Title: Epitaph One
Written By: Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon and Joss Whedon
Air Date: None. DVD only.
Plot:
It’s 2019 and the world has gone to hell. The technology of the Dollhouse has found it’s way into the general public and propagated the world over. Those that haven’t been imprinted are known as actuals. A group of the actuals stumble upon the Dollhouse and through a series of flashbacks and imprints they seek to discover how the world ended up the way it is.
Wow. That’s pretty much all I can say. This looks and feels absolutely nothing like any of the previous episodes of Dollhouse. It’s infinitely darker than any of the previous episodes and it paints a devastatingly bleak picture for mankind’s future. It drops you into the future right from the get-go, and it was only when they found the entry into the Dollhouse that I figured out where the story might be going. I was thinking that there would be some kind of resolution to the story, but the episode ended in an even better way by simply showing the three remaining characters climbing a rope ladder outside the building to somewhere.
I like episodes which end on an ambiguous note because it allows the viewer to envision the future for the characters themselves. A friend of mine really disliked the ending to Angel I assume because he wanted to know one way or the other whether they would survive the ensuing battle. I liked that the showed ended as it did because it was in line with the overall theme of the show, that of surviving and redeeming yourself, but also because it allowed me to finish the story as thought it would go. I think episodes which don’t give a clear outcome are best served to be the final episode, not one that falls within the flow of the show, and in that regard “Epitaph One” would have been a damn near perfect final episode had Fox cancelled Dollhouse. That being said, I think this kind of non-linear storytelling could work well for Dollhouse because whilst the first half of the first season was OK, it wasn’t until “Man in the Street” that Dollhouse really started to find it’s groove. I think that “Epitaph One” will serve as a great way to give the show a direction and some momentum, an end point if you like.
All of the series regulars return, in a mostly reduced capacity, but a decent amount of screen time is devoted to the future characters. Felicia Day is the noteworthy member of the future group and it’s been confirmed that she’ll be returning in the second season. More pleasing than the presence of Felicia Day is the return of Mr Dominic (Reed Diamond) and his small scene with Miss DeWitt (Olivia Williams). They have a great chemistry and their characters work well together. There interaction during the first season was some of the best stuff on Dollhouse, and I’m hopeful that Mr Dominic will play a part in the second season as it’s obvious that he wasn’t killed when he was taken to the Attic.
As good as the return of Mr Dominic was, the scene between Miss DeWitt and Topher (Fran Kranz) was amazing. Their heartfelt connection and the look on Topher’s face when he came to the realisation that he was the one who unleashed the technology on the world was some of the very best stuff I’ve seen on Dollhouse. I’ve enjoyed Kranz’s hyperactive overexcited performances all season but I wouldn’t have thought that the best scene from the show so far would have come from him. It really was very moving, especially considering how cold Miss DeWitt has been portrayed so far, so it was great to see that she had a connection beyond her liaisons with the male Doll.
Joss Whedon commented at Comic Con that the content in “Epitaph One” will absolutely form part of the second season, but it’s not to be taken as gospel because a lot of it are memories, and memories can distort over time. That seems like a somewhat convenient way to get out of what was shown, but I think that the ultimate end of society is something that’s a set future. That plays too much of an important part of the episode to be anything other than a concrete future.
CONCLUSION
I can understand why Fox didn’t air this, or buy it, or whatever the business reasons are, but I think that had the show not been renewed it would have been a brilliant way to end the show. The episode starts off so different from a typical episode that it’s a little jarring, but once the future group discovers the Dollhouse everything begins to come around. Amy Acker gets a good deal of screen time as Whiskey, but the future group get the bulk of it. By far the best thing about this episode is the amazing scene with Miss DeWitt and Topher. It was just brilliant. Beautiful, heartfelt and moving. Just fantastic stuff, and I have to admit that despite my love of all things Whedon related, I was very surprised that something this good was in Dollhouse. I’d have expected Buffy to have a scene like that, but because Dollhouse has been a little bit of a disappointment so far I was blown away by it. This is one of the best Dollhouse episodes yet, but it goes to show that the show can be so much better than we’ve seen so far.
FINAL GRADE: B+
