Whedonesque : Comments on 22006 : A memo from Adelle DeWitt.

Heh, that was pretty clever. I didn't at all catch on until the mention of the delayed 10/16 staff meeting.

viral marketing!! urging employees to retain clients = fans to get viewers.. Adelle is great with words.

I thought it was fun. Clever for a fan effort/official viral campaign.

Seems strangely honest to see someone use acquisition to refer to clients in a corporate memo. Even a fake scifi company memo not really about clients. :)

Sunfire | October 13, 21:56 CET

This one isn't from me. I don't know where it's come from but it got emailed to a bunch of us.

gossi | October 13, 21:57 CET

Got the email as well. Fun :)

zeitgeist | October 13, 21:58 CET

Yep, I liked it.

gossi | October 13, 21:58 CET

That logo looks a lot like the Galactic Republic logo from Star Wars

Storyteller | October 13, 21:59 CET

The logo is the Dollbeds thing. It's used by Fox for the Virtual Echo marketing.

gossi | October 13, 22:00 CET

It's also very knowing about the ratings and the fandom.

Simon | October 13, 22:05 CET

How awesome. There should be more of these. Adelle is fierce.

jiggyfly | October 13, 22:08 CET

Love the final sentence. As Mal knows, "sanguine" perfectly covers the situation with Dollhouse's future. Bloody or hopeful.

eand | October 13, 22:16 CET

The client retention problems amuse me. Try not killing them.

It's a clever letter, but it's still aimed at existing fans and asking us to pimp (more literally than usual) the show. Let's hope "Rossum" does their part as well.

hacksaway | October 13, 22:21 CET

Well, maybe if Echo would stop killing clients when she glitches, retention wouldn't be as much of a problem....

kishi | October 13, 22:22 CET

SAVE TARA!

gossi | October 13, 22:29 CET

Hmmm..... Subtext.....

zz9 | October 13, 22:34 CET

I'm just amazed that with all the great security the Dollhouse has, that this memo managed to get out.

Simon | October 13, 22:36 CET

I loved this. Subtle and fun. Wish we knew where it came from, and hope there are more to come.

I also dug the probably-Firefly reference of "sanguine". ;)

With regards to the dollbed logo - is that version the more official logo now or is it still just the five rectangular pods sans the circle and the centerpiece, as in the opening credits? I wonder which would be more recognizable, for unrelated reasons. :P

CZGoldEdition | October 13, 22:40 CET

Simon - perhaps it's our new inside man within the Dollhouse? The one providing Senator Perrin with classified information? ;)

CZGoldEdition | October 13, 22:41 CET

That is one mighty fine tat, CZ.

gossi | October 13, 22:41 CET

I know we mock the Dollhouse security but we've only ever seen one person actually break in. (Apart from Epitaph One)
And breaking out? The dolls are programmed not to and the staff are free to leave. Why would they have any more security than any ordinary office to stop anyone getting out?

Back on topic, this is a neat message with Joss's fingerprints all over it.

zz9 | October 13, 22:59 CET

I thought this was a fantastic way to convey the message Joss wanted to get out to us. It also gave me another burst of hope that, with our proper influence we will see 'Ongoing success to our endeavors not only for the remainder of the current fiscal year, but into the next as well.'

Witty, smart and amusing. Exactly what I expect from Joss, and adore about Dollhouse.

Dawnfire87 | October 14, 00:24 CET

Very clever, I thought.

Carmie | October 14, 00:37 CET

Not convinced of Jossian origin, but still very entertaining.
'Sanguine' turned out ok in 'Safe'.

minime | October 14, 00:44 CET

So nobody knows where it came from? That's... awfully appropriate.

sab39 | October 14, 03:04 CET

Whoever wrote this got the character voice of Adelle pretty much perfect.. I could hear her voice while i was reading.

mortimer | October 14, 03:06 CET

Not quite. Adelle would have said "the 16/10 meeting". She is English and we put the day and month the right way round.

zz9 | October 14, 03:13 CET

true

mortimer | October 14, 03:19 CET

although she's been living in America for a while, and they may have warped her morals

mortimer | October 14, 03:19 CET

Well, probably not, given that she works for a company operating in the U.S.

(Written before seeing the intervening mortimer comment.)

[ edited by The One True b!X on 2009-10-14 03:19 ]

The One True b!X | October 14, 03:20 CET

She is English and we put the day and month the right way round.

Hah. You do know you’re supposed to use ISO 8601, right? :)

hence | October 14, 03:38 CET

The logo for the Rossum Corp as shown in "Instinct" on the corporate financials Senator Perrin had up on his computer minitor is different than the Dollhouse pod logo used in this memo.

It's yellowy-orange and looks more like a biological entity of some sort.

I don't have it on me & I'm still at work on a rush job (and hence haven't had time to read it, either) but that disparity alone strongly suggests to me that it's not officially-produced.

QuoterGal | October 14, 03:53 CET

Miracle Laurie tweeted it. Does that make it more likely to be official?

jkalderash | October 14, 04:04 CET

I guess next we'll have a memo from the head of Rossum Dollhouse, Inc. asking about all these weird things that happen in the L-A division. Just as long as Adelle's boss looks like Ray Wise, so much the better.

impalergeneral | October 14, 05:29 CET

MoTan's tweeted about that He Wolf video (albeit not the original-still-unofficial one, but the side-by-side comparison with the Shakira vid) so it's pretty much just whatever takes their fancy at any given moment. If it were something tweeted "in character" then I imagine they might have to clear that stuff with someone though, if at all.

I'm just gonna attribute it to clever fan. I don't imagine Fox marketing caring enough to only make an obscure call out to existing fans to do their job for them. Also there's the factual quibbles that Rossum presumably would be the corporate parent that's alluded to as a Fox proxy.

orangewaxlion | October 14, 05:35 CET

right on

Mandy | October 14, 06:23 CET

Miracle reads Whedonesque (hey Miracle!) so she very likely saw it here with us.

gossi | October 14, 07:11 CET

*waves to Miracle then in that case*

I like that, funny and quite close to the character voice. I don't think Adelle would say "...I, our chief of security, and the board of Rossum corporation itself are..." though, it's less polite (putting the 'I' at the end is better).

And breaking out? The dolls are programmed not to and the staff are free to leave. Why would they have any more security than any ordinary office to stop anyone getting out?

Because they know the dolls can malfunction and because the potential consequences of a security breach are much, much higher than for an ordinary office (all security is ultimately a cost/benefit trade-off).

Saje | October 14, 07:17 CET

Alrighty, the official (I imagine) Rossum logo was visible in "Instinct" here and here.

This memo, uploaded by "Doe Holly Sups" - which I am still trying to vet for the cleverosity which I am sure I am just missing - is good, but prolly took advantage of the pod logo that was made available in high resolution to the public here at Virtual Echo.

Although the cast and crew that are on twitter have been doing a pretty good Dollhouse promo blitz lately, they tweet whatever takes their fancy, so I don't think Miracle's tweeting lends it any particular ~~caché~~ cachet - at least not in terms of its being official.

I just think it's good idea - by a clever fan. (I know I have a chronic case of "logo on the magogo" - but I think its use of the pod is really what gives it away as a fan effort. A fan effort might have used the logo from the show, but I don't think an official promotion would have used the pod logo. Well, at least not one I was running. ; >)

(orangewaxlion: I can't locate what you're referring to as Rossum being alluded to as a Fox proxy. Perhaps my age is finally catching up to me. *sigh*)

ET: close parens. See what I'm telling you?!
ETA: ... and so on.

[ edited by QuoterGal on 2009-10-14 10:08 ]

QuoterGal | October 14, 07:47 CET

Is it just me or did it annoy anyone else that 'she' wrote "each and everyone one of you" (w/ 2 'one's) twice in the memo? That bugged me. You'd think Adelle wouldn't make typos, let alone the same mistake twice.

... Otherwise, I thought it was fun. :)

Linnea1928 | October 14, 08:46 CET

Linnea1928,

It must be a clue. Adelle's glitching...

Effulgent | October 14, 09:08 CET

QuoterGal, it's cachet, not caché.

Storyteller | October 14, 09:54 CET

Thanks, Storyteller - my ram cache was full. ; >

QuoterGal | October 14, 10:07 CET

Bigger caches have more cachet.

Saje | October 14, 10:53 CET

QuoterGal, "Doe Holly Sups" is an anagram of "Dollhouse Spy".

TurnipyOdour | October 14, 10:59 CET

Very clever - it reads just like the memos I get from Head Office. Without the sanguine reference, of course.

The Do That Girl | October 14, 11:34 CET

Ahh I didn't notice the anagram. Even more awesome! The mystery of this PDF... it excites me. :D

CZGoldEdition | October 14, 14:25 CET

*Love!* Encouraging and a little spooky... Wow, it really did come from Adelle.

GoldDust8912 | October 14, 17:32 CET

I may have misstated my point, but I just meant that there are allusions to the corporate parent (Fox) being very supportive. The letterhead is from the perspective of Rossum in the first place which would presumably be the top of the dollhouse chain of companies? Unless they too are owned by the Sheinhardt Wig Company.

orangewaxlion | October 14, 17:49 CET

I just took the letterhead being "Rossum Corporation LA" to mean references to a corporate parent were about Rossum proper.

The One True b!X | October 14, 18:16 CET

That is just so neat! I love this game! And that letter was so subby with text... thank goodness I got the special decoder ring. :)

Awesome hit on the scrambled word, TurnipyOdour! That one went by me. I, unfortunately, wasn't on the list, but I'm glad someone posted it. *looks forward to more?*

korkster | October 14, 21:50 CET

Neat !

Kris | October 15, 05:56 CET

I think it's safe to assume Rossum is the top of the dollhouse chain until Blue Sun comes along and buys them out.

PuppetDoug | October 15, 21:58 CET

October 13 2009