Must Be Tuesday: Veronica Mars Reviews

Veronica Mars is back, baby! And she is all words, no pictures. In this special edition of Must Be Tuesday, Alli and Mary delve into the first Veronica Mars novel, The Thousand Dollar Tan Line. Taking place immediately post-movie, we have Veronica going full idiot and attempting to take on some cartel bros, finding out that her mom has moved on, reconciling with Keith, and hanging with Wallace and Mac. Don't worry, she solves the case in the end. Grab a drink like the party-goers of Neptune and listen in. Cheers!

Well, Dollhouse officially ends on a weirdly paced, confusing extension of season one's "Epitaph One". After a significant amount of ranting (apologies to those who enjoy this ep), Alli and Mary determine that this bookend could have been skipped entirely, for a much more satisfying conclusion to a show that took a good look at consent, morality and the culture of money and excess. We are on to our month-long break, and will then be back with more Veronica Mars and iZombie! Cheers!

This week we finish up the present day Dollhouse plotlines before jumping into the ~future~ next week. There is some high-impact storytelling going on here, and a solid effort to wrap up the show for fans. Still... there is less than no room to breathe, and the episodes and characters suffer. Ultimately, Dollhouse realizes its potential more than Firefly ever did, but viewers are left with emotional whiplash to achieve it. At least Paul is roasted many times over! Cheers.

Don't let the title fool you, we really did love these eps. In the first ep, we yadda-yadda some new tech, but get to spend some time with Victor and Sierra, so it's worth it. Adelle drinks our podcast into the dirt, but comes out the other side as fierce as ever. In the next ep, we finally get to the much-touted attic, which is almost as fun and trippy as Buffy's Restless except... just a bit less than you would hope. Still, we have a good time up until the end when we're again threatened by the dreaded Caroline. RIP Echo as the most important character in the show! We'll miss you girl.

The train that is Dollhouse season 2 has surpassed high speed and is now hurtling unsafely toward the end. These episodes could each be 3-4 easily, but the episodes manage to entertain despite their density. We discuss Adelle's loose morals, Ballard's mainsplain-y attitude and Alpha's flashy style. Never leave, Alpha! 

We bring special guest Stevo on this week to talk about Dollhouse's "The Left Hand" or, as we call it, "The Victor Show." Do other important things happen in this episode? Of course. Echo leaves to go on a personal growth journey, Topher cold clocks a cute girl, Adelle is a boss bitch and Rossum's senator gambit pays off in spades. More importantly, though, Victor is imprinted as Topher and we're all graced with probably the peak performance in this whole show, if not all of Joss Whedon's works. Don't @ us, it's amazing!! Grab a beer and appreciate the gift of Victor as Topher. Cheers!

Major trigger warning for the discussion on the first episode, Belonging. We finally get Sierra's full backstory, and it is a doozy of terrible and horrific experiences that continue to the present day. Topher gets a minute amount of "redemption" but as usual it comes at the expense of poor Sierra, who really can't catch a break. In episode two, we get into the politics of Rossum and how they're trying to take down our LA dollhouse. Ballard takes off and Echo is kidnapped by River from Firefly.  

For a show that really seemed to learn and grow in season one, Dollhouse has completely committed to plot regression here in the beginning of season two. We speculate for a bit about why that might be. It's a weird thing to say about a show's main character, but is there simply too much Echo? As the second episode features Victor heavily, we're forced think that that may just be the issue. Luckily, Victor-as-Kiki saves an episode that seems to have an unnecessary and likely not purposeful "boys will be boys" vibe. Not cute, fellas. Bring on the beer!

Remember last week when we worried that some of the tension would leave the show post-Epitaph One? Well, not to be all "we thought so" but, well... This week's Dollhouse brings us an episode completely devoid of any meaningful forward progress for the two ostensible leads of the show, Paul and Echo. Luckily, Topher and Whiskey do the emotional heavy lifting, and it's just enough meaty moral questioning to keep the viewer interested. Unfortunately, Whiskey and her interesting plot leave us at the end of the ep. Pour one out for our aptly-named girl! 

This week we have Finale Part II: Epitaph One. We discuss the risk Joss Whedon took with the episode; its ambitious, and it certainly commits to its dystopian premise. Unfortunately, perhaps due to budget, the episode falls a bit short of its potential. What it succeeds at, however, is pushing Dollhouse's usual moral questions: what is immortality? If you have a brilliant idea, can you pursue it no matter the cost? What do we owe to each other? Oh wait, that's The Good Place. Grab a drink and philosophize with us. Cheers!

This week we've got Dollhouse's season finale (not counting bonus semi-finale Epitaph One, which will be next week). All of our storylines coalesce at last, with Ballard finally finding relevance... unfortunately, it's as "the guy who brought a murderer in". Oops! Sadly, he is still the best investigator the Dollhouse has... EMBARRASSING. The sheer stupidity of upper management gets a real spotlight in this ep. We also get some Alpha/Echo action, as Echo ascends to, well, not much yet. 

This week we have a bit of taco bell chat prior to our in depth discussion of two episodes with major implications for the rest of the show. We debate the concept of living forever-- is it really immortality if it's just a copy of you? Meanwhile, Topher makes Sierra into a best buddy in a plot that we suspect was supposed to be sweet, but instead comes off as entitled and skeezy. Ballard provides the bridge between the two episodes: he breaks it off with Mellie and then breaks into the dollhouse with surprise guest Alpha! Joss Whedon continues his love of reusing actors with Firefly's Alan Tudyk. He's awesome. 

Alli and Mary get back to our roots and discuss some Packers drama (RIP Packers season #nopackno). After that, we chat two pretty great episodes of Dollhouse. Adelle and dollhouse management have gotten to the "winging it" stage of running a giant shady business and basically just brainstorm some ideas for how to cure the dolls of personality. It's a great episode, but the idea totally fails. In the next episode, Topher gets to continue his catchphrase: "It's not my fault!" as everyone learns that there's a mole. Echo pretty much catches the him all by herself (Bye Dominic!) bc the staff is incompetent. Some real Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Watcher vibes here, y'all!

Boom!! We are finally into the meat of Dollhouse: what is identity? who lives in the body of the doll? who gets to consent, and when? Ballard runs into Patton Oswalt; Echo wakes up more and more, and we learn that there is a spy working through her; and, most importantly, we get a bunch of victor and sierra, to go with a wonderful Topher/Adelle drugged up teamup. The first episode has, yet again, a discussion of rape due to the nature of the first episode: trigger warning there!

As we hope will be the case with the whole season, Dollhouse begins its incline to a truly great show. This week contains discussions of the importance of internal continuity, whether Topher even knows what the fuck he's doing and an extensive chat about man reactions. An 11am beer gets us through the last of Ballard's truly uninteresting plots: spoiler alert, he finally becomes relevant next week. Cheers!

The nice thing about Dollhouse compared particularly to Buffy and Veronica Mars (not enough data on Firefly), is that we're getting the mediocre episodes out of the way right at the top. That being said, we do have to push through a couple of episode-of-the-week snoozers. We get to see Echo as action-girl and Echo as back up singer. Unbelievably, Ballard's plotline devolves into a more pointless spiral than could be expected. Luckily, there are sprinklings of the great Dollhouse to come, and we could not be more excited for that. Cheers!

Alli and Mary discuss our feelings on the Dollhouse characters and actors (shoutout to Enver Gjokaj! sorry about my pronunciation my dude!), as well as what the differing goals of the writers/Joss Whedon and the network. Dollhouse's great strength is its grey morality, and how the characters react to the layered peel-back of corporate shadiness. Yet, Fox seemed to feel we were doing a sexy fun action time. We're pumped to discuss how that push and pull plays out over the course of the series. Also, Paul Ballard sucks. Don't @ us! Cheers.

Alli and Mary discuss Firefly's big comeback into popular culture, the much awaited, eagerly anticipated, loved-into-reality Serenity. Joss Whedon goes all out with the budget he never had on the show, which leads to one of the largest differences between show and movie: is Firefly a western with a hint of space, or futuristic sci-fi with a sprinkling of westerns? What you enjoy on that spectrum probably influences your feelings on the Big Damn Movie. For our part, we love it. ROBOTS, people. ROBOTS. We're pumped to hit you all next week with Dollhouse! Cheers!!

DISCLAIMER: we spend a large chunk of the opening (about 6 min to about 18 min) discussing the threat of rape/sexual assault in this episode/the series in general in depth. If this is not for you, skip ahead. There is some similar talk scattered lightly throughout the ep. Anyway! We have reached the series finale, if one could call it that, of Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly. MBT welcomes special guest Alex for what is certainly one of the best, if not the absolute best, episode produced by this show. It's trippy, it's creepy, and it plays to all of Whedon's strengths as a writer/director. If the show had to go out, this was the way to do it.

Alli and Mary lament what feels like a lot of repetition for a short show like Firefly: these episodes particularly suffer from two emotional funerals of one-off characters. Two funerals! In a row! Dear Joss Whedon, this isn't ER, we're not watching for that mad depressing drama dude. We also discuss how Firefly's character arcs are reminiscent of Buffy's season 6. Heart of Gold and The Message are an interesting contrast, the former is an excellent affecting episode, while the latter is a touch overwrought and melodramatic. Additionally, insanely sweaty sex scene. Tone it down, set sweat people.