Boom!

Monday once again!

Fighty fighty fight-fight in today's update of The Scam:

The Scam page 21

And here's a quick little sketch:


























Man, I am slacking on the sketches. Need to try and get that sketchball rolling again...

Can I take a moment to talk about how not interesting Dollhouse is? Now I love Joss Whedon. I love Buffy. Loved Angel. Looooove Firefly. Thought his run on Astonishing X-Men was the best thing since Claremont and Paul Smith. I even dug his stint on Runaways which seems to get a lot of hate from the fanboys for some reason.

But Dollhouse is dull as ditchwater. I've now seen three and a half episodes. This show is so boring I can't even get through an entire episode in one sitting. The biggest problem with the show are the done-in-one plots. So far these have all been sub-fantasy island level stuff of overused cliches - Echo has to rescue a kidnapped child. Echo gets involved with a guy that likes to hunt women - the most dangerous game! Echo has to sing backup to protect a pop singer from a stalker! Echo has to pull a heist! All of them dreadfully dull.

The second big problem is Eliza Dushku herself. I liked her on Buffy. She was great as Faith, but here's the thing: the conceit of the show is that Echo is implanted with a completely new personality in each episode, and yet, Eliza plays them all exactly the same. The kidnapping negotiator is in no way different than the backup singer who is in no way different from the tough-talking thief. Except the hostage lady wears glasses and has her hair in a bun.

Third big problem is that 4 episodes in, I'm still not sold on the premise. It seems too ridiculous and the actors aren't selling it to me. Oh look, it's the standard techie geek with a collared shirt open over a colorful t-shirt. The key person who's supposed to be in charge of implanting personalities is this lame stock character? You need someone with some gravitas to sell this concept. Not some yutz in high tops and acid-wash jeans.

And because I still haven't bought the concept (why are these blank people with implanted personalities even useful really? Why hire one as a bodyguard? Why not just hire, say, an actual bodyguard?), the FBI agent who's trying to get a lead on the Dollhouse is also uninteresting. He's just like Fox Mulder. With no Scully. And with no sense of humor. I liked you better on Galactica, Helo. :(

So far there is exactly one interesting character. The one played by Fred from Angel. I forget her name in real life. I forget her name on the show. But her character interested me because I did not immediately recognize her as Fred and she has cool scars on her face.

That's the only good thing I can say about Dollhouse at this point. It's got Fred with scars.

I do feel compelled to keep watching though. It's still Joss Whedon after all. I keep waiting for that curveball that's gonna turn everything on it's ear and blow me right out of my seat.

I understand the initial script was much better and it's the stupid network that messed in and said they wanted more stand-alone episodes like CSI. Stupid network. I downloaded the script but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. It's not really all that fun to read a tv show.

I have no idea what the ratings are for Dollhouse. Maybe it's wildly popular. People like that CSI and NCIS and shit. I dunno.

Lost is still good.