tencrush | Topher is my Dollhouse Ianto

I think it was

alba17 who watched Dollhouse episode 13, Epitaph One, the other day, I meant to comment about it but life got in the way, so I'll make a post instead.

The reason I want to post about it, is because it reminded me of Children of Earth. In as much as it was ALMOST ENTIRELY UNLIKE CHILDREN OF EARTH IN EVERY WAY IMAGINABLE. And yet... in many ways it is the same. The brief was more or less the same, it's a coda to a series, that can be seen as an end, or as a beginning for a new series. It's completely different in tone and setting, the main characters are given a smaller role in favour of the guest characters, and it's... depressing. All very much like Children of Earth. And yet... it was fantastic and it's made me very happy that Dollhouse has been renewed.

There is somehow, a love for the characters and the universe that shines through in the writing of Dollhouse that Torchwood lacks, or at least CoE lacked. It all made perfect sense, it all fit seamlessly into the world that was created in episodes 1-12, despite the fact that is was a completely new story, characters had developed, time had passed, stuff had happened that we weren't aware of, and yet it all fit somehow. I'm in awe of writing like that, writing that can stay so true to the characters and the mood of the show. I was in awe of this episode. I won't go so far as to review it, I'd have to watch it again, but there's two things that jumped out at me.

One was Topher. Topher's my Dollhouse Ianto. I love him irrationally despite not really knowing that much about him. (I also ship him with his boss, so, you know, that's good. But beside the point.) And Topher had a big dramatic scene. Now Ianto's big dramatic scene made me cry simply because it meant Ianto really was dying and the spoilers were true, but didn't actually emotionally affect me because the scene itself was ridiculously overblown and melodramatic. I laughed at it through my tears. Compare that with Topher's scene, there's absolutely no contest. His realisation that he had thought of this, that this genius thing was so genius that it must have been his idea, that scene really did break my heart. Human drama and emotion and conflict and realisation and owww... it actually physically stung me, brought tears to my eyes and it hurt. And that's why I'm in awe of this. Death is death, and it's piss easy to yank a tear out of your viewers by killing someone off, but this? This is a fucking craft, and it's beautiful. True to the character and heartbreaking, absolutely beautiful stuff. Your mileage, I'm sure, may vary, but I'll take this sort of thing over dramatic death scenes any day.

And the second thing was quite simple, this was world destruction on a massive scale, very much like Children of Earth and yet... there was some hope. Just a glimmer, but there was hope and I was happy to have watched it and I felt good, in spite of what had happened to this universe, I felt okay about it and felt like maybe everything would turn out alright despite the fact that everyone was completely fucked. And that's the one thing Children of Earth lacked for me, and the one thing that above all else made me hate it so much. A ray of hope, it's not that fucking hard to write that in, it's not that fucking hard to leave an audience not feeling completely assraped, even when you destroy your 'verse, it can still be done.

Kudos, Whedon, I think I might decide to start loving you again.