The Mezzanine

This is pretty fascinating (also, hi!). It hadn't struck me quite how much Whedon seems to like playing with these kinds of memory-identity questions (yeah, I held off watching Dollhouse because so many aspects of it seems so problematic...). But of course it's there in Buffy and Angel and Firefly as well.

It's interesting, I guess, the extent to which Dawn's arrival is Buffy's second big transformation, after becoming the slayer. But while slayer-hood is to some degree a transparent metaphor for adolescence, Dawn getting abruptly retconned into her life is, well, about families and how you can't always choose them, I guess, but also about the nature of fiction - especially genre fiction, where you can pull this kind of thing off. Something they use very effectively in 'Normal Again'.

Which is obviously the direction Whedon's interests are still heading in. I mean, Dollhouse sounds as if it sacrifices a lot of thoughtfulness about character and worldbuilding to make these sweeping philosophical points about how identity is constituted. Which, hmm - actually kinda makes me want to watch it.

Not that I think they did as much as they could have done with this aspect of Dawn in the show - though given how long ago I watched it, I could be wrong. And ... people say Dawn is a 'thing'? Eeeeew.