cimorene

I've been watching Dollhouse and enjoying the good dialogue and disliking all the usual targets for feminist critique, which is almost everything in this show; so the enjoyment is uncomfortable. Then there are plot-level problems and hating the "genius" character (whom I don't find remotely credible as a genius, even on the level that pseudoscience is used here, which is more or less the Stargate level) and every scene he appears in, pretty much. I like black Giles and, although I don't think she necessarily makes sense and (insert feminist critique here), I also enjoy Olivia Williams on a line-delivery level. But the last episode was better-written than the first two although not necessarily more problematic; and I think everyone is able to get into it a bit more here because at least Echo's character arc is really becoming more visible here, and we're finally starting to see some real movement in it. The first couple of eps were both devoted to setup, which was unfortunate; they really should have been put together in a single pilot, I think, because of the way they read like a single chapter.

Speaking of feminist critique, how about Criminal Minds last week, huh? I mean, they've already failed so spectacularly this season with the Gypsies Steal Babies story that the It's Bad To Not Give Psychics In Law Enforcement A Fair Shake episode and its confused moral (Rossi was right all along but somehow his caution that was totally necessary was still assholey? What?) was not even a blip. But last week's Secret Diary of a Dallas Call Girl ep, which was actually better-written on a pacing/dialogue level than the CM median, was still a blip because even after presenting the call girl as a sympathetic character in that she is both a victim of The Patriarchy and a vigilante serial who shares a Moment with Hotch... do they even realise that the "yesss, Hotch helped stick it to The Man by embarrassing her Wall St dad" moment is kind of invalidated because they've already made the victimised woman into a violent killer?

After the second-to-last episode of NCIS and the Gayness Spike where Gibbs told Tony how much he meant to him, and that he was proud and trusted him, and touched him reassuringly and gave him the keys to the sexycar and took him on a date, I was interested to see what would happen, how they'd transition back into the normal run of things since the show's crimefighting and Tony-as-comic-relief schtick can't really allow for that level of focus on Gibbs/Dinozzo to continue. Also, the next episode is really significant to any kind of episode tags - it shows the state of the interpersonal dynamic after any hypothetical Basement-Boat-Bow-Chicka-Wow scenes. If that makes sense. Well, the new episode has Tony's normal type of comic relief back in full force but was actually doing quite a bit to maintain the gay , in that they made up the entire inheritance plot just to show gibbs spontaneously so worried about whether Tony would leave him that he admits to his constant spying on everyone and brings the whole thing up himself. Obvs. Tony's response to this is so unimportant that they don't even show it because the point is How Far Gibbs Has Come! First he talks about his feelings, and then he talks about the future! What's next? Hugging in public?!

There was no new Lie to Me this week, which is really sad. The show's showing great promise, even besides having Tim Roth: it's got multiple sub-plots that all show simultaneous movement, supporting actors who are interesting and not bad, entertaining plots of the week and law-enforcement shenanigans. I especially love the way everybody on the show is equally likely to turn into the Exposition Ho of the moment, and the way they tend to throw up their examples of people's Lying Body Language on big screen tvs and projectors and rewind them multiple times for our benefit... and then reinforce them with news clips of politicians and celebrities. They actually used "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" the other week. I really hope they don't get cancelled yet.