The Survey: You want to know about my what?

, Living , C. David Dent ,

I had a "survey" call the other night that started out with a promising question: "Would you answer a few questions about your entertainment preferences for our survey?"

I thought, Fantastic! and agreed immediately. I've been feeling as if my activities online and my contacts with both celebrities and the press have placed me in a position to have knowledge of upcoming movies and TV and I have definite opinions of what I like (and my friends and family like) and felt like I this would be an opportunity to influence somebody in the entertainment industry.

I participated in a movie survey last year that took nearly 40 minutes on the phone where I was asked about each and every movie that was to be released last summer and was asked for each movie:

what I knew about it

was I planning to see it

would I recommend it to friends

had any of my friend recommended it to me

had any of my friend asked me about the film

did I know any of the actors in the film

was that actor a factor in my wanting (or not wanting) to see the film

By the end of the survey, i was frustrated and exhausted because if I said that I knew absolutely nothing about the film and had never even heard of it I still had to answer the barrage of questions about it. But I also felt good that I had done it. I felt like a geek voice had been heard.

But this latest survey? First question was "Of the following list of illnesses are you being treated for any of the following..."

"Excuse me?" I stopped the interviewer, "What does this have to do with Entertainment?"

"Please just answer the question," the interviewer started again.

"No. I refuse to answer this question as it has nothing to do with my entertainment preferences."

There was a long pause and then, "Is there anyone in the household who would..."

"No."

"Thank you for your time"

Here's my problem. Under the "do not call" laws someone can make an unsolicited call to my home if they are 1) A Political party, 2) A Charity, or 3) Taking a survey.

This means that someone can ask me questions about all sorts of personal information and my opinions if I allow them to ask them even if they have no intention of using that information. So, apparently somebody has found out that "entertainment preferences" is an easy way to milk people for information. It makes people feel like they are going to have a say in their future entertainment options.

But here's a tip for free, telemarketers...don't make the FIRST freaking question out of your mouth about something NOT related to entertainment! Jerks. {Deep Breath}. Okay.

If this "survey" had started with "Are you watching a television program tonight?" What program are you watching? Do you watch this program often? Do you know if {Product A} is advertised on this program? Would you consider purchasing {Product A} if it was advertised on the program? Do you use {Product A}? and so on.

You see how I did that? If you are going to be intrusive and invasive and deceptive at least be subtle about it.

I was surveyed on another occasion about my medical conditions. The interviewer was upfront about it, but then when they got the questions about my medications I refused to answer the questions.

"This is none of your business," I told him, "I'll gladly answer general questions about my treatment, but I will not answer specific questions about my medication, medication brands or my doctor's recommendations."

The guy apologized but then immediately asked me another question about the brands of medication I was taking. "No, I refuse to answer." I repeated. And after he tried a third time I hung up on him.

Second tip for you guys on the phone, know when you've crossed a line. If you are selling something and the customer isn't buying it, take a different tack. If he had slipped into another direction and asked "Of the following medications can you answer yes or no if you have taken any of them as a treatment in the past 12 months" and then read off a list I'dve have probably answered that question. Why? It's not specific about my current treatment. Indirect questions are better than direct questions.

I was a telemarketer for one year a long time ago. I learned the lessons it takes to do the job. These guys now, I don't know, they aren't creative and they aren't subtle. Even from me who s probably more willing than most to be gentle to them.

If you are a telemarketer, don't call me for any kind of municipal (fire, police, ambulance) charity. Don't call me for political party bullshit. Don't call me if you are going to waste my time (fake surveyors particularly). And Don't call me after 9pm and before 9am. Follow those rules and you'll have a good solid 60 seconds to convince me to listen to you; and that probably the best offer you've had all week.

Care to Comment?

The deeper issues of Dollhouse

, , C. David Dent ,

SPOILERS WILL BE FOUND HERE If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read this. You've been warned.

Up front, I like Dollhouse and I want to see it renewed, because I think it has a lot of potential for telling thought-provoking stories. But, at it heart I think it has some things missing, that while Joss may have plans to address, make it seem after this shortened series of twelve episodes to be huge plot holes.

The "impenetrable" Dollhouse
Two grills needed to be kicked out and Ta-Da! into the Dollhouse we go. Paul Ballard and Alpha stood in a hallway that was invisible to surveillance and once Alpha decided to leave (and even in the episode where they turned the Actives into amnesiac versions of themselves) the exit was just an elevator ride away. It strains credulity to call it "impenetrable". This sort of Swiss-cheese security is only possible if someone has allowed these weaknesses to exist. Perhaps someone with a hidden agenda who is working against the Dollhouse from the inside (and who can send messages out).

Dr. Saunders
Okay, she got slashed by Alpha. But why have these people with technology that does not exist in today's world been unable to repair her cosmetic scars? A reasonably competent plastic surgeon could make those scars disappear since they were the result of a clean slash with a surgical instrument. I realize that for TV they have to be more prominent than they really are in order to register for the camera, but even taking that into consideration why are they sometimes red and angry looking? Is she picking at them?

Also in the last episode it is revealed that she was one of the most popular Actives. I imagine that for return on investment that the programming was cheaper than surgery, but what happens in 5 years when her contract is up? Are they going to return her to the world with those marks on her? I think not. She's in for life now it seems. Could she have been a "prison test subject."?

Special Agent Paul Ballard
Paul Ballard is driven to do things because he believes in Justice. He is a zealot that pursues the Dollhouse to the point where he destroys his relationships, career, and obsesses to the point where if he had a choice between his life and taking down the Dollhouse we are very clear which he'd choose. But when offered just that choice he makes the opposite choice. Bwa? Either a) Paul Ballard is an Active programmed by the Government (otherwise how else would he keep getting cooperation from Government agents after he was suspended...and there is that conversation with the client he tried to arrest) and so he has a pre-programmed response to getting inside the Dollhouse or b) His obsession is a compensation for something else to which we have not been made privy.

Alpha Coyote "Super Genius"
Forty-plus brains and he can't pick a different hideout than one he used in his old life? He dumped the body of the engineer in a dumpster after driving through hundreds of miles of deserted landscape to get there? He restores Caroline's personality to a body so he can kill her in front of Echo and he doesn't expect her to offer more resistance than a little argument? If he put the thirty-plus personalities that Echo had into her he should have had some idea of who they were and would have found strong senses of nurturing, justice and honor in them - and he didn't expect that those personalities would rebel at what he was doing? Alpha is clearly intelligent but his psychosis is evidently clouding his reason. They should have caught this guy a lot sooner. Somebody must have been hiding him all this time. He clearly has impulse control issues and would have attacked the Dollhouse before now - and certainly with more effective methods than has been shown, if Echo was always his primary objective.

Boyd Langton
Mysterious past, meteoric rise within the Dollhouse, and he has the manner of someone who has things going on underneath. Not to mention the fact that just after he was made the head of security, Paul Ballard starts getting Doll-grams from an insider. I find it hard to believe that Olivia Williams would have promoted him to such a position of power after so short a time on the job.

Olivia Williams
Playing with company toys, personal favors for friends, and her suspect hiring and management practices; Ms. Williams is a nightmare of an executive. She often refers to some sort of over-manager who must be aware of what she is doing unless these Dollhouse operations are all over the place (NY, Tokyo, Moscow, London, Dubai). She would have to be a middle-manager by the way she handles things. No manager with a stake in the company would be so cavalier with her company (or operation). She also handles all the indoctrination personally so every Doll that gets released from their contract would remember and be able to identify her. Yep, she's not as in-charge as it may seem.

The Science
We've been told that the neuro-mapping process is uncomfortable. And we've seen that every employee gets mapped on a regular basis. We've been shown that at some level there is a core set of values that cannot be suppressed. (cf. Alpha, Echo, Victor). Why not, as a test of employment, wipe everyone and make them a doll for a few weeks to see their behavior "sans personality" to find out if they have any aberrations that make them unsuitable?

The events in the episodes "Needs" and "Omega" seem to indicate that The Dollhouse has no idea that there is a level of "core values" below the personality and that must be satisfied. This, despite having a practical, usable technology that must have taken years to develop. I'm surprised they didn't do more testing. I've seen Topher pouring over PET-scans and reading personality traits from it, don't these things show up on the scans of Actives?

While you are at it, why not program your employees from scratch? Seems the best way to get the skills you want with a personality that you can control. For some people, Topher, Ms. Williams, Langdon, this might not be practical, after all, Brilliance (Topher) can't be totally programmed since creativity is a factor. In practicality, you probably can't program an intelligence higher than your own (although knowledge is a different story). Vigilance is another trait (Langdon) and leadership (Williams) that are based more on unquantifiable factors. You can simulate these traits, but natural talents are hard to find. Once you fond those talents you can read and copy them. The natural talent will still be superior, but the copy will still be very convincing.

Same thing goes for bringing back the dead. You are only as resurrected as your last copy. How often do they get scanned? can they get personality and skill touch-ups at that time? Also, has no narcissistic client made a carbon-copy of his (or her) self as a way of experiencing something unique or forging a perfect alibi? How many concurrent copies can you have at a given time?

The Attic
They all talk about it, but what is it? The Dollhouse is a sub-building. What is in the above-building? Is it populated with boring vanilla personalities of people that are inconvenient? Do they do mindless tasks like double-check accounting sheets and fill out TPS reports? At 5:00 do they punch out a time-clock and go back to an apartment in the same building where they eat a microwave meal and watch re-runs on TV before going to bed? Is the building above an arcology for "blanks"? It makes sense that if the dollhouse is a space devoted to peace, tranquility and soothing but stimulating environments for physical and mental well-being; that the "attic" or anti-dollhouse" is a mind-numbingly gray place of no mental stimulation and no challenges. Where choices are removed and replaced with a conveyor-belt of tasks that are just challenging enough to fill your existence and no more. The attic is an office building full of executive zombies. Mindless Morlocks living above the subterranean childlike Eloi.

Stories I wanted to see, but didn't

If this technology exists, it isn't a stretch to guess that someone else has it. Who? I want to see that this isn't an isolated instance of a device. I say this because IF they had prisoners to experiment on then it stands to reason that some government agency has it too. Show me.

How much can be programmed? Seriously, can you make someone an Olympic-level athlete just by altering their brain? Can you make someone a world-class chess-player? Can you give someone an addiction? It has been suggested that you can make someone identify themselves as having an ailment (Asthma); so, psychosomatic symptoms are possible. How far have they pushed this? Could you, for instance, add just a single trait to someone - say compulsive truth-telling - to get them to tell you their secrets? Could you make someone's perceptions of allies and enemies so reversed that they thought that they were a double-agent on your side? Could you cause someone to believe that they were on an alien world? Or an alien themselves? Interesting things to explore.

Who are the over-bosses? It has been implied that Ms. Williams has a supervisor. Who are they? The Dollhouse also seems to have resources for cleaning up incidents that extends well beyond a single entity...how deep is the management structure above the Dollhouse? While the Dollhouse is undoubtedly expensive to operate and maintain, it is also bringing in what would have to be enormous sums of money. It is the kind of money that is so incomprehensible that they avoid mentioning it on the show. They speak in terms of multipliers for risk ("double the usual fee"). Only occasionally do the clients even blink. Remembering, of course, that the clients are in the "$100 million isn't a lot of money" category. So where does the money go? The Dollhouse is a very expensive drain to raise cash for something even bigger. What is it?

Your ideas
Anything I missed? Share.

Care to Comment?