Comment by Izkata
8 days ago
Okay so a little bit of out of universe trivia on Dollhouse: It was planned for 5 seasons. With the risk of cancellation, the second season and the two Epitaph episodes were a severely compressed telling of 4 seasons of plans. And, personally I think it worked well. Something similar happened to Babylon 5, Manifest, Jericho (IIRC), Firefly (Serenity was the original ending that would have played out over multiple seasons), and the Escaflowne anime: the main plots towards the end got compressed to create a faster pace at the climax while ensuring the story could be finished (though I wasn't a fan of how Manifest ended).
My concern about original writers being involved in reboots is if they want to fill out the story they couldn't tell the first time around and end up with a more standard pacing that's less exciting, and end up getting cancelled before finishing. Then we end up with things like Tru Calling and Dark Matter, which had planned plots they couldn't finish.
Oh wow, I really enjoyed Dollhouse but I didn't know that! I was always confused why Season 2's plot went by so quickly. Thanks.
I think it worked well with the Epitaph episodes being as short as they were. I don’t think I’d have enjoyed that much darkness for many seasons. They were great though, to show sobering consequences of what they were toying with.
My best guess based on another good series with a similar 5-season arc, the 3rd season would have been when the main characters realize Rossum's larger plans (Topher's breakdown when he puts together schematics from the individual Dollhouses, or the visit from one of the execs using Victor's body, for two examples that did make it into the series), 4th season would have been the dark one when everything goes to crap, and 5th season would have been the hopeful restoration of Epitaph One / Two.
The only thing I remember reading for sure is, the 2nd season would have largely been about exploring what was happening to Echo because of what occurred in the 1st season aired finale (episode "Omega") - which did happen, but it I don't remember it dominating the season. Didn't sound like it would have been a dark season, but looking back on it seems like it would have been painfully slow.