'Dollhouse' ends: The ultimate winners and losers

Joss Whedon is not a “loser” in this. The most creative work in television is not being done on the big four broadcast channels; it’s being done on cable and pay cable. Fox is actually a winner. Although Fox always falls apart after signing on, it took the chance to be in business with Whedon and we got “Firefly’ and “Dollhouse.”

although i don’t think eliza dushku is the bad actress that many seem too i do think that she sometimes seems like she is acting. that said, her performances ever bothered me. enver gjokaj, however, is truly the breakout star of dollhouse. where i was never bothered by dushku i was ALWAYS blown away by gjokaj. i really hope he is immediately cast as the lead in a new show.

My fingers are crossed that cable (hello HBO?) grants Enver Gjokaj a vehicle to show off his talent. Wow, what a find–I’m definitely on Team Gjokaj at this point.

Did anyone else notice how creepy it was every time Boyd smiled? I can count every smile on one hand and each time it was creepy as heck. IMHO Harry Lennix is not getting enough love for his role in Dollhouse–along with Olivia Williams and Enver Gjokaj he was always one of my favorite actors on the show–and I would have liked more back story on Boyd-as-Rossum.

The only thing I disagree on is Eliza Dushku … She blew my mind every week. Yeah, the story lines for the characters she played led to her portraying the same “type” of person over and over sometime, but I still think she showed off some incredible talent. Did anybody else lose it in the finale when Paul’s death really hit her?? I was devastated and ridiculously impressed by how well she pulled off that scene. It was incredibly genuine and real and perfect for her character. I totally 100% agree that Olivia Williams is amazing! I just saw the movie An Education before I started watching Dollhouse and thought she was incredible. This show let her showcase so much of her talent and I’m really excited to see where she goes from here. Also, it goes without saying, Enver Gokaj was AMAZING!!! I think he is the greatest person this show discovered. He slipped into so many personas and so many accents without any trouble, it was just incredible. I love Joss Whedon for his creativity, originality, twisty plot lines, and his reuse of actors. I wish this show had had a longer run, but I’m so glad it had the run it did. I’m psyched for Whedon’s next project!

I’m chiming in with the Topher fans – thought he was fun and played out his arc well. I’ve never understood all the hate towards him either. And I’d watch Enver open a box – boy is fun and engaging. I think some character arcs (like November/Mellie) probably suffered from the cancellation (at least, that’s what I’m hoping, because her return in season 2 didn’t seem to do much of anything). Godspeed to cable, Joss – we’ll be waiting for your next brainstorm!

Enver Gjokaj is an incredible actor. He played so many different people on this show and they were all unique and believable. He was never just the active Victor pretending to be someone else – he completely became them. When he was Topher, he was completely Topher. You could practically see Topher on the screen. When he was the partying female college student, he was hilarious and perfect. I hope we see a lot more of this actor because he was amazing.

I’m a huge Whedon fan, and tried to love Dollhouse, but it just never happened. I stuck by it the whole way through (or course), and it drastically improved, but was too inconsistent for me. I actually love the idea, and found the questions asked and explored to be very interesting. For me, it was the execution of the other details. Characters were not as interesting or well developed as in previous shows, and the weekly narrative was often bland. I actually would have loved to have seen the show focus on the world seen in the epitaph, and have the series be based around returning people’s identities.