What did you think of Episode 1x04: "Gray Hour"?

[Iceeh★]

Give your regards to Dollllhouse!

[hitnrun017]

Loved it! A lot. The story was great, but Echo and a few other characters (Sierra, Adelle, Paul) were superb.

[Greer]

Liked it. Interesting storyline. It can get better, I believe.

[theend]

I thought it was great. I love when Echo is vunerable and childlike - very well done by Eliza I think.

[Rebecca]

Echo was terrific in contrast between Taffy, and I genuinely felt sorry for her in the safe. Excellent writing and acting in this episode.

Topher was quite funny being more concerned for himself than Echo. "They're a liiiittle bit bison."

Sierra did an exceptional job playing Taffy, essentially Echo's imprint before the remote wipe. That had a lot of potential to flop, but it completely worked.

Also, wasn't Boyd a bit badass? Love him!

Aside a few plot holes (why an active for midwifery? or how in the heckers did they escape the safe??), I thought the episode was superb in character development for the three main dolls and for stroking the Alpha plot.

A-

[Wyndam]

Loved it.

[Skeptic]

I voted "loved it". I haven't loved much of anything about Dollhouse yet. So me loving this ep really threw me for a loop!

This is the first ep of Dollhouse I really had a great time watching. I thought it was interesting, and the reset was a curve ball I wasn't expecting. It's nice to get these curve balls - there were a few last ep that I really loved, like the chair bonk on the head, and a couple of lines Echo dished out.

I usually post on Twitter while I'm watching Dollhouse, as do a lot of others, but the chatter volume was down a lot last night, me included, and there were a lot of comments about how the show drastically improved just with this ep. I agreed - I was too busy watching Eliza as unimprinted Echo, and Sierra with that take-no-guff imprint trying to talk Echo through the escape. That was a pretty genious plan to do that, I thought, to bring in an imprinted active as a heist professional to get them out of their own jam.

The ep just was, all in all, a lot better than what I expected, and far better than the previous 3 eps, IMO, and I feel like this isn't going to be a fluke.

Gonna go watch it again on Hulu.

[santuffy]

Amazing episode!!!

[buffyfest]

I personally really liked this episode. I liked it so much that I guess I finally feel comfortable revealing to myself that I really didn't like the first 3 eps. At all. I thought there were parts I was ok with, but in the past I was looking really hard for parts to like rather that just be naturally entertained. This was was entertaining the whole way through.

Few nitpicks: I was hoping that the midwife bit was part of her earlier life as Caroline...because it makes absolutely no sense that someone would pay for an active to be imprinted as a midwife. But they didn't ever say so either way, so that remains a fanwank. Eliza's acting was the best yet, but I have trouble with her always having the sexy/tough stance. It distracts from whatever else is going on.

Ratings blew. Dollhouse Death Watch anyone? buffyfest.blogspot.com/2009/03/dollhouse-death-watch-update-ep-4-gray.html I'm standing by my theory that it won't get renewed, unfortunately. Let's see if that changes after ep 6. Next week looks like to be another doozy, though. I'll reserve my judgment on that until I actually see it though.

[Skeptic]

I would be shocked if the ratings went up before the end of the season. I just don't see it happenin'. I think Fox shot themselves in the ass again. Go Fox! *slow clap*

[buffyfest]

I'm in total agreement with you UnKle on all your posts here. Loved the ep, have no confidence in the season, Fox sucks.

[hitnrun017]

Yeah, if there isn't a bit of growth after the sixth episode and the few after, I'd change my position on the "Dollhouse Death Watch", sadly.

[wenxina]

Mar 8, 2009 13:14:00 GMT -5 buffyfest said:

Few nitpicks: I was hoping that the midwife bit was part of her earlier life as Caroline...because it makes absolutely no sense that someone would pay for an active to be imprinted as a midwife.

It's been mentioned before that Actives are sometimes imprinted for altruistic engagements. I doubt these engagements are paid for, but rather something which is done pro bono. In the last episode, Dr. Saunders was pissed that Echo had been placed on a high risk engagements, saying something to the effect that she had recommended that Echo only be put on "romantic or altruistic" engagements. In the unaired pilot, Echo was on an altruistic mission, amongst others.
I don't think it's clear why they are sometimes imprinted for altruistic engagements, but it's somehow supposed to be good for them.
In the unaired pilot, Topher (in a moment of ugliness) says something like he programs them to feel good from these altruistic engagements. So it's possible that it may be something to do with neural/mental health. We'll see I guess.

[buffyfest]

Oh that makes me feel much better, Wenxina. Still doesn't explain why someone would want an imprinted midwife instead of a real one but perhaps they didn't know. I jumped to assuming it was a knowing client because they were in that amazing mountain cabin and presumably rich...so I was hoping the whole thing was a wash and for the Caroline thing instead. I suppose it could go a few ways now. I wish they'd said something about it though, it was kind of random.

[wenxina]

I'm gonna guess they didn't know that Echo was an Active. It did strike me as kinda random that they would have gotten an Active by chance, so perhaps they knowingly engaged an Active for the job. Odd though, considering how expensive babies are already, that they would go on such a high-end route.

[Rebecca]

I agree with the Altruistic engagement argument for the midwife scene. It's mentioned in the pilot script, and I was actually surprised they didn't give it more prominence in the first 3 episodes.

For those who haven't read the spoilery pilot script, these altruistic engagements are supposed to be some sort of morality therapy for the actives. Apparently, strictly doing engagements with sex, money, or violence as the main objective was hampering the actives well being, slowly deteriorating them. That's all I'll say about them, not wanting to give anything away.