Dollhouse, Better Off Ted, The Chopping Block
Angel, but I could only get through the occasional Ben Edlund-scripted episode. Tried Firefly and the Serenity movie, and was left baffled by the fan response. Heck, I even tried his comic book work, and he repaid me with the stupidest damn X-Men story that I’ve ever read. I’m not going to get into the specifics of the various projects, because this is a Dollhouse review. I’m just mentioning this to get my biases out there.
The pretty but inexpressive Dushku plays Echo, an “active”. See, the actives are sort of like human love dolls. They’re contracted for various assignments, to act out a fetish or negotiate with kidnappers or whatever, and programmed with a personality and necessary skills specific to the assignment. After the assignment, their brains are wiped clean until they’re called up again.
So yeah, the protagonists of the series are the people who brainwash their employees and take away their free will. Right off, that’s a little dodgy for storytelling purposes. And with a personality-free protagonist who’s reprogrammed every week, there’s not much to really engage the viewer. Unless they’re providing some spectacular set pieces, there’s not much to provide interest on a regular basis.
And some of it is fantastically stupid. The FBI has a task force dedicated to finding the Dollhouse, and in the opening scene of the series, Echo is hired for some guy’s birthday party. FBI? Can’t find them. Dumbass kids? No problem! Plus, the Dollhouse itself is located in a luxurious office building, decorated like the Playboy Grotto crossed with an Apple Store. These guys are not exactly low-profile. And why exactly would the father in this episode hire a woman who thinks she’s a hostage negotiator rather than, you know, an actual hostage negotiator.
It just isn’t very good. Whedon’s fanbase will say that it’s brilliant, or as seems to be the case with Dollhouse, “It gets good eventually”. I didn’t see anything really salvageable in this mess.
The Prognosis: Dreary. I really didn’t enjoy watching this, and I had to sit through it twice because I couldn’t remember a single detail from the first time through. And now I will spend years listening to people tell me that I should really check out the DVD’s, because I’ll love it. No. No, I won’t.
Better Off Ted
ABC, Wednesday 8:30 PM
The Premise: A workplace comedy about a product manager at a soulless, monolithic 
corporation.
corporation. The Personnel: Created by Victor Fresco, who also created the much-missed Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and has been writing for My Name is Earl. The cast includes Portia de Rossi (Arrested Development), Jonathan Slavin (Andy Richter…) and Andrea Anders (Oz).
The Poop: Considering I’ve already used this series as “The Most Awesome Thing I Saw Last Week”, there’s not much more that I can say. Check out that review, and I’ll meet you back here for the prognosis.
The Prognosis: Awesome. This one’s going to “Record All”. Plus, it’s on right before Lost, so you’re going to be watching TV anyway.
The Chopping Block
NBC, Cancelled
The Premise: A cooking competition built around a larger-than-live British celebrity chef that is absolutely not Hell’s Kitchen.
The Personnel: The host in question is Marco Pierre White, who viewers of Gordon Ramsay’s 
Boiling Point will know as the man who was considered the greatest chef in England, until he became some sort of hermit.
Boiling Point will know as the man who was considered the greatest chef in England, until he became some sort of hermit. The Poop: OK, I was really excited about this show before it premiered. White was fantastically weird on Ramsay’s various BBC shows. He went from being an angry egomaniac to the Zen Chef who’d only emerge from seclusion to talk to Gordon. So I figured this show would feature either a return to his hair-trigger temper, or else he’d shamble through the series, speaking cryptically.
Sadly, it’s neither. Two opposing teams, each made up of several two-person subteams, run their own restaurants and are evaluated by food critics. It’s a little confusing, separating the two main teams for the whole show and then having to keep track of which people paired within their own teams. And then, not everybody on the team is necessarily a chef. Wannabe restaurant managers appear on both teams, which is not something that’s exactly quantifiable in this scenario.
NBC is trying to make this as much like The Biggest Loser as possible, by trying to present dinner service as an inspirational struggle. This causes the editing to meander a little bit, rather than making preparation seem fast-paced and exciting. It’s weird how this show basically exists because of Hell’s Kitchen, but they tried to make it as much unlike Ramsay’s show as possible. Which is unfortunate, since that show’s, you know, good. And White’s role is downplayed as much as possible, to the extent that he’s just a moderately cranky mentor.
The Prognosis: Wow. I told people to watch this show because Marco Pierre White was hilarious and crazy. Somehow, they made one of the most compelling personalities in the world of cooking really boring. I apologize to all of you.
