Dollhouse

But we need our substitutes to get through the day, a day littered with reminders that we don’t have everything we want. Or at least, we tell ourselves that story, as a substitute for really knowing what we want in the first place.

Them thar hills

But let’s leave such soul searching behind and replace it with something vapid enough to make us feel smart and thoughtful by comparison. MTV’s “The Hills” (10 p.m. Mondays on MTV) should do the trick, as it’s just the sort of impoverished suckudrama that has the abject lameness and extreme asshattery to vanquish all remnants of self-hatred left over from the realization that we’re not nearly as evolved as we should be. Put another way, “The Hills” can make a common houseplant feel like the Dalai Lama.

Which is why so many common houseplants watch this show. Last Monday, the houseplant world was reeling, in fact, over the show’s premiere, in which longtime bland-cracker heroine Lauren Conrad was replaced with her archenemy, former fellow “Laguna Beach” star Kristin Cavallari.

How could K.C. be an adequate substitute for L.C.? The houseplant online forums panted hysterically, wondering how L.C.’s squinting and staring into the middle distance and silently observing nightclub showdowns with all of the dynamism of a decorative ficus could possibly be swapped out for K.C., who bears an unfortunate resemblance to a real, living breathing human being, and therefore has far less suckumentary star potential.

Still, you have to hand it to Kristin, who chose to start things off with a bang by informing the gaggle of shiny but dense planets that once orbited around L.C.’s lesser sun that their days drifting through a peaceful, unexamined universe were over.

“OK, I’m sorry that I walked up here and was saying hi to my friends and you guys came at me like fucking piranha!” she spits at Stephanie (Spencer Pratt’s meddling sister) and Audrina (wide-eyed, tattooed, vaguely confused L.C. sidekick), when the two express their concern that Kristin might not respect their continually televised emotional boundaries.

Alarmingly enough, Kristin seems aware that this entire suckscapade is an elaborate sucksperiment in sucktastical suckage. Her cackling laugh and flippant attitude indicate that — gasp! — she doesn’t take “The Hills” or her role on it all that seriously!

Needless to say this infuriates the also-ran L.C. cronies to no end, since each of them has secretly hoped against hope to replace the dull glow of L.C.’s lukewarm lesser sun with their own repetitive orbiting. Instead, the evil geniuses behind “The Hills” recognized (correctly) that only a brand-new yet familiar star (or sun, as it were) would make this reinvented suckling succubus worth a second look.

Kristin scoffs, but she recites her nasty-diva lines convincingly, even though they’ve clearly been scripted for her by what we can only assume are a gaggle of low-paid sub-Saharan bloggers whose knowledge of American slang is derived primarily from reruns of “Flavor of Love 3.”

“Oh, it’s gonna be like this? If it’s gonna be like this, it’s on, bitch,” Kristin dutifully intones. “You’re fucking with the wrong girl, dude. The wrong girl.”

Unlike L.C., Kristin swears a lot. She watches Lakers games on TV, and actually seems to know what it means when the ball goes into the basket. When she says dude, dude, she means it.

Stephanie translates all of this to the blank-faced mental midgets around her. “I’m sorry, but Kristin is not good news to all of us. She’s the girl that’s gonna stab us all in the back and she doesn’t care.” Wait, did someone slip Stephanie a whole season’s worth of scripts prematurely?

If Kristin really is the girl who’s gonna stab all of the nattering Nellies of “The Hills” in the back, and she doesn’t care? Well, then, she is good news to all of us. She’s the Jesus Christ of “The Hills,” and we houseplants should ring in her entrance with glad tidings of great joy.

“You fucking idiot, you just fucked yourself,” Kristin adds, for emphasis. Spoken like a true savior!

Project Runaround

But while we’re on the subject of substitutes: Where are Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, damn it? If setting the new, Lifetime-channel “Project Runway” (10 p.m. Thursdays) in Los Angeles means no Cavalierly Catty Kors or Nasty, Name-calling Nina, well then I don’t want any part of it!

Patiently, I have waited for them, week after week, each week telling myself: Oh, come on now! Who’s this friendly, blandly magnanimous professional, and where is sniffing, snotty, eye-rolling Michael Kors? How could anyone believe for a second that some rather polite, respectful fellow-editor person at Marie Claire (like we care about Marie Claire, by the way, just because Garcia was ousted from Elle and landed there) would be an adequate fill-in for that poker-faced, unamused, semi-indignant glare from Nina Garcia?

Yes, they’re busy professionals who’ll be back on the show soon, sure thing. Apparently Kors still designs clothing for old ladies (blame former contestant Santino Rice for that remark) and Garcia wants to keep this job by spending less time on the “Project Runway” set, glaring for the camera.

You know what, though? That’s not good enough. These two are the stars of the show. Not Heidi Klum, for the love of Jean Paul Gaultier. Mon dieu, no! Michael Kors and Nina Garcia are the Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi of “Project Runway.” They are essential. Bring them back, or we’ll lose interest fast.

Dollhousing crisis

But sometimes substitutes are better than the real thing, aren’t they? Just look at the professional substitutes of Fox’s “Dollhouse” (10 p.m. Fridays), the best of whom can charm the pants off a major arms dealer, efficiently solicit a proposal of marriage, then start kicking ass and taking names the second her cover is blown.

“Dollhouse” is back and, for the record, it remains a feisty, smart, dynamic, strange, thoughtful, provocative and, yes, deeply disturbing drama in its second season. In fact, I can’t think of another drama that I think is half as exciting this fall, save for that one about nefarious reptilian aliens dressed up as friendly TV spokesmodels coming in November. Just take a gander at this fine exchange between Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix) and Dr. Claire Saunders (Amy Acker), in which Boyd suddenly shows interest in Claire’s welfare in the wake of her discovery that she was once a doll. You really have to marvel at the way that Joss Whedon and Co. open up big questions in the most casual of scenes:

Claire: So should I interpret this new concern as pity, curiosity, deviant excitement? There’s no judging in the dollhouse!

Boyd: You seem to be having a hard time.

Claire: My entire existence was constructed by a sociopath in a sweater vest. What do you suggest I do?

Boyd: Have dinner with me. I think you should get out of you for a while. And I’d be glad of the company.

Claire: I don’t go out. I’m afraid to leave this place. I have a problem with crowds, with people and sunlight, open spaces, noise, pets. (snidely) For some reason I’m just built that way.

Boyd: Every person I know is pretty poorly constructed. Everyone has an excuse for not dealing. But eventually, that’s all they are, excuses.

Claire: What’s yours?

Mmm, so much tasty darkness to dissect in ye olde dollhouse, and so little time! How about the other great scene, where Topher (Fran Kranz) and (a suddenly enraged) Claire can’t seem to decide whether to make out or destroy each other. Doesn’t Topher sound just like a parent when he tells Claire, “I made you question, I made you fight for your beliefs. I didn’t make you hate me. You chose to.”

As deeply unnerving as a tale of hired whores and fantasy substitutes may be, let’s keep in mind that this modern world is filled with whores of all shapes and sizes, making the dollhouse a fitting metaphor for almost every one of our stupid lives. Furthermore, a den of whoring whores and whoremongers is clearly an apt place to explore countless themes ranging from how you construct your identity to the usefulness (and inconveniences) of free will to the underlying narcissism of romantic love. If there has to be a little nastiness and immorality at the heart of such a boldly smart journey into the folds of personality in the age of high capitalism, so be it.

Hold on, where was I? Whores for hire in the age of high capitalism … Are we still talking about “Dollhouse” or “The Hills” or the self-promoting judges on “Project Runway”? Yes, world-weary whores and far perkier, more ambitious substitute whores are currently invading the streets of our cities like nefarious reptilian aliens. You can either substitute knowledge for ignorance and stick your head in the sand, or you can stand up and recognize the shape of things to come.

At this week’s Upfronts, in which the five networks present their fall lineups to advertisers, network executives revealed very different approaches to these challenging cultural and economic times for televised entertainments. Some networks reinvented themselves, others  sent out pot-smoke signals from the confines of their forts. Some networks meditated and consulted their gurus, while others got fall-down drunk on 40-ouncers of malt liquor and wandered off to sleep in the gutter.

Which approach would bring audiences back? Would bold, courageous (but risky) moves win us over, or would conservative, repetitive (and arguably safer) maneuvers attract more viewers? As usual, we won’t know until the fall season (see also: until it’s way too late to correct course), but that won’t stop us from analyzing (see also: second-guessing) each network’s strategy from the comfort of our own couch-cushion forts.

(Could you slide that grilled cheese sandwich in the crack there? Yes, I want to eat in the dark. No, that’s all I need. Thank you.)

 Uppity front

What’s fascinating about this year’s Upfronts is that, instead of offering a generous range of brand-new shows from each genre like they usually do, most of the networks are producing just a handful of new series and holding onto critically acclaimed ones that are nonetheless struggling in the ratings.  Unheard of, but somehow refreshing!

Let’s start with schizophrenic NBC, the network that, on the one hand, has great taste (“30 Rock,” “The Office”) and can afford to stick by its past decisions but that also refuses to play by the rules, from announcing a few major decisions weeks before the Upfronts to arbitrarily deciding that Jay Leno should rule the known universe.

This year, NBC made some bold moves by keeping a few good but ratings-poor shows that it believed in (“Friday Night Lights,” “Southland,” “Parks and Recreation”) while ditching some longtime favorites with better ratings (“My Name Is Earl,” “Medium”). “Earl” creator Greg Garcia bitterly likened getting dumped to “being thrown off the Titanic,” but expressed hopes that Fox might pick them up. Meanwhile, CBS is picking up “Medium,” which is, for NBC, sort of like dumping your wife, only to have her move in with the (richer, older) guy next door.

Personally, except for the death of “Kings” (the airing of which was a bold move in the first place), I like NBC’s choices, ratings be damned. What I do find unnerving is that NBC still plans to roll out “The Jay Leno Show” five nights a week at 10 p.m., which is a little bit like polishing off a 2-liter bottle of Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull that you know you hate in the first place, then vomiting all over your brand-new shoes. Isn’t it odd that the network with the most charming, funniest comedy on TV (“30 Rock”) would give five hours of prime-time real estate to the least charming, least funny man on TV (Jay Leno)?

 ABC, on the other hand, is taking the extreme makeover route. They’re canceling “Samantha Who?” and “The Unusuals” while throwing money behind a slate of 11 new shows, seven to air in the fall. My favorite? A reinvention of the 1983 miniseries “V” (Remember the alien baby bursting out of the woman’s stomach?) in which aliens invade the world and their initially friendly intentions are eventually revealed to be nefarious. Now, admittedly, pretty much anything apocalyptic gets my vote, at least at the outset: “Invasion,” “Jericho,” “Heroes,” “24.” As long as the general populace is threatened, panicking and/or hiding out in bunkers, I’m on board. That said, the clips for this one look awesome: Aliens arrive, but they’re totally friendly and cooperative! The world rejoices! Then, just as a journalist (played by Scott Wolf from “Party of Five”) is about to interview a friendly alien in human form, she menacingly (but politely) instructs, “Just remember not to ask me anything that might portray us in a negative light.” Ominous, but subtle. This is the kind of cheese that I eat until I’m sick.

Other notable new ABC shows are “Shark Tank” (Mark Burnett-produced show with competing entrepreneurs), “Eastwick” (dramedy based on John Updike novel and movie “Witches of Eastwick”), “Flash Forward” (worldwide blackout gives people a glimpse of the future), “Cougar Town” (dramedy with Courtney Cox as divorced single mother) and “Hank” (comedy with Kelsey Grammar as executive who loses his job).

The question is, will ABC’s new regimen of diet, exercise and meditation work, or will it just become a neurotic, controlling version of its former frumpy self? Throwing a bunch of different shows at the wall to see what sticks seems like as good a call as any, but having watched some clips online (you can see a few of them here), most of these shows seem to suffer from ABC’s tendency to take vaguely interesting or dark concepts and render them chirpy and toothless — think “Lipstick Jungle,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “Private Practice.” Everyone smiles and acts adorable; harmless, button-nosed women are cast in every role; sharp lines have no edge because the actors and the direction are tone-deaf. From what I’ve seen, “V” doesn’t seem to suffer from this curse, but at first glance “Eastwick” and “Cougar Town” look like otherwise decent concepts transformed into the same old bland, girly fluff.

 But don’t take it from me, take it from Jimmy Kimmel who, as part of ABC’s Upfront presentation last Tuesday, informed advertisers, “Let’s get real here. These new fall shows? We’re going to cancel about 90 percent of them. Maybe more.” Kimmel continued, “Every year we lie to you and every year you come back for more. You don’t need an upfront. You need therapy. We completely lie to you, and then you pass those lies on to your clients.” Hmm. Now there’s a new approach: total honesty. In the advertising world, that’s sort of like buying a very expensive Winchester revolver, pointing it at your own head, and pulling the trigger.

But then, when you’re (sort of, almost) winning, you take a very different tone. At the start of CBS’s Upfront presentation, Les Moonves reminded reporters, “We are the only network that is up a single demographic. Nobody else is up in anything.” With that, CBS promptly unveiled the repetitive, scaredy-cat tactics that got them there: Procedurals, procedurals, a few sitcoms, a new hospital drama and even more procedurals. There’s “NCIS,” “NCIS: Los Angeles” (a new spinoff), “Criminal Minds,” “Numb3ers,” “CSI,” “CSI: NY,” “The Mentalist,” “The Ghost Whisperer,” and, since that’s really not nearly enough procedurals, “Medium.” But don’t forget, there’s also some brand-new stuff! A new drama called “The Good Wife,” about the wife of a fallen politician, starring Julianna Margulies (her again?), a new sitcom, “Accidentally on Purpose,” starring former “Dharma & Greg” star Jenna Elfman (her again?) and “Three Rivers,” a drama about organ transplants.

 In short, CBS, the Stuart Smalley of TV networks, has decided that CBS is awesome and CBS doesn’t need to change a thing about CBS. CBS should consider taking a hint from the competitors on its own long-running show, “Survivor”: The second you start feeling safe (Hello, Tyson! Hello, Taj!), that’s when the ax is about to fall.

Thankfully, Fox is still taking healthy hits off the bong (as usual), but instead of crouching in the couch fort, they’re blowing smoke all over the other networks’ faces. Fox execs have decided to stick behind Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” (great move!), along with its new hits “Lie to Me” and “Fringe.”

They also added the new comedy “Glee” (another great move) and the longtime summer show “So You Think You Can Dance” to their fall lineup on the same night. Since last fall there was a serious dearth of good new comedies and fun reality programming, and both “Glee” and “SYTYCD” fit the bill, it’s hard to see where this strategy fails. As loath as I am to admit it, lately Fox has been making pretty good decisions, as evidenced most dramatically by the very existence of “Dollhouse” and “Glee.” Keep hitting that bong, friends!  It’s working.

The hour that felt like a decade

But speaking of Fox and hitting the funny pipe, did anyone catch the two-hour finale of “24,” and if so, did anyone stay awake through the second hour?

Yes, clearly “24″ jumped the shark a long time ago, but who knew it would stand around for so long afterward, having slow-moving, weighty conversations about how frightening and awful it was to jump the shark … but really, it had no choice, can’t you see that?

So much wasted potential! Tuesday’s finale could’ve been explosive, or at least vaguely distracting: Jack Bauer was dying, Kim Bauer was about to be held hostage (an old “24″ standby), Tony Almeida had a master plan that (of course) involved avenging Michelle’s death so many millions of moons ago. And the president’s daughter was about to be sent to her room without supper for having terrorist mastermind Jonas Hodges killed on the sneak!

But instead of car chases and coughed up lungs and panic in the streets and lots of big, loud explosions, all we got was weak, grumbly Tony, revealing his secret plan, then crying his eyes out over stupid Michelle. “Grow up, Tony,” we wanted to say. “Take a shower, shave, have a hot meal, and you’ll see that things aren’t nearly as bad as you make them out to be.”

Instead, Tony was dragged off screaming in high “Scooby Doo” style. OK, sure, it was cool when Jack was about to get his organs harvested and then repurposed as biological weapons. But they could’ve at least cut him up a little, instead of just jabbing him with a needle. And wasn’t it interesting how they paralyzed him, and after laying still for a minute, eyes bulging, he writhed and screamed in agony, then killed a whole roomful of able-bodied men with his bare hands? Did someone replace the paralysis-inducing serum they usually serve with superpowered assassin serum?

And what next? A hijacked plane? An exploding van? No, Jack and the redheaded babe agent had a long talk and exchanged a warm embrace (yawn) and Jack and Kim had a weighty heart-to-heart and made up (snore). Sweet Jesus, could “24″ really be ending with a series of interminable, sniffly confessions? What is this, “The Tyra Banks Show”?

Worst of all, the (stupidest) president (ever) acted mildly disappointed in her felon of a daughter and then, instead of dying of guilt on the spot for making the petulant brat her chief of staff in the first place, she turned the pouting ingrate over to the authorities while her (vaguely pathetic) first husband looked on disapprovingly. That’s all we get? And meanwhile, how completely frowned upon would it be for a secret service agent to leak news of administrative malfeasance outside the White House? Aaron Pierce would’ve shown up in Rock Creek Park with a bullet in his frontal lobe.

It was sad to see “24″ stoop so low, after we waited so very long for its triumphant return. Why did the producers of “24″ respond to a long hiatus by killing its golden goose, then grinding it up to make gooseburgers?

But this is what happens in times of great stress. Some people respond to a divorce by adopting a second child, some handle a personal budget crisis by redecorating the bathroom, and some greet the Second Coming of Our Lord in Gay Sheep’s Clothing (Adam Lambert) by voting for the nice little hetero Disney prince instead, thereby insuring the survival of strummy, wussy GooGoo Dolls music to play during “Grey’s Anatomy” montages.

And speaking of “Grey’s,” apparently some people respond to a foot-stomping diva on their cast (Katherine Heigl) by killing her off (Oh please, please!) and maybe even killing off her pouty sidekick (T.R. Knight) while they’re at it. Sweet lord, bestow your tender mercies upon us all and knock them both off the planet with one fell swoop!

From the financial crisis to the specter of a global pandemic to the threat of even more neutered acoustic strumming, we all have to decide on our own response: Reinvent, redress, reinvest, reheat or return to bed?

I think you know my approach. Nighty night! 

But when Topher starts to panic, his boss, Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams), stays focused on the bottom line. “I want to know what she’s imprinted with!” she barks at him.

Sure, DeWitt is a little bit of a grump, but that’s only because she’s something of a control freak when it comes to the mind-pillaged mannequins living under her purview. Beneath that caustic exterior there’s a really down-to-earth, intelligent, witty woman, a woman who gets lonely sometimes and, just like any other woman you might know, spends a romantic weekend having wild sex with one of the hot men whose brains she’s erased. She recently had her favorite doll imprinted with the personality of her ideal mate: affectionate, supportive, dashing, British. James Bond meets McDreamy. But afterward, she felt a little wistful, just like any regular gal who steals people’s souls for huge sums of money might.

Yes, “Dollhouse” (and “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”) creator Joss Whedon loves blurring the line between good and evil (as Mary Beth Williams explains in her recent piece on the show). This time, though, the line is so blurry we can barely see it. That’s why it’s confusing when Paul (Tahmoh Penikett) tries to save Caroline aka Echo (Eliza Dushku) from the dollhouse, and unknowingly leads Alpha (Alan Tudyk), a former doll turned serial killer, into the facility with him: We want Paul to succeed, but we don’t really want our cool, fun friends Topher and DeWitt —  and least of all Echo’s sensitive handler Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix) — to get in any serious trouble, nor do we want the dollhouse to stop existing. What would be the fun in that? Because like most regular, ordinary people, we enjoy watching young women and men being mentally and emotionally manipulated and subsequently abused by people with enough money to purchase their own private, living, breathing fantasies.

But we especially enjoy it when our favorite human-plaything sexploitation series is written by Whedon, because then characters tend to say really witty things, then break out into kung fu moves and start swinging blunt weapons at each other’s heads whenever tensions are running a little too high. That’s what Alpha and Echo end up doing  – you know, once Alpha takes Echo to his dank little hideout with the aim of imprinting her with every personality she’s ever been imprinted with before. Just to keep things interesting, he’s also imprinted a kidnapped shoe clerk with the personality of Caroline, the real human behind Echo, the one who signed a contract with the dollhouse to be a brainwashed operative/sex slave for five years in order to get out of a jam.

So Caroline (in the shoe clerk’s body) warns Echo (who’s most recently been imprinted with a personality called Whiskey): “Look where you are. You’re in a lair, ok? An evil lair, and you’re sitting in some messed-up dentist chair letting a guy who talks to himself attach wires to your head –­ which, incidentally, is my head.”

See how quickly the blurry moral boundaries stop mattering, with plot lines and dialogue this good? And anyway, we’ve been watching ethically questionable televised entertainments ever since Tony Soprano and his boys began killing out of greed or boredom almost a decade ago.

The big flaw of “Dollhouse” isn’t that its premise is morally repugnant. The big problem is Eliza Dushku. Unlike the actors who play Sierra (Dichen Lachman) and Victor (Enver Gjokaj), chameleons who shift completely depending on the personality their doll has been imprinted with, Dushku stays the same. Whether she’s the hostage negotiator or the dream girl or the youth outreach volunteer, Dushku walks, talks and acts exactly the same. Sometimes she’s smug and swaggery, sometimes she’s full of wonder, sometimes she’s coy and sassy. But she’s the same person. Imagine Showtime’s personality disorder comedy “United States of Tara” with a montone Heather Locklear in the starring role instead of Toni Collette.

OK, Dushku does manage a reasonable Southern accent as Whiskey, which is more than you can say for half of the actors on HBO’s “True Blood.” But that’s still just the Southern version of coy and sassy Echo, which yields to smug and swaggery Echo when Alpha finally succeeds at imprinting her with her 38 former personalities. He’s hoping to wake her up to the enormous possibilities –­ world domination, homicidal sprees, codependency –­ of a long-term partnership with him. Instead of thanking him and agreeing to rule the inferior single-personality mortals of the world by his side, Echo tries to bash his head in with what looks like an extra-large crowbar.

“We’re not just humans anymore,” Alpha urges her, on a break between body blows. “We’re not multiple personalities. We’re many personalities!”

“We’re not gods,” Echo snaps.

“Fine, Ubermensch. Nietzsche predicted our rise. Perfected, objective, something new,” says Alpha.

“Right, new superior people, with a little German thrown in,” she snaps back. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Look, who really cares about whether or not Dushku is a truly great actress? (She can pull off a line like, “I have 38 brains. Not one of them thinks you can sign a contract to be a slave.” ) “Dollhouse” started out the season as the usual repetitive Fox suspense thriller, obviously hewing closely to the network’s expectations that the show cater to the shortest attention spans, and then blossomed about halfway through the season and became something endlessly fun and compelling overnight. That’s right: A lead actress who’s not great, an ethically questionable premise, and the show is fantastic. Let’s just hope Fox is smart enough to renew it, because this has cult hit written all over it in big, black magic marker — you know, the kind that your average formerly brainwashed homicidal maniacs use to scrawl their creepy messages in.

And you can bet there’ll be even more creepiness and stalking and face-slashing from Alpha next season (we’ll just go ahead and assume that Fox isn’t stupid and there’ll be a next season), because he escapes Echo and Langdon and Ballard without a scratch. How will Alpha have evolved by the time we see him next? (“He’s like Soylent Green. He’s people,” Topher says of him.) When will he strike again?

Sadly, Echo also survives, which means that Dushku won’t be replaced by that really far more interesting and skilled actress, the one who played the kidnapped shoe clerk.

No matter. Friday night’s “Dollhouse” finale had it all: Plenty of twists, turns, and season-long mysteries revealed, along with a healthy dose of evil lairs, fisticuffs, clever banter, Nietzsche and Soylent Green references, and mind-ravaged, soulless human ghosts for hire thrown in for good measure. You know, just like most of the sci-fi serial dramas on TV these days.