Old FURIOUS nads! by The One True b!X

I’ve made this prediction elsewhere prior to the confirmation that the thirteenth episode of Dolhouse will not air, but I want to make it again here, and then make one further comment. Given that the DVD set is released on July 28, immediately after Comic-Con, I suspect that “Epitaph One” (the episode in question) will screen at that convention as promotion for the DVD.

That’s the prediction, and here’s the futher comment: If it transpires that Fox were to move in the direction of renewing the series, holding off the thirteenth episode (which reportedly could be viewed as a bridge between a season one and a season two) until July instead of burning it off in May would give the show a burst of mid-summer press attention that it would not otherwise receive, perfectly timed to bring additional notice to a second season.

Addendum: It should be noted that while this is a PR debacle to be sure (PR people supposedly get paid to understand how an announcement, even a passive one, will be viewed by the public and therefore get paid to be ready for it), this weirdness does not yet indicate whether Dollhouse has been renewed or cancelled. While it’s understandable to suffer conniptions and make the assumption, reports continue to be that the decision on whether or not to pick up the show still has not yet been made.

Addendum: Tim Minear, the writer and director of 1×12, which Fox is airing as the season finale, chimed in over on WHEDONesque.

Okay. So maybe I can help clarify this somewhat. Because we scrapped the original pilot — and in fact cannibalized some of its parts for other eps — we really ended up with 12 episodes. But the studio makes DVD and other deals based on the original 13 number. So we created a standalone kind of coda episode. Which is the mythical new episode 13. The network had already paid for 13 episodes, and this included the one they agreed to let us scrap for parts. It does not include the one we made to bring the number back up to 13 for the studio side and its obligations. We always knew it would be for the DVD for sure, but we also think Fox should air it because it’s awesome.

Addendum: The weird thing with the above, however, is that no one has ever given anyone outside of Fox the clear indication that 1×13 was not considered part of the episode order by the network. In fact, way back in January, Kevin Reilly specifically said they would be airing “13 episodes”. So there are still some lingering holes in the story as it is piecing itself together.

But the important bits for right now are these: Dollhouse is not currently a cancelled show. Not airing 1×13 has nothing to do with renewal or cancellation and everything to do with what the network considers a fulfillment of their contractual obligation to air the episodes it licensed.

However, because this sudden 1×13 fustercluck (which could have been avoided by a PR operation at Fox that didn’t have its head up its ass) has nearly everyone thinking the series has been cancelled, it is more important than ever to make sure casual viewers understand that next week’s preemption by Prison Break is for that Friday and that Friday only, and that Dollhouse returns the following week.

It’s fatal, for me, because not only is it glaringly obvious, it’s completely indefensible. Based on everything that’s come before, if Broyles were to call the team to a children’s hospital and reveal to them a completely hairless child, what would have happened is this: Broyles would have turned to a stunned Olivia and said, “Look familiar?” while the two Bishops stared through the window in shock and surprise.

Given the importance the FBI has placed upon investigating The Observer and his obvious connection to The Pattern — the existence of which is the entire reason that Dunham’s team exists in the first place — if they were suddenly and unexpectedly to happen upon someone (be it an adult or a child) who looked exactly like him, that would have informed every single action they took next, every single decision.

Instead, not one of the four main characters who know about The Observer — Walter because The Observer saved both Walter and Peter years ago, Peter because he encountered him in the woods, Olivia because she spotted him in Pattern-related photos, and Broyles because he’s in charge — bothered even to comment upon the resemblance in passing.

There are always moments in any television series where you just sort of agree with the writers via a wink and a nod to overlook something for the sake of the story at hand. But you can’t do that with an element of the overarching mythology of the show as major as The Observer and hope to maintain the integrity either of the story being told or of the characters within it.

Addendum: It should be noted as well that if the ultimate point, for the sake of argument, was that he wasn’t actually a mini Observer, that still would not excuse not having a single character comment upon it.

This isn’t, say, a case where a child was found who close and attentive viewers would notice had the same scar as some random character from twelve episodes ago. That would be something you could get away with not having anyone notice. Rather, this is a child who looks exactly like a key element of The Pattern. Yet no one mentions it.

In the end, if they just didn’t want to get into it, they could have engaged (ironically enough) in a wink and a nod via some Dr. Bishop hand-waving. Just have Olivia ask, “Is this another Observer?” and Dr. Bishop respond, “No, I don’t think so” and then move on with an impish lack of elaboration. Instead, they simply wrote all four of their main characters to be completely unobservant morons.

Would you trust a Hollywood gossip rag’s article on Twitter and celebrities when it describes Greg Grunberg as an “early adopter”? Or how about if it contains a perfectly bizarre and entirely backwards idea of what “getting it” means?

The smarter celebrities are getting it, making their Twitter identities just one part of their overall media strategy — which means, inevitably, that it’s controlled to some degree by their publicity team.

That might be “getting it” if you’re a publicist worrying about their job or a Hollywood gossip rag worrying about readers being able to bypass them for news about their favorite stars. But it’s hardly “getting it” if one’s interest is in how social media should actually work to foster authenticity.

Or how about if the article (surprise!) turns to a publicist who says that “[y]ou have to have a personality on Twitter, and it has to reflect your brand” — a detached way of putting it that’s exactly not about the authenticity that draws most people to Twitter interactions to begin with?

Or how about an article that goes out of its way (perhaps in a confused state of believing that the Web participates in the sensationalism of television’s sweeps month) to conclude with the boogeyman of criminal activity potentially being blamed on some celebrity who brazenly had the temerity to speak to the world without having their words vetted by a publicist and funneled through a reporter?

Very good. I wouldn’t trust that article either. But, then again, I suppose someone had to try to compete with Variety’s recent trinity of hit pieces on blogging.

Against my better judgment I am listening to the audio stream of the Texas Board of Education hearing on introducing a “strengths and weaknesses” standard into how the state teaches evolutionary theory.

It’s an entirely stupid debate, because scientific discipline inherently includes discussing and debating the strengths and weaknesses of any given idea. It’s built into — arguably defines — the scientific method itself.

There is one reason, and only one reason, to go out of one’s way to forcibly inject the actual and specific phrase “strengths and weaknesses” into the science standards of a school district or an entire state: To utilize it as the latest tactic in the ongoing wedge strategy of cdesign proponentsists to undermine evolution in favor of creationism.

Introducing “strengths and weaknesses” as a specific educational standard does not strengthen the proper understanding of science, but instead weakens it. To go out of one’s way to add the phrase to the standards is tantamount to confessing that science is not already about strengths and weaknesses — a confession as false as it is forced.

Having forced myself to wait the distance of a few days to be certain, I now can safely say that I have one lingering problem with the series finale of Battlestar Galactica: The coda.

For a show that long (and rightfully) has prided itself on presenting issue mashups which insist that you think without quite telling you what to think to stoop to the level of a sequence which too much reads as a blunt statement struck me as somewhat crass and surprisingly artless.

The lingering possibly-spiritual questions, despite my having something of a personal and visceral quease at them, don’t in any way actually mar the finale for me. They certainly don’t undo the artistry.

But the blunt force of the coda’s message sledgehammer is like something from a different show. A lesser show.

Ron Moore has said that he’s had the visual of the series’ end in mind since sometime during the first season. Perhaps the problem, then, is that while the show became over the course of four seasons something in many ways very different from what it was in that first season, Moore couldn’t bring himself to let go of that early notion even though it no longer quite fit with the identity the series had developed for itself over time.

Does it ruin the finale for me? No. The series? No. But it is disquieting to see a show so loved for its nuanced complexity end on so pedestrian and simplistic a note.

Who is Doug Meehan? Why, he’s Boston’s first full-time television helicopter reporter who now also positions himself to give you the “inside” scoop from Hollywood for Boston’s FOX 25.

Why do we care who Doug Meehan is, exactly? And just what is it, exactly, that makes him such the charmer that I feel the need to call attention to it here? Witness this YouTube’d interview with Joss Whedon an Eliza Dushku about their new television series Dollhouse, he opens with the following.

“I love the concept of this show! You can order up the chick any way you want it, and have it produce or do anything you want her to do? This is perfect!”

All of which is wrapped in that big shit-eating grin of excitement on his face. One which seems to plead with Whedon and Dushku for such a marvelous thing to be real, so as to rescue him from the demeaning existence in which he’s currently trapped wherein women have their own hearts and minds and don’t always listen to him.

So here’s to you, Doug Meehan of FOX 25 in Boston: Standing up loudly and proudly for clueless misogyny everywhere. Kudos.

Although I am obsessively avoiding spoilers for Dollhouse, last night I broke down and plunged into reading the script that’s circulating purporting to be that for The Cabin In The Woods, the horror movie from Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard which is scheduled to begin filming in British Columbia just over a week from now.

My full intention, after shuttering Its Own Sub-Genre at the start of this month, had been to avoid most discussion of Cabin as well. But I’d become increasingly frustrated with writers of movie websites and horror blogs who seemed intent on telling people that the filmmakers have been running around proclaiming that this is some sort of “game changing” movie that forever will alter the horror genre.

Most of these people point to how Whedon described the project when he first announced its existence (in then-unsold script stage) way back in 2007 at Comic-Con: “The horror film to end all horror films, literally.”

For these movie and horror critics, this comment has become the proof that Whedon’s ego has gotten the better of him. The problem, of course, is that almost everyone else who saw him make that remark didn’t take it that way. Most people who know anything about how Whedon talks about his work instead took it to be something of a tease about the plot, not as a statement of Hollywood braggadocio. In other words, took the use of the word “literally” to have implications for the story in the film, not for the real world reaction to it.

Having now read what purports to be the film’s script (and presuming, for the moment, that it is authentic) that reality is more clear than ever, and the early critics are shown to be more interested in trying to puff up their own traffic and reputations by mischaracterizing the filmmakers’ teases as swagger, than they are in trying to discern the reality of the remarks and communicating it to their readers.

As for the script itself, I’m not going to say anything specific. But I will say what I said about it on WHEDONesque: If this script is real, then by my read The Cabin In The Woods is about the legitimate psychological reasons for horror and the ways in which we pervert and abuse those reasons. That, in fact, is entirely consistent with something else Whedon has said about it: “Ultimately, it’s my and Drew’s take on the classic horror movie, which means that it is a classic horror movie, but we also have something specific to say about it.”

Except, of course and as might be expected, not quite in as dry, boring, and lecturous way as my statement makes it sound. In the end, I hope this script is the real one, or at least a version of it, because I’d like to see how it plays out — both on screen and off.