Brief thoughts on Dollhouse: Epitaph One

The above tweet was my initial reaction to Epitaph One, the unaired, thirteenth episode of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, which it seems everyone on the Internet but me loves.

I'll be posting a (far) more in-depth look at Dollhouse later this week (or possibly next week), but for now here's a comment I posted on the appropriate post over at Whedonesque:

Honestly, I thought it was awful. I don't want to piss in anyone's lemonade, but I hated it so much it made me not want to watch season 2. I've calmed down and decided that I will give season 2 a try after all, but I still didn't like this episode.

I'm not going to go too much into why I hated it. Suffice it to say I thought it was a mess of half-baked ideas that were dropped on us all at once, when a slow build over the course of several seasons would have been so much more satisfying. But I think I understand why Joss did it the way he did. It just wasn't for me. I'm going to write up a longer, more specific review for my own blog later this week.

I'm a little disappointed that I'm one of the very, very few people that feels this way. It makes me feel like I must be crazy. But hey, different people like different things. That's what makes fandom interesting. I'm just glad that Joss is doing work that so many people can enjoy, even if I'm not one of those people.

My upcoming post will discuss not just Epitaph One, but the entire first season of Dollhouse, especially the "season finale," Omega. Whether I'll have anything to say about the unaired pilot, I'm not sure, as I've not seen it yet. Expect that very long post to go up sometime before the end of next week.

Thoughts on the Doctor Who re-numbering

There's been a lot of talk lately on Twitter about the numbering of the upcoming 2010 series of Doctor Who. According to Doctor Who Magazine, the series will be produced and promoted as Series One, which is a surprise as many fans were expecting it to be called Series Five. And there's a minority of fans who would prefer it to be called Season (or series) Thirty-One, continuing the numbering scheme of the classic series. My comment to Chris in a recent videobloggery aside, I'm not one of those who insists on continuing the numbering of the classic series, except in the service of a cheap joke.

It's a brave choice to start the numbering over again, and I think I support it. As I said on Twitter, a while back, I like the way it shatters the dichotomy between the new and the old. It does risk confusing some viewers, but honestly I think we should give the viewers a bit more credit. I think the vast majority of viewers are either (a) so casual that they honestly couldn't care less about numbering or (b) invested in the show enough that they'll understand what's going on with the numbering reset: Russell T Davies' take on the program is over and Steven Moffatt's new direction for the show has begun. And when Moffatt leaves, they may well start back at 1 with someone else.

Perhaps most importantly of all, keeping the numbering in the low single digits has the important effect of welcoming new viewers. While a number like 31 (and even five) is potentially alienating to new viewers, "Series One" makes it clear that new viewers are definitely welcome to start watching the program without worrying about the years and years of continuity they've missed. Keep in mind: Doctor Who is for everyone, not just the hardcore fans.

There is, of course, the danger that some fans will take the reset as an invitation to leave the program, as though the show they loved is over and this is a new one, as Chip mentioned in his recent episode of his Two-Minute Time Lord podcast, but I honestly don't think this is a major issue. Those fans who want to stop watching the show will stop watching it regardless of what the number is. And those fans who have opinions about the numbering will merely call this Series Five, or Season Thirty-One, or the 2010 Season.

Personally, I'll be using the terms "Season x", "Davies Series x", and "Moffatt Series x". But numbering schemes like this are for the existing fans, and this change is for the benefit of potential new fans. And it's always good to have more of those.

Oh, and by the way, the current specials are "Davies Series 4b" for me. Come on, fandom, it's not that hard!

Torchwood: Children of Earth

This week is Torchwood week. On BBC One, an episode of the new five-part Torchwood: Children of Earth is being aired each weeknight. In the US, you can catch them on BBC America frm July 20-24, but I'm watching them in sync with the UK airdate to review them for Behind the Sofa.

Although Torchwood has in the past been mediocre at best, this new series really is fantastic. You can find links to the the reviews in this post, which I'll be updating as I post them. Some of the reviews have spoilers, but the first one doesn't.

Torchwood: Children of Earth

• Day One
• Day Two
• Day Three
• Day Four
• Day Five

Old Teeth...

...that's weird.

My review of Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead is now over at Behind the Sofa. Check it out!

And comment if you like. You'll have to sign up for a free typepad account, but I think you can live with that, can't you?

Nathan Fillion is King of this Castle

(I feel like lame puns in headlines are part of the tradition of TV reviews, and now I'm part of it)

Last night ABC premiered its new mystery show Castle, starring Stana Katic as a young and attractive but tough female detective and Nathan Fillion as the crime novelist who's brought in by the NYPD to act as a consultant while he does "research" for his next novel. Of ocurse, this "research" consists of helping solve the crimes while hitting on his partner. Good times all around.

The show's premise is strong enough to lift it above the class of ordinary procedurals, and the mystery (of the first episode at least) is twisty and turny enough to keep you entertained throughout the entire hour. However, the dialogue isn't always as witty or smart as it could be, and the supporting characters are written (and played) by the book and uninterestingly.

What makes the show stand out, and gives it a shot at being a big hit, is the charisma and chemistry of the two lead actors. The over-the-top grandeur of Nathan Fillion's performance as Rick Castle is no big shock to fans of Joss Whedon. He's as smarmy and cheesy as he was in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, but he brings the intelligence and wit of Captain Mal from Firefly and Alex Tully of Tim Minear's short-lived FOX drama Drive, without any of the intense gravity of either of those characters. He sells the immaturity of the character well, without making us doubt that such a man-child could be a prolific author of crime novels.

Meanwhile, Stana Katic, who I know only as "Wireless" from the first season of Heroes, is suitably uptight as the genercly-named Kate Beckett, without feeling cold or unlikable. Her character seems to be getting the short end of the stick, however: she's clearly competent, but always wrong, and it's Castle's brash, sloppy intelligence that wins the day.

Here's hoping they mix that dynamic up a bit as the series progresses. Beckett complains that Castle's like a child, but he's clearly perceptive and bold enough to solve the show's mysteries. Beckett takes on the function of playing nanny to the brilliant but uncontrollable genius, like Peter Bishop to his father Walter on Fringe. That's a relationship that works well on a science fiction show, but on a cop drama like this, I hope that we'll come to see Castle and Beckett as equal partners.

I'm not a huge fan of procedurals, but I think I'll be keeping an eye on this show for a while. Even though I don't think the first episode hits it out of the park, it has the makings of a hit. I suspect that ABC is trying to do for mystery procedurals what FOX did for doctor procedurals with House: Create a show with a sense of humor and a charismatic lead actor that delivers top-notch procedural drama week after week but focuses on character drama as much as plotty cases-of-the-week. ABC failed with Pushing Daisies and Life on Mars, which brought in fantasy elements, but can the not-quite-as-bold Castle be that show? I think it can be, but I'm not sure whether it will be. The ratings for the first night were fairly strong, but nothing to brag about. Either way, I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Life on Mars US remake photos, hooray!

Some new publicity photos have surfaced via the Daily Mail showing the new vision for the US remake of Life on Mars, a cop drama with a time travel twist. The show, well-acclaimed in Britain and in the US, is about detective Sam Tyler, a no-nonsense, by-the-book cop from the present day who is in a car accident and wakes up in 1973. Sam must cope with the social realities of a different decade, particularly his violent and bigoted boss Gene Hunt. Sam investigates cases with Gene, all the while secretly searching for answers and a way back home.

Although the show wrapped up last year and its sequel series, Ashes to Ashes, is already in full swing, the American remake is just getting started. Or rather, the second American remake is. The first version of the pilot, featuring Jason O'Mara as Sam Tyler, Colm Meaney as Gene Hunt, and Rachel Lefevre as Sam's love interest Annie Cartwright, leaked to the internet some time ago and reaction was quite negative. With good reason, too. O'Mara hasn't the charisma to match John Simm's excellent portrayal of Sam in the original, Annie was a completely different character, and Gene Hunt, whose brutality and chauvinism were central to the character, had been softened up significantly and was more playful than hostile toward Sam. The relationship between Sam and Gene is the soul of the show, and getting it wrong ruins the whole project.

Thankfully, the remake of the pilot already looks worlds better. Showrunner David E Kelley has been replaced by a trio of fresh blood. And while O'Mara remains as Sam, veteran actor Harvey Keitel has been cast as the new Gene hunt. Keitel will certainly make an interesting Gene, much closer to the spirit of the original character but two decades older than Philip Glennister's version. What this means to the tone of the show I am unsure, but this is almost certainly a vast improvement to the pilot. Meanwhile, Gretchen Mol has been cast in the role of Annie, and from the picture it seems that they will be playing it much closer to the UK version that Kelley's first pilot did. Additionally, the new pilot features the return of two secondary characters who were cut from the first pilot. Ray Carling, Gene's right hand men, will be played by Michael Imperioli, and rookie detective Chris Skelton by Jonathan Murphy. The pilot suffered greatly for lack of two characters and seeing them back is great news for the show.

I highly recommend that before this series begins, you check out the original UK version, although sadly the DVDs are not available in the US. I'm not quite sure why that is, it might have something to do with rights issues involving the many popular songs of the seventies that appear in the show, obviously including David Bowie's song "Life on Mars." Anyhow, hopefully BBC America will re-run the original Life on Mars in preparation for this show's premiere on ABC October 9.