Dollhouse question

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

When I recently watched Dollhouse for the first time I intended to watch Epitaph 1 as the 13nth episode of season 1. However I got distracted by being too lazy to spend 3 minutes looking up how to view the file which was in a format I hadn't seen in a while and I ended up just going straight to season 2. "All of america watched it this way, how bad can it be to skip it?" was my reasoning. I ended up watching Epitaph 1 and Epitaph 2 back to back as a two part series finale and I was very happy with viewing it that way. I feel like if I had watched Epitaph 1 at the end of season 1 there would have been some surprises I would have not have had (Boyd hiding Whisper in his house and having a relationship with her and I think there were others).

My question is did anyone watch it the originally intended way the first time with Epitaph 1 as the finale of season 1? Any opinions as to what way works best, has the most impact? I am probably going to be passing this on to people so I'm thinking about what viewing order I should recommend.

The two parter as a finale was very strong I thought, better than a lot of the other episodes.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Imagine if on first view that you saved the last episode of every season of Voyager, and chose not to watch any of them until after Endgame part 1 which was many years in the future.

Have you found the Doll House comics yet?

 

[Ethros]

I watched the first Season via DVD so did watch Epitaph 1 at the end of s1. Its definitely an unusual thing to do in TV but it was certainly cool and made Season 2 an interesting watch looking for clues as to where things were going.


When I rewatched the whole series a year or so ago I did leave Epitaph 1 & 2 till last though, and thought it worked really well. But that's on a rewatch, so I'm not really sure what I'd recommend to a newbie.


Hell, just describing what the show is to a newbie is difficult. Answering "Dollhouse? Not heard of it, what's that about?" isn't really something you can sum up in a few words is it?

 

[Forbin]

Epitaph 1 never even aired on TV! You only got to see it on the DVD set.
So my first seeing it was upon rewatching the series on DVD. I thought the episode was a very Whedon thing to do.

 

[Christopher]

As I recall, the first-season DVD set was out before season 2 premiered on TV, so we did get to see "Epitaph One" before season 2. And I think it's preferable to watch it in that order, because it establishes some foreshadowing that pays off in season 2, and because it raises the stakes of season 2 if you know what it's building toward.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Epitaph 1 never even aired on TV! You only got to see it on the DVD set.
So my first seeing it was upon rewatching the series on DVD. I thought the episode was a very Whedon thing to do.

"Never" is such a strong word.

I don't remember waiting a month till it aired in Singapore?

But I must have.

 

[Sindatur]

I actually still haven't seen it.

I watched on TV as the Series originally aired. I have the DVDs (Haven't watched them yet), and plan on watching them some time soon, and plan on watching Epitaph 1, in it's proper place at the end of S1.

I think it all comes down to if you like Foreshadowing/"Spoiling" by the showmaker, and taking it as how you got there, being the important thing, rather than, what the reveal was.

For example, Babylon 5, did kinda the same thing with War Without End, showing you a Fate that wouldn't come about for a couple more seasons, and leaving you guessing about things got like that.

So, yea, for a first viewing, I think it probably should be seen at the end of S1 as the makers intended, and then on a rewatch, it might be fun to hold it back until right before Epitaph 2.

 

[Christopher]

I think "spoiling" refers to revealing something that the storytellers don't want you to know yet. So the idea of the storytellers themselves "spoiling" the story is a contradiction in terms. If they choose to foreshadow something in advance, then that's the order in which they want you to discover things about the story. Not every story is meant to be told in strictly linear sequence.

 

[Sindatur]

I think "spoiling" refers to revealing something that the storytellers don't want you to know yet. So the idea of the storytellers themselves "spoiling" the story is a contradiction in terms. If they choose to foreshadow something in advance, then that's the order in which they want you to discover things about the story. Not every story is meant to be told in strictly linear sequence.

Hence my usage of the quote marks, to indicate it isn't really spoiling, but, some folks consider it spoilers

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It's funny how words can convert you. "Foreshadowing", yes I am now converted to pushing Dollhouse on people in the original Whedon intended order. If I rewatch it I will watch it that way.

I think it was only america that didn't see that episode. Looking it up, yes Singapore and the UK saw it.

As to the comics, I was looking them up on ebay yesterday and I might get them to sit next to my Firefly hardbacks. Unless they are terrible? I can only find one collection of multiple comics and it calls itself Volume 1 but there doesn't appear to be a Volume 2..

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DOLLHOUS...cs_Magazines_US_Comics_ET&hash=item589bcdb6a2

So now I have to figure out whether this is all of them or not.

 

[danellis]

I thought Epitaph 1 was the pilot, so was originally supposed to be seen before *anything* else?

dJE

 

[Christopher]

I thought Epitaph 1 was the pilot, so was originally supposed to be seen before *anything* else?

No, the rejected pilot was called "Echo," and a few scenes from it were recycled into several early first-season episodes, but most of it was overwritten by the events of the series proper. However, FOX decided to count the unaired pilot as part of its 13-episode order, so they only aired 12 episodes in the first season. But the DVD people didn't count the pilot and still wanted a full 13 episodes (plus the pilot as a bonus feature). So Whedon wrote "Epitaph One" as a story he could shoot with a mostly new cast at the same time that the main cast was shooting the broadcast season finale, and it was released as a DVD exclusive, and it served as a potential series finale in case the show didn't get renewed. But Whedon also shot it as inexpensively as he could using digital video, and it looked so good for so little cost that it convinced the network they could afford to give the show a second season after all, if the whole thing were shot with the same cost-saving methods.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You might be thinking of the rejected/alternate pilot, of which most was rejiggered into a later episode?

Is that on the DVD?

 

[kirk55555]

I watched the series when I got it on DVD. I got season one first, and I watched all the episodes with Epitaph 1 at the end. Even if I had gotten both seasons at once, I would have watched Epitaph 1 and the end of S2 and Epitaph 2 at the end of season 2, just because that's the way they seem to be meant to be watched, and I thought they worked well like that.