Posts Tagged ‘Dollhouse’
Five-Sentence Review: ‘The Avengers’ as Lesser Whedona
Of course I deeply enjoyed The Avengers, but my sense is it’ll be up to The Avengers 2: Avengers Reveng’d! to salvage the series from the scrapheap of Lesser Whedona. Could there be any better confirmation of the kneejerk elitist sensibilities of Internet nerddom than to have this film be Joss’s first genuine mainstream success? Though certainly funny and engaging, and on occasion very clever, The Avengers is more or less superheroes completely by-the-numbers, almost entirely lacking in the deconstructive self-awareness that characterizes more artistically ambitious Whedon creations like Buffy, Firefly, and especially Cabin in the Woods and the too-neglected Dollhouse. The film has zero critical purchase on its genre, and precious little Whedonesque irony about itself.
In short, The Avengers is what Buffy would have been, if it were only fight scenes and quips.
‘Our Goal Is Nothing Less Than to Survive the Apocalypse to Come in Comfort and Luxury’
The headline reads, “LA Porn Studio Begins Construction On ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ Underground Bunker.” Via zunguzungu’s Sunday Reading. The Dollhouse is real.
Zombies, Reavers, Butchers, Actuals, and Joss Whedon
We’re traveling back east most of day, but I wanted to throw up a link to my contribution to PopMatters’s Joss Whedon Spotlight: “Zombies, Reavers, Butchers, and Actuals in Joss Whedon’s Work.” This is a sliver from my long zombie chapter with some new stuff about Joss, Buffy, and Angel added in. I saw there was a link to the piece this morning at Whedonesque, which was really fun for me; I’ve had that site in my RSS reader for years…
Back in Durham tonight.
And Some Links for Thursday
* The list of lists for 2010 is ready. You have two days left to mourn. Enjoy.
* Fantastic piece on Obama via @zunguzungu: I expected Obama to be a better loser, specifically to be better at losing. There were a lot of items on the table, a lot of them weren’t going to happen, but it was important for the new future of liberalism that the Obama team lost them well. And that hasn’t happened.
By losing well, I mean losing in a way that builds a coalition, demonstrates to your allies that you are serious, takes a pound of flesh from your opponents and leaves them with the blame, and convinces those on the fence that it is an important issue for which you have the answers. Lose for the long run; lose in a way that leaves liberal institutions and infrastructure stronger, able to be deployed again at a later date.
* At least court-watchers are scoring the Sotomayor pick as a long-term progressive win. Via Benen.
* Weird science: third triplet born twelve years after her sisters.
* Weird clemency: Barbour’s order stands on the condition that Gladys donates one of her kidneys to her ailing sister, “a procedure which should be scheduled with urgency.” I feel like this story pretty clearly demonstrates how useless decades-long incarceration is in most cases, as well as the basic arbitrariness of the criminal justice system.
* Alas, Cleveland: Dennis Kucinich may lose his district.
* Alas, Paul Simon: Kodachrome finally taken away.
* What has been seen can never be unseen: Muppets with People Eyes.
* In important telling-you-what-was-already-pretty-obvious news, Tim Minear says the third season of Dollhouse would essentially have been another season of Buffy.
* And of course you had me at original He-Man storyboards.
Friday Night in Arlington
* Travel the galaxy from the privacy of your couch with these retro Star Wars travel posters. (Thanks, Fiona!)
* Rally for Sanity Watch: Liberal and left activist groups will be out in force trying to swell their ranks. I wonder how they’ll feel after Stewart says they’re half the “problem.”
* Rally for Insanity Watch: 1, 2, 3.
* Here come the Dollhouse comics.
* Between a solid science fiction and crackpot that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the science fiction.
* Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach will co-produce “a screwball comedy about an escort, a theatre director and a private detective.” Something called Moonrise Kingdom is said to be Wes’s next directorial project. I’m already excited.
Epitaph Three
Perhaps io9 can remind you why you miss Dollhouse. Season 2 DVDs out today.
A Bunch of Links for Thursday
* In the future, you can make telephone calls from inside your email. Also, in the future Google knows everything there is to know about you.
* Oh, crap: My adjunct story starts with the highly self-indulgent decision to pursue a PhD in comparative literature. To me, this meant I’d get to study great writers who happened to express themselves in different languages. To hiring committees, it meant I had GENERALIST tattooed on my forehead—the academic equivalent of a scarlet A.
* Vimeo has a sneak preview of The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town.
* Happy 35th birthday, global warming. Personally, like the first commenter, I count from Arrhenius.
* How the Pirates make more money losing. Via the MetaFilter thread on accounting tricks in Major League Baseball.
* Surviving and Thriving in Durham: a Tumblr blog.
* Slayage has a special double issue on Dollhouse.
* There’s a new Grow game, Grow Valley. (Here’s the walkthrough.) You may also Metagun, which Rock Paper Shotgun describes as “a game about a man who fires a gun that fires men who fire guns. At you.”
* The eleven most scandalous stories about Saved By The Bell from Dustin “Screech” Diamond’s autobiography. Not a hoax, not an imaginary story. Via MetaFilter.
* And you had me at “Rod Serling action figure.”
When Whedon Failed
However, it’s Whedon’s other shortcoming as a writer that has me worried about his future: a heavy reliance on the traditional Hollywood three-act structure and a tendency to resolve almost all conflicts with an action climax between the hero and villain.
Dollhouse as disappointment, at The House Next Door.
Regardless, the biggest question now that Dollhouse has been canceled is: Where does Whedon go from here? The current rumor is that he’s in discussions to develop a show for FX; he’s also been talking about creating content for the Internet, although it’s not clear if there will be a viable financial model for supporting such an endeavor anytime in the near future. Both possibilities would offer him more creative control than he’s had in the past, albeit less money. But artistic freedom should be much higher on his list of priorities than having a major-network budget. I’ve been watching Whedon’s work for over a decade now, and while it’s always been consistently entertaining, I have to admit that the thrill of seeing something new, of recognizing an original voice amid a glut of anonymously produced television, has been replaced with playing “spot the reference.” He needs to move out of his comfort zone and develop a television show that doesn’t rely on the formulas that he’s perfected and worn out. The man who created Dollhouse might, ironically, be in the midst of an identity crisis himself: Who is Joss Whedon, and who does he want to become next?
Another Semester, Another Syllabus
Assuming I’m finally done obsessively tweaking it, here’s the syllabus for the Writing 20 I’ll be teaching this semester, subtitled “Writing the Future.”
Thursday 2
* Why Dollhouse failed: an interview with Joss Whedon.
“The problems that the show encountered weren’t standalone versus mythology [episodes],” Whedon said. “Basically, the show didn’t really get off the ground because the network pretty much wanted to back away from the concept five minutes after they bought it. And then ultimately, the show itself is also kind of odd and difficult to market. I actually think they did a good job, but it’s just not a slam-dunk concept.”
* Continuity: a game that combines all the fun of low-res platforming with those sliding box puzzles we had when we were kids.
* Good news from places I have lived: Cleveland has passed a transgender protection law, while NJ may vote on marriage equality next week. “Democratic officials previously said they would not put the legislation to a vote unless they had the support needed to pass it.” So it’s as good as done.
* And close enough: Hundreds of New Yorkers rally in Times Square for marriage equality.
* Bad news from places I have lived: MTV’s The Shore premieres tonight.
* The headline reads, “Hungry polar bears resorting to cannibalism.” (Thanks Leah. But Canada is still on notice.)
* Of course, as we all know, polar bears are just early adopters.
* Actually existing media bias: The Dallas Morning News has saved journalism by ordering its section editors to report directly to its advertising staff. Via MeFi.
* A University of Montreal study on the effects of watching pornography ran into trouble when it couldn’t find any men who didn’t watch porn. Also spotted at Pharyngula. But won’t somebody think of the children?
* Amanda Marcotte: You’ll notice that entire categories of women are being redefined as so disgusting that any man who touches them should be ashamed. First it was over 40 (cougar), then over 30 (puma), and now over 25 (cheetah), and soon it will be anyone over the age of legal consent. And those below it? Illegal. Exactly zero women will be acceptable for fucking.
* Nate Silver continues his quixotic efforts to handicap the 2012 GOP field.
* And hairy chests are back. I have come prepared.
No Gay Marriage, But
We can’t have marriage equality, but we can have “Epitaph Two: The Return.”
Lots of Black Friday Links
* You can listen to a segment of the Slavoj Žižek essay on contemporary apocalypticism that will appear in our upcoming issue of Polygraph here. (via Verso)
* The headline reads, Cigar-Shaped “Mothership” Plunges Argentinian Town Into A Blackout.
* 15 Toys Not to Buy Your Child This Christmas. Of course, science proves you shouldn’t buy anyone gifts at all. (Both links via Neil.)
* Is the public option now too watered-down to fight for? Matt Yglesias and Steve Benen join Josh Marshall in thinking this over. I feel exactly how I did on Monday: the point is to pass anything so it can be improved without a filibuster.
* North Carolina in the news! Kay Hagan is the Senate’s 17th wealthiest senator (via), while Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina has gotten itself in big trouble for improper issue advocacy against the public option.
* Other politics quick hits: HIV travel ban finally lifted. The national GOP has money problems. They’re talking about a war tax. Despite what you may hear in the press, Obama is pretty good at this whole international diplomacy thing. And Dubai is collapsing; couldn’t have happened to a nicer country.
* The New York Times “100 Notable Books of 2009” list is already out.
* ‘Are Fake Academic Conferences the New Nigerian Prince Scam?’
* Little-used geek measurements.
Sheppey (distance)
I have to include Douglas Adams’ co-creation (with John Lloyd) here — It’s from The Meaning of Liff, their dictionary of things there aren’t any words for yet. All the words in the dictionary are British place names (the Isle of Sheppey is off the Kent coast). One sheppey is the closest distance at which sheep are still picturesque, and is about seven-eighths of a mile.
* Thor, a Marvel comics character I’m still pretty sure has to be an elaborate joke, will redefine what a superhero movie can be.
* Black Friday LEGO nostalgia.
* Ah, that explains it: that badly timed Dollhouse ARG turns out to be the work of overzealous fans.
Gerry Canavan 