B-roll especially is spoilery for stuff in "Vows", the season premiere, since it actually shows you scenes being shot.

The One True b!X | September 11, 21:17 CET

Yeah, the B roll stuff isn't really meant for distribution like this.

gossi | September 11, 21:21 CET

Enver is a twin?!?! oh god let me run into his brother.

Also, trying to decide if I like Olivia's haircut or not.

ETA:ok, after seeing a little clip of Olivia, i'm warming up to the hair....slightly OT why did Eliza just tweet a pic of herself in a shirt, heels, and nothing else? wow.

[ edited by edcsLover9 on 2009-09-11 22:27 ]

edcsLover9 | September 11, 21:27 CET

I love her new 'cut. There's also a cutty cut cut of the promos on Dollverse about why people should tune back in for season two.

gossi | September 11, 21:28 CET

I really love her new hair. Very cute. However, it looks like this season is not going to help my already extreme dislike of Ballard.

ShanshuBugaboo | September 11, 21:47 CET

Oh, Paul's kinda a prick. Righteous people scare me. (I'm also quite righteous). I do feel sorry for him, though.

gossi | September 11, 21:50 CET

Love Olivia's hair. Paul's a bastard. That is all.

curlymynci | September 11, 22:29 CET

I don't really LIKE Paul, but he kinda fascinates me.

Racoon Boy | September 11, 22:38 CET

Which videos have Olivia and Tahmoh in them? I'm having trouble finding them.

deepgirl187 | September 11, 23:01 CET

Because they aren't there yet. By "other" it's meant the ones not yet posted.

The One True b!X | September 11, 23:05 CET

They haven't surfaced yet on public sites.

Simon | September 11, 23:05 CET

Ah, I see. Thanks, though.

deepgirl187 | September 11, 23:24 CET

If I am correct in the press version there are extra videos with this new Oliva haircut anyone fancy capping it? I am oddly curious.

Ashley | September 11, 23:44 CET

Dichen's comparing Joss to Jesus was quite amusing. I wonder if anyone's gonna decide to be offended by that.

GreatMuppetyOdin | September 12, 00:09 CET

Ashley, this doesn't really help, but you can see the back of Olivia's haircut here.

The One True b!X | September 12, 00:16 CET

Watching the B roll makes me hope we'll see longer takes of Eliza when Echo's faced with a dilemma or just trying to figure out what's going on. Even when she's up against heavy-duty actors like Tahmoh and Jamie, she involves you in her character, especially when she has some kind of inner conflict.

(I didn't think it was necessary in "Briar Rose," for example, to cut to flashbacks when Echo was trying to figure out whether to side with Paul or Boyd. Seeing the flashback to the Chinese kitchen fight let us know in advance that she was about to turn against Paul, so it was a little anticlimactic when she did. It took me out of the moment. And she's really great at getting into, staying in, and bringing the viewer into the moment. Just one viewer's reaction, FWIW.)

[ edited by Pointy on 2009-09-12 01:00 ]

Pointy | September 12, 01:02 CET

Regarding Enver, I sort of like this idea that Joss would hire twins as part of some master plot. Like he's thinking years down the line where hopefully at some point down the line they'd want to take advantage of this. As far as I know this has only happened with Xander(s) once and Fanty and Mingo so far, but I love the concept of being able to fake split screening which is to fake the appearance of two characters looking alike in the first place.

Granted, I don't see them finding much of an excuse to do so in Dollhouse since it seems only minds/personalities are doubled over, not the bodies. As far as we know.

orangewaxlion | September 12, 02:08 CET

Actually I loved the b roll footage. It does need a very heavy spoiler tag, but there's something about watching the process of creating film that I really enjoy.

As for what it really betrays in the plot, I'm not so sure. Since assumptions have a tendency to change from episode to episode anyway, even knowing this much I don't feel like I have any idea what's going on. That's the great thing about watching scenes out of context. It's also not anything that hasn't already been spoiled by the photos we've already seen.

[ edited by azzers on 2009-09-12 04:56 ]

azzers | September 12, 04:56 CET

To me, the b roll demonstrates that Eliza is a much better actress than given credit for.

WheelsOfJoy | September 12, 07:29 CET

Just watched the Joss, Eliza and Tahmoh one's, couldn't watch the other one's for some reason, I soooo can't wait for the new season, I'm almost wishing the days away, which is bad.

Gota luv that Buffy | September 12, 12:09 CET

Jeez, Paul is really enjoying hitting Echo physically. There's a really kinky element to it which is consciously equating him with the clients he himself feels are scum. A bit like his savage sex with Mellie and the cruel way he ended that. I understand the storylike purpose of beating Echo to trigger a memory glitch, but at the same time... he is a dark character, but we'll never find him fully interesting or engaging until we get a "Paul" episode with some backstory (and perhaps see the wife). Him becoming Echo's handler has some interesting implications, too.

Liam Mars | September 12, 14:03 CET

Nice to see interviews with the other regulars. I enjoy Eliza's interviews but I think this is the first time I've seen Harry Lennix talking about Boyd.

Sunfire | September 12, 16:40 CET

Liam - I don't agree with much of that except maybe the savage sex part. This gets into the nature of the Dollhouse and what he was combating. There was not a "softer" option for dealing with Mellie as far as breaking up because she had been "programmed" to deal, kiss, kick, or scream her way into maintaining the relationship. He needed it over both for what it would show him and probably because like most of us he knew he wouldn't be able to keep it up. Mellie wasn't real, he knew it, and was having to deal with the knowledge of literally raping her the unknowing body as long as she was around. I'd fault him for not doing it sooner, but quite frankly I can't put myself into the situation of being "in love" and then feeling total betrayal coupled by abject fear of the person I was in love with. I think most of us might take more than a day to fully process that and come up with our next move. I think many fans were so in love with the character Topher programmed, that we fixated on the feelings of the doll and ignored the plight of the man who was basically "toyed with" for an entire season.

To your point, I don't see enjoyment. I see anger and desperation/frustration which could mean she's glitching or simply going off mission He doesn't know how to snap her out of it. And since Gray Hour, I don't think anyone has developed a "method" yet. But that's as far as I'd speculate simply because I think we're watching the scene in the vacuum of only the scene they've shown us. It could also be Paul's ode to domestic abuse, but I doubt it's something that cliche. But I think they've definitely established that Paul can go "dark" when he needs to get something accomplished. I always rewind to him basically telling "Lubov" that he wants to see how the Russian mob is going to kill him to see what it tells him. Squeamish he is not.

[ edited by azzers on 2009-09-12 17:49 ]

azzers | September 12, 17:33 CET

Mellie wasn't real, he knew it, and was having to deal with the knowledge of literally raping her the unknowing body as long as she was around.

Uh, this doesn't make me feel sorry for him, nor does it stop him from doing it again. He could have done something. But...

1.) He knew he could use her to get to the Dollhouse.

2.) He rationalized that she would kill him, and of course he'd be absolutely defenseless! (as if he had no fighting skills.) This is a guy who took a bullet and had no qualms about the danger of breaking into the Dollhouse.

Paul's motives are always quite simplistic, IMHO. If his character was more interesting to me I could easily forgive him for at least some of his jerkiness. I thought I could forgive him at the end of Omega, but no. He did all of it to be closer to his obsession.

ShanshuBugaboo | September 12, 18:46 CET

I think like me however, you're reading your own motives into Paul. We don't know that that's WHY he did it and I think the writers have still left it extremely grey. It's not stated, nor is it that clear. I happen to believe if he was truly as obsessed with Caroline and had this hero fixation that everyone agreed he had prior to Omega, he'd have let her go instead of Mellie. It's like a guy with an elaborate rescue fantasy purposely NOT fulfilling it. What does that get him? The joy of WATCHING her do what he hates? That doesn't make any sense.

I don't disagree he's being a cold calculating bastard when dealing with Mellie, I'm not sure WHAT his better option was. As you said, "he could have done something." What was this something he morally should have done? Was he supposed to give up on the Dollhouse? Live happily ever after with her while forget that she's already killed a man who was quite obviously "physically" superior (thus implying she had the skills to take Paul down if she were activated)? I'd argue he doesn't know what he's dealing with at all which is excactly why he doesn't free her from the pod in Briar Rose. Is he guessing? Absolutely. But Paul doesn't have the previous episodes of Dollhouse to watch to know that he's wrong either.

So I'll just agree to disagree on his true motives until we get more info. However I think judging Paul, who had to maintain the illusion of a relationship, is a bit harsh if you really put yourself in his position. I don't think he had any "out" other than the one he took. Where we find fault in him, is in not discovering his "out" fast enough to remain morally pure in our eyes. If he had broken up as soon as he found out and pulled it off convinvingly, that actually WOULD have proved he had no feelings for her or he was a sociopath and capable of lying at a moment's notice no matter how he felt.

I don't excuse the savage sex scene as I think that was his most horrible moment, but I can also acknowledge that he was stuck playing "undercover" in his own relationship. IMHO, he didn't know what to do at that point. I think he's a great investigator, but I don't think he's a great spy by any stretch of the imagination.

Perhaps where we differ is that I find both the type of charecter Paul is written to be and the morally incongruent situation he finds himself in is exceptionally interesting. I cut him slack because I am constantly asking, if "I only knew this much, could I be better?" And honestly, I probably couldn't because I'm not much of a liar so I'd either be stuck in the relationship or dead when Mellie gets activated. But that said, it is Adelle, Dominic, and eventually Boyd who are responsible for that situation, yet we still mainly judge Paul. I find that extremely fascinating. His obsession with Caroline being completely sexual reads as either a plot contrivence to keep us guessing, or something that needs to be more fully fleshed out for me to buy it. But that is also exclusively my own opinion.

Actually, rereading my entire conjecture and yours... I realize that the reading of the charecter entirely changes depending on which motivation you choose to believe. So actually I think it's a great debate until Joss settles it.

[ edited by azzers on 2009-09-12 21:06 ]

azzers | September 12, 21:06 CET

I enjoyed the b roll, and haven't many ideas to what's going on in the new season. However, it does point up the remarkable boringness of repetitive takes, trying to make each one fresh and new.

falina | September 13, 23:09 CET