the same vein, the Beatles' "Taxman" has been renamed "Robin Hood," and "Revolution" has been renamed "Our Game Plan."

Likewise, the second biggest-selling album of all time is now just called Back, because "Back in Black" is racist, and "Back in" just doesn't make sense.

Songs about sex can stay, so long as the sex is mutually enjoyable. Songs that treat women as objects have to go.

Oh, and get those parental warning labels off the albums. Kids are going to come across that sort of language no matter what we do.

what have I accomplished today?

Well, I found out where Iron Maiden's famous chord progression comes from.

Some further post-election thoughts

So apparently John Boehner is going to run a more bipartisan House than Pelosi did. Dunno how I feel about that, seeing as the Republicans got elected specifically to derail a disastrous Democrat/socialist agenda. There's such a thing as being a gracious winner. There's also such a thing as making damn sure that you fulfil your campaign promises.

Never forget, politicians, you owe more to your constituents than you do to your colleagues across the aisle.

For example, everybody on Capitol Hill is overpaid. Every single person. Time for that to change. Hell, Congress should have gotten a pay cut every time the economy got worse.

Finally, the President, who insists that the election wasn't a referendum on his policies, says that we can't afford two years of gridlock. Actually, between gridlock and increasing government, I'll take gridlock.

El Presidente doesn't get it.

Read this, and pay special attention to this quote: "Yesterday's vote confirmed what I've heard from folks all across America. People are frustrated, they're deeply frustrated with the pace of our economic recovery."

Okay, just to be clear, this is the biggest turnover in the House since the 40s. We've had some crappy economies since then. No, it's not that.

It's the legislation, stupid. Check out what happened to a bunch of Dems who voted for socialized medicine.

The spin machine's already in place; you're angry, but not at me. I'm your buddy.

It makes me sick.

Hand in your gavel, Pelosi

So the Democrats made a fantastically idiotic mistake in thinking that a vote against the big-government Republican agenda was a vote for their statist power grabs. Nuh-uh.

Well, we'll see what the Republicans do with it now. See, back in 06 and especially 08, the Republicans lost a bunch of moderates. That makes sense. The hard-liners should have more party support. But I'd say the same thing just happened to the Democrats; let's see how many Dems who voted against Obamacare still have their jobs when the smoke clears.

What I'm saying is that compromises will be few and far between over the next two years. And this is a good thing; anything that jams up the gears of government and prevents it from expanding further and encroaching on our liberties is a good thing.

But will this be a wake-up call to the Washington elite?

I'm reminded of an old Calvin & Hobbes comic. They're building snowmen, and the idea is that they'll have two snowmen shaking hands. Calvin (probably; it might have been Hobbes, but this was a long time ago and I don't quite remember) makes his snowman's arm too short. Rather than extend the arm a little more, he tells Hobbes to move his snowman a little closer. Hobbes declines. Violence ensues.

Well, the Democrats are Calvin. They always want to move the snowmen (the political baseline, the "moderate" reading) closer to them, further to the left. And, somewhat disgustingly, the last Republican congress didn't really say no. Oh, gay rights this and abortion that and taxes the other thing, the size of the federal government increased under Bush. What's a Republican? It's someone who runs as a conservative/libertarian, but governs as a Democrat-lite.

And that needs to stop.