A lot of the critics of the Dollhouse premiere, and of the three episodes available to the press, don't understand something, and here is what that something is.
Anyone can write a show about vampires. Anyone can write a show about people that are hired for missions (aka Charlie's Angels)..they are missing the point.
My AP English Teacher Mrs Brown once told me, there are no such things as new ideas, only old ideas combined in new ways. Like paints on a canvas, they can be mixed in different, new and challenging ways but the paints are still the same colors.
My point is this, anyone can write a vampire show, anyone can write a sci-fi show, but what Joss does, how he writes, how he weaves an intricate universe that asks the important questions philosophically about who people are and what motivates us and what is the meaning of life, that's the deep stuff that keeps people coming back.
Even Dr. Horrible used a ton of musical conventions, with a complete understanding of what they are, before breaking them.
I learned while studying music (and engineering, for that matter) that the best way to know how to break the rules is to know what the rules are and then DELIBERATELY break them.
This first episode of Dollhouse was an establishing shot. It was what the network wanted, and now the critics are calling it conventional. I have a feeling they are just being idiots, because Joss always establishes conventions before he breaks them in new and unexpected ways.
Now that Joss has created the frame for his crayon drawing in black and white, I look forward to where he puts the colors -- both inside and outside the lines.
Chris
