MamaPop™

Dollhouse Is Dead. Long Live Dollhouse!

Fox. You bastards. GODDAMMIT.

Five Reasons You Should Watch "V" Tonight

Tonight, ABC will air the first episode of the long-awaited reimagining of the 1984-1985 series, V. And if you for some ludicrous reason haven't already pencilled it into your Day Runner, set a reminder in your iCal or programmed your Tivo to record it, I'm here to demonstrate why you bitches crazy if you're not planning to watch this show.

What, You Wanted to Watch Dollhouse in November? Fox Don't Think So.

At this point I don't care that nearly nobody watches Dollhouse, Fox TV's Whedon-Dushku metaphor gone wild.  I'm nearly nobody, and I watch the show.  I was even mildly encouraged by Fox's promise to air episodes during November's sweeps month.

By now we should know what a promise from Fox is worth.

Joss Whedon To Direct Glee! *SQUEE*

Oh, come on. Like that news, like no news ever before it, doesn't warrant a big, high-pitched, girly SQUEEEEE.

SQUEEEEE.

Remember the Dollhouse

So what are you doing with your Friday evening? Because tonight's the night that Dollhouse, the Joss Whedon weirdathon that Fox envisioned as a crappy Eliza Dushku vehicle, officially defies all television logic by returning for a second season.

MamaPop has spent a fair portion of its time bringing the love for this uneven but compelling series that debuted last season to low ratings and finished to even lower ratings (seriously, it was like watching a boat sink for months).  In a rational world - the one we inhabited even five years ago - it would have been cancelled after a dozen episodes and gone down in Whedon history as another Firefly.

But that didn't happen this time. Why?  Some spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the first season.

Top Five TV Series Everyone Should Own On DVD, According to Snarky Amber

For the first time since I was 16, I have had the whole summer off. While I meant to accomplish a whole lot of totally important and enriching things, I've mostly been re-exploring my favorite television shows in the comfort of my living room and bathrobe, usually with a bowl of Lucky Charms in my lap. While the summer is quickly winding down with new shows soon to be fed directly to your cable box and/or Tivo, it's not too late to catch a show you missed when it aired or one you watched and simply want to revisit. Under the fold, I present my picks for must-have television series on DVD.

Dr. Horrible Is a Gift That Keeps On Giving: The Guild's Music Video

Like anybody who only "discovers" things AFTER they catapult into the mainstream via a related national phenomenon, I discovered Felicia Day's hilarious web series The Guild only AFTER her appearance in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

If you haven't watched it yet, you should. Particularly if you're a gamer or love a gamer or even if you regularly enjoy taping "kick me" signs on the backs of gamers, like dude, gamers. Man.

Buffy Animated Series To Be Made, Finally, Maybe

Like a pot that someone forgot to turn down, Buffy the Vampire Slayer continues to bubble along merrily.  The end of the television series in 2003 brought on a blizzard of rumours, each more desperate than the last: first there was the Faith series, then the Spike series, then the Faith and Spike series, then the Ripper series, and a particularly tenacious one about 'a series of TV movies' featuring Faith and Spike, or Spike and Faith, or a sack of potatoes with the word 'Spike' written on it.  Most recently, the original Buffy movie producers have blown smoke up the collective ass of fans with the spectre of an un-Whedoned Buffy movie.

Well never mind all that, because an animated Buffy series, based (in part) (maybe) on the 'Season Eight' comics that Whedon has been putting out, is in the pipeline. Or is it? And what can we expect from the continuation of Buffy in cartoon form?  Speculation (and MASSIVE SPOILERS REGARDING THE COMICS) after the jump.

Holy Hellmouth: A Buffy Movie Without Whedon? WHAT?

Okay, somebody, anybody, please: tell me that today is April 1st. Seriously. It's April Fools, right? And this news that there's going to be a Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie with NO involvement of Joss Whedon and NO use of secondary (secondary?!?) characters like Willow and Xander and ANGEL and SPIKE is an epic April Fools joke, right? RIGHT?

*gropes for smelling salts*

Hulu Ate Mah Braaaaains PLUS Kelly Video Winnahs, Ahoy!

Look at me, I'm multitasking! I'm dang near multitasktastic! Huzzah!

Sooooo you might have heard by now that I've gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over this Dollhouse show, to such a degree that I'm practically harassing the internet about it. The internet might have to take a restraining order out on my ass, in fact. I mean, I am after all a documented stalker. BOO! FEAR ME!!!!

Oh c'mon, please? sigh.

But to give credit and/or blame where credit and/or blame is due, I watched almost all of Dollhouse entirely by way of Hulu.com, that new-fangled TV on the internet thing all the kids have been talking about. And it's really quite remarkable. TV! On your computer! It's like we're living in the 21st Century or something!!! Oh, wait...

Friday Eye Candy: Save Joss Whedon Edition

Okay, it's actually more like, save Joss Whedon's show 'Dollhouse' - Joss Whedon doesn't need saving, except for maybe from his own awesome - but that didn't quite have the same ring to it.

Joss Whedon Discusses the Fate of the Dollhouse

Joss Whedon was at Harvard last Friday (quick! somebody concoct an alibi for Sweetney) to receive the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism and talk about his thoughtful views on education, religion and the essential optimism of humanists blah blah blah Dollhouse! Dollhouse! Talk about Dollhouse!

He did. Some highlights after the jump.

Three Flowers In a Vase: Joss Whedon's Dollhouse Is Suddenly Worth Watching

So while the sad benighted lot of us were watching Ron Moore's Quaalude-fueled dream of humanity's origins on Friday night, Dollhouse turned into a good television show.  A mission-of-the-week thriller with a sci-fi premise became a Joss Whedon production, with choreographed fights, misdirection all over, and of course, sweet young women beating the living hell out of creepy older men.

After five years of exile from the smooth drinkin' flavour of network television, Whedon and his Mutant Enemy crew returned to Fox on January 13 with Dollhouse to a very mixed reception.  Reviewers praised the show's aspirations but found the execution lacking (You can check out my MamaPop Dollhouse review).  Above all, bored blog commentors people asked: why should we care about a main character who is essentially a different person every week?  How are Whedon and his plucky band going to pull this one off?

By screwing with your ever-loving head, that's how. And having Patton Oswalt make snarky speeches.  After the jump, spoilers all over the damn place, like mosquitoes or Icelandic elves.

Joss Whedon's Weird Idea: The Strangeness of Dollhouse

Part of MamaPop's mandate, as I understand it, is to stalk Joss Whedon, to hunt his imagination through the media channels until it's cornered and quivering, foaming at the mouth and as liable to strike back as it is to run.  Only then can we take it home and hang it from a rope in the basement, just like my cousin used to do with the squirrels he caught in his backyard.  My family vacations were creepy fun.

A successful stalker is committed, even when the trail goes cold or the signs become difficult to read.  Such is the case with Dollhouse, the brand-new Whedon production that seems, at least to some viewers, not very Whedonesque.  Where is the bouncy humour, the mutating strands of dialogue? Where is the lesbian witch?  Why isn’t Neil Patrick Harris singing?

Dollhouse is no Dr. Horrible, that's for sure.  So what is it?

At Long Last, Friday the 13th Is Good For Something besides Slasher Movies (It’s Now Also Good for Television)

There’s a legend that says that if you die on Friday the 13th, four-leafed clovers will sprout from your grave, and anyone who picks one will find true love by the next full moon.  The legend also says that anyone who digs up your bones and wears your skull as a hat will get arrested for grave robbery.

Consider this Friday the 13th the death of you leaving the house, with the science fiction triumvirate of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, and Battlestar Galactica invading your television screens.  I don’t care about your fancy DVRs, your PVRs, your Tivos and the steam-powered Bittorrent machine in your garage.  You stay and watch.  You stay.  You click through for more.

CelebrityTweet: For The Creepy Stalker-Fan In All Of Us

As someone who might be, ehh, just a wee bit addicted to Twitter, I was pleased to discover that recent technological advances have been brought to bear on Twitterdom that will now allow me to conveniently stalk hunt creepily shadow follow en masse all notable (and some not-so-notable) celebrities presently using the site.

God I love the internet. So much so, in fact, the internet might have to take out a restraining order against me!

Now That's What I Call Stalking Joss Whedon!

Yeah, I'm still not over this yet. DEAL.

UPDATES!

1. I heard from Joss's assistant after my righteous Stalking Joss Whedon post. It was the kind of nice, head-patting email that suggested -- but did not promise -- something vaguely hope-scented. And so, against all reason and logic, I am of course positively filled to the brim with frothing bucketfuls of hope, with my earnestness level hitting an all-time high at 9.8. I may not delete a single email from my inbox ever again! SQUEE!

2. After I posted the aforementioned righteous Stalking Joss Whedon post, the fanbase over at Whedonesque quite unexpectedly decided I'm actually a scary stalker -- which I must admit did honestly kind of floor me. Two reasons: 1) I just assumed people who were smart and thoughtful enough to develop an obsession with Whedon's work would be, oh I don't know, in possession of a sense of humor, and 2) the lack of self-awareness inherent in that pot-calling-the-kettle-black type of move borders on DAZZLING. (Shout-out to my holmes Damon, one of the Whedonesque editors, for being awesome and also NOT thinking I'm all batshit crazy and stuff [insert terrorist-stalker fist-jab here].)

So, all that updateyness said, let's continue on with some oven-fresh Joss Whedon stalking, shall we?