Fantasy Sci-fi Voting FINAL Round - Dallas Dollhouse

Teams, Solai here now mostly recovered after last week’s shenanigans calling you from Game Stop with my copy of Mass Effect in my hands. Given tonight’s season finale of Dollhouse and an idea from Thotfulguy we have come up with a great challenge: A Dollhouse in Dallas, TX has imprinted four actives with the personalities, knowledge and abilities of each member on your team and been given a singular purpose: seek out your team and destroy them. Your goal is simple: devise a plan to stop them before they get you. Good luck.

  1. You may vote once a round
  2. You may vote for as many or few characters as you like
  3. Votes will not be public
  4. Poll closes on February 12

The categories by team will be:

Originality, Entertainment, Teamwork, Thoughtfulness

defined by:

Originality: Is the solution unique and unexpected and cool?
Entertainment: Did the solution make you smile/laugh/fall on the floor?
Teamwork: Did it effectively utilize the entire team?
Thoughtfulness: Was it well planned out, do you believe it will work?

I just can’t get over Conan’s Breakfast Club shout out. When you throw in the fact that he saved Team Sean and the Hollywood Squares thing I really have no other option than to wave the Go-Team-Sean-flag this week. That was some great improv man, kudos!

B.T.W. what are we going to do now that Fantasy Sci-Fi has ended? That’s what I started listening to the cast to hear in the first place, there’s other great stuff of course but this bit makes my week. :frowning:

Love the rest of the show too!

There’s nothing stopping us from continuing, even if it’s not on the 'cast. Similar to the Book Club, we could create a suggestion thread, a poll thread to vote for the best suggestion, and then a thread to post our solutions. No reason the fun should stop.

Just a question on the votes - If I add up the individual votes for each category:
O: 5+4 = 9
E: 2+8 = 10
T: 2+6 = 8
T: 3+5 = 8

9 people have voted so far, so why are there 10 votes in the entertainment section? (Less is fine, because people can choose not to vote, but I wasn’t aware that one could vote for different people in t he same category.)

Anyhoo.

Did Chuck essentially take himself out of the running by providing a solution with no explaining at all? :smiley: But anyway, I voted Audra this week because I found hers to be the only one that had a solid reasoning with what I think to be the most effective solution that played with the strengths and weaknesses of her own team (which is kind of what the challenge was).

It’s great that Sean’s team took it upon itself to save the team AND Hollywood Squares, but the very fact that he brought in all this extra celebrity power to “entice” votes has soured my impression of his solution, even though I am happy to see Conan finally do the thinking. :smiley: But, entertaining, that’s for sure.

And everyone kind of had pts taken off for not really understanding the Dollhouse imprinting process, but that’s all across the board.

You can vote for anyone or everyone in any category.

^ Is there a way to sum up the imprinting process for us unenlightened folk? I think I’m confusing myself trying to come up with a solution, and the only actives that come to mind are Echo, Victor, Sierra and November. Maybe I should be more imaginative.

You can’t beat Team Sean for Entertainment. Come on.

Here is my understanding from the show: The entirety of your ‘self’ (knowledge, skills, memories, characteristics) can be stored on hardware and imprinted on Dolls. We are told there are many Dollhouses all around the world with thousands of Dolls ready to be imprinted.

For purposes of this challenge feel free to ignore the existence of Echo, Victor, Sierra and November if you like, they are beside the point. Imagine the entirety of each of your team members being essentially copied into a Doll and what would happen.

Hope that helps! :smiley:

Isn’t it February? Being a Klingon prisoner must have muddled your memory… :smiley:

I like how you all pretty much Kobayashi Marued the intent of the challenge by having an excuse why each of the doubles would not have all the powers of the original. Very creative all around. Sean would have gotten my vote for originality and thoughtfulness if Conan’s double had been the idle Conan O’Brian, but I had to go with the muppet Sny Snoodle taking out the CGI Sny Snoodle. However, Sean and Chuck split my votes for entertainment and teamwork respectively…

Welcome, bob! Never fear, you have 200 other podcast full of goodness if you’re worried about satisfying your GWC jones. They were entertaining before the Fantasy Sci-Fi challenge, and I’m sure they will be afterward, too.

Thanks for the clarification, Solai! Okay, here we go. It’s not a great plan, but I’m hoping it’ll do well with the 18-34 male demographic.

Since the Dolls prefer their home court for its tactical advantage, they realize they have to lure Team Tibbs to Dallas. ActiveFred uses her similarity to one of Dean’s previous clients, Andrea, to lure the team to the picturesque suburb of Plano, Texas, for her housewarming barbecue. So they all pile into the Metallicar and drive south.

Somewhere between the chicken wing appetizers and the viewing of Big Bang Theory, BuffyBot and ActiveSarah spy each other across the room. Though programmed for combat, BuffyBot does not see the sense in fighting a being that looks decidedly human and neither demon nor vampire. ActiveSarah has no such hesitation in dealing with a known enemy so she goes for the homeowners’ prize kitchen knives. They slice and dice at one another until both combatants are down to their underwear and dangerously close to the inground pool. When a well-timed hair pull plunges them both into the water, BuffyBot’s circuits are fried and she ends up electrocuting ActiveSarah. All the men at the party rush to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

ActiveJack grows tired of waiting for his double to arrive so he goes in search of Dean at the latest fleabag motel that he’s making the team stay at. Dean’s alias of Pete Daltrey is easy to spot on the hotel’s registry so he readies his gun and heads to room 42. Without his “brother” Sam to pick the lock, ActiveJack opts for brute force and the element of surprise as he kicks in the door. But that’s what Dean was expecting.

They fire at each other until they’re out of bullets, and then they resort to hand-to-hand combat until finally ensnared in a headlock. They grumble about having better things to do, like saving the world from ending, and why do they always have to be the one saving the world. Why can’t they just go get a beer and watch the game? So they declare a truce and do just that, drinking till sunrise at Sam’s Bar.

Tosh and her counterpart, ActiveFred, are both pragmatic women who prefer rational explanations to unjustified homicide. Tosh insists that there can only be one of her, and ActiveFred is not it. Using her mobile medikit and hacking into the Torchwood personnel files, she compares her blood type, DNA, fingerprints and retinal scan to that of ActiveFred.

With her own identity firmly established, she helps ActiveFred learn that her true identity is that of Winifred Burkle, a college student en route to California, and she helps her find her stuffed bunny and pack her station wagon.

D’Argo wasn’t sure what to think of this “housewarming” ritual, as its attendants were either afraid of his alien appearance or enthusing about the accuracy of his costume and droning on about something called Farscape. What a bunch of frelling idiots. So he retreated to the cool, dark depths of the neighborhood’s spacious sewer tunnels.

ActiveVincent felt oddly at home in the sewers as they reminded him of the twisting corridors of his “home,” the Leviathan ship Moya. But the shape that moved across the tunnel in front of him did not seem familiar. It wasn’t John or Aeryn or Chiana, and it was too quiet to be Rygel. It was almost his height and moved with the rigid posture of a warrior. Possibly a Peacekeeper or worse, a Scarran. He would disable the intruder and then consult John.

ActiveVincent stepped out from the shadows to unleash his venomous tongue, but his tongue was significantly shorter than he’d thought. D’Argo heard the motion behind him and whirled to face his adversary. “You look even more ridiculous than I do,” he scoffed.

“Thno, I don’tbth,” ActiveVincent retorted before retracting his tongue. “And you are foolish to address a Luxan warrior with such contempt.”

D’Argo tilted his head quizzically. “I am a Luxan warrior. You’re just an overgrown furball.”

ActiveVincent growled and stepped closer. “I am Ka D’Argo, wrongly imprisoned by the Peacekeepers for killing my wife, Lo’Lann. Searching for my son, Jothee, with a crew of misfits and miscreants. I will not be told otherwise.”

“Uh-huh,” D’Argo nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Where’s your Qualta blade?”

“Weapons were not allowed at the party,” he pouted.

“Then this will have to do.” Rapidly making a fist, he punched ActiveVincent in the nose. “See, your blood isn’t black, like a true Luxan.” With another jab followed by a right hook, he knocked out the imposter. “And I talk too much.” Giving a satisfied nod, he headed back to the party to see if there was any spinach dip left.

Team Omra

In: Valley of the Dolls

After the programming was complete the four women set out to complete their assigned tasks, each with the skills and personalities of their targets. The first two pounce on Briareos and Karas as they were making their way to Karas’s favorite’ Maid Café’ in Akihabara. Briareos’s double lands a series of lightening fast blows before he even realizes he is being attacked, but skin and bone are no match for the hyperalloy armor of a cyborg. She falls to her knees, bursts into tears and tries to nurse her broken hands, Briareos pops her head like an eggshell and mutters, “What the f*&k was that about?” The Karas doll drives her target backwards with a series of efficient and elegant movements of her katana, Karas does a number of backflips to get some distance from her and morphs into his armored form. Seeing Briareos impatiently tapping his foot nearby waiting for him to finish, Karas sighs and morphs into a car and runs her over, and then backs over her to finish her off.

Gomtuu’s doll runs around town with her arms held out like wings making starship noises with her mouth, and telling people, “Look at me, look at me, I’m a SPACESHIP!” The local police haul her off to the asylum.

The Austin James doll arrived aboard Gomtuu having used her impressive intellect and inventiveness to fool the ships sensors into thinking she was Briareos. She entered the ships lounge gun drawn, but when faced with the actual task of killing the real Austin James she was conflicted. Austin deplores violence in any form, and senseless killing is inexcusable, they face each other for many long silent moments. Finally he talks to her and after many long tense moments he is able to help her defeat her programmed assassination protocol, once he is convinced she is no longer a threat they sit down to an exhilarating game of chess. After many laughter filled hours of brandy, cigars and intense rounds of chess Gomtuu becomes intensely jealous and beams the doll into space. Austin is shocked and asks her why she beamed the woman away, Gomtuu lies and tells him that she had sensed the dolls programming had kicked back in and that she was about to kill him now that his guard was down. Austin rubs his chin in deep contemplation and then sighs, “What a shame she was such a nice woman, well I still have you my dear… Thank you for looking out for me Gomtuu.” Gomtuu assures him she will always do so.

In honor of
Team Sean
I offer-

Interlude

Having finished dinner Conan leaves the warmth and comfort of the campfire and heads into the woods to do, well you know… What Barbarians do in the woods. He was about to remove his loincloth when he hears a woman crying out for help. He draws his sword and runs in the direction of the pleading voice; he enters a clearing to find a woman ankle deep in a pool of quicksand. He asks with his thick Cimmerian accent (which sounds strangely Austrian), “Vat is’t ze mattah?” The woman waves her arms in agitation, “I am sinking, I am sinking!” Conan scratches his head in contemplation (which looked rather strange since he was wearing a helmet at the time), “Um… Um… Vat are you sinking about?”

In honor of
Team Sean
I say: La…la la la la…la la la la…la la lal la la la la la la, la la

Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

Ditto that. Hee hee hee!! It’s times like dis when you can’t help but love Conan.

Team Old School solution #5:

First, Kurama, the strategist that he is, analyzes the active doubles team quickly:

ActiveDoraemon (AD)- without the physicality of Doraemon’s 4D pouch and all the gadgets it contains, ActiveDoraemon is basically what Doraemon was meant to be - a robot cat pet - cute, but completely harmless.

ActiveSlump (AS)- Well, the original Dr.Slump isn’t a big threat, so, hm. He is dangerous in that he could build something dangerous, but like the original, is also easily distracted and kind of a big idiot. So, pretty harmless.

ActiveFaye (AF)- She has the same fighting and cunning skills but Active is at a major disadvantage due to her lack of her guns and vehicles. Slightly dangerous, but completely manageable.

ActiveKurama (AK)- That’s the one biggie. Most dangerous of them all. All his skills and smarts will translate to the active, and no doubt ActiveKurama is also scanning their team and analyzing their skiills at the same time.

Conferring with his team, Team Old School springs into action. Before anyone could start, Faye shoots her guns at the opposing team to distract them while Kurama, anticipating AK to rightfully identify Doraemon as the most dangerous and attack him, takes AK to fight. Both Kuramas fight, but given both are equal in pretty much every way, it’s a stalemate fight, which is what Kurama intended it to be.

Because meanwhile, Doraemon is flying with his propeller hat up into the sky…

Leaving Faye and Slump to go up against AF, AS, and AD. Slump takes out a teeny tiny rat and scares the crap out of AD, Faye takes out her guns and AF, AS, and AD are subdued. Not wanting to kill the Actives that are basically themselves, Slump ties them all to a tree while Faye loots for treasure and smokes a cigarette.

Once Faye takes out the rest of the double team and Kurama is still busy fighting with AK, Doraemon whips out his forgetful stick (not some weird euphemism, but a gadget that when hit with stick, person will forget something at a particular time) and returns to group Faye. He hits AD, AS, and AF with the stick, and the actives all forget the time when they were imprinted with this set of imprints. Now that they no longer care to kill the team and will be reverted to their doll state, Slump takes care of them while Doraemon gives Faye the forgetful stick. He then uses his small flashlight (makes things small when shined on for a set amount of time) on Faye, Faye’s spaceship, and the stick. They all shrink to the size of a mosquito and she flies off to the Kuramas who are still fighting. Being so small, Faye was unnoticed by AK until she hits her with the forgetful stick, but by then it was too late. AK was gone. Kurama rejoins the team, a little worse for wear but otherwise all right, and Faye returns to normal size after the effect wears off.

When the active team woke up, they were all back into their doll states. Faye, being someone who cannot remember a whole chunk of her life, felt really bad for them, as with the rest of the team (who are just nice people in general). So they take them under their wing and takes care of these dolls, while Doraemon and Slump researches and hope to find a way to reinstate their real selves in the future. They live happily ever after.

The end.

Epilogue:
It turns out that Doraemon is probably the most useful of all the members (safe fro the one challenge where tech was limited) - he’s quite the clutch player in most scenarios. Always helpful, and so nice and cute. And in the spirit of Team Old School, there aren’t any deaths in any of the scenarios (even with the Orcs who are just in battle forever, but not dead, with the Ents, who were horribly used, but technically they will live forever).

hahaha, i can’t wait till Omra continues

With having a Transformer on the team, the doll process would seem to be an ineffective means to test this team because Ironhide’s weaponry could easily destroy these copies. If we can clone a robot as Ironhide, then I feel I have a fair solution.

Arriving in Dallas TX in the Millennium Falcon, Team Dyno-Mite is informed of the situation. My teams first move is to have Doll T’pol chased by Ironhide in truck mode and killed. Tony Stark in the Ironman Armor has been told of the tranformer’s weakness of heat weapons and incapacitated Doll/clone Ironhide with the use of his flight stabilizers. Once these two dolls are dealt with, the dolls of Tony Stark and Han Solo are a very easy match for just one T’pol. Her weapon of choose, disrobing and easily walking up to both Dolls and simple giving both dolls and the Vulcan neck pinch. After the, the shells would easily be destroyed.

After the team boards the Falcon to head for there secret base, they decide to let some very important people know they are here to protect all. Sean, Shannon, Mickey, Chuck, Audra and the gang are amazed to see Team Dyno-Mite doing a flight-by to let them they will always be safe when Team Dyno-Mite is on the job.

Team EVIL:
Robot: Lore
Scientist: Saruman
Warrior: Darth Vader
Alien: Ba’al

The first thing my team does is recognize that with the dolls knowing everything they do, it pays to make some changes. First off, Lore will modify Ba’al’s force field device to use a Trek style forcefield (pretty much impenetrable) instead of a Stargate one (which allows slow objects through). This will confuse the dolls that attack Ba’al, since stuff they expect to get through won’t.

Secondly, Vader will give Lore his lightsaber. While Vader’s armor is more durable than the doll Vader will be, it also gives him a lot less mobility. Lore is even more durable and has insane hand eye coordination, which will make him difficult to kill.

When it’s time for the battle, Lore will take charge the dolls and try to take out the Saruman and Vader ones first, since they have non-tech based abilities. Saruman will hang back and try to pull any weapons out of the dolls hands and throw them as far away as he can. Vader and Ba’al will be in between. Vader will be using the Force to keep the dolls from ganging up on Lore and shooting with a disruptor when he gets the chance. Ba’al will use his hand device for extra telekinesis, or to brain scramble any of the dolls that get close enough, using the force field for protection.

Team Cheatin’ (The Mirror’s Edge: Final Challenge)

Note: Since “god (Star Trek V)” is a mouthful, he will simply be referred to as Bob for this challenge.

In a locker room far, far, away

Me: Oh my god! You are all here, that means you all survived. That means you won! Yippee! How did you beat you beat the other team?
Dr. Manhattan: I encased Superman in kryptonite and shot him into the center of a red sun.
Me: Brutal, but effective.
Superman: I towed Unicron into a black hole.
Me: Good, good.
Bob: I told Bob that the season premier of Lost would answer everything. Now he’s stuck watching his TV in the galactic core.
Me: Ha, sucker.
Unicron: I absorbed all of Dr. Manhattan’s radiation so he couldn’t reform.
Me: Most excellent! Job well done team … what’s this piece of paper Superman?
Superman: It’s the bill.
Me: Bill, for what?
Superman: The Rossum Corporation felt it was only fair that the loser of the challenge pay for the expenses.
Me: Wait a minute … that means you guys are … craaaap! We lost again! And you want 156 trillion dollars! That’s outrageous!
Superman (doll): Building a planet size robot tends to be pricey.
Me: Awwww man. Don’t suppose you guys are looking for a job now? I know I am. :frowning:


Lesson learned from this disaster: “Cheaters never win?” Naaah. I think its as Chuck said: gods just don’t give a damn! Which is kind of important, since otherwise, most sci-fi would have much faster story lines:

Stargate SG-1: Ancients blow away the Goa’uld and everyone lives happily ever after.
Babylon 5: The Vorlons blow up Za’ha’Dum and everyone lives happily ever after.
BSG: Head Six nukes all the cylons and Head Baltar puts up a sign saying: “Real Earth this way—>" and everyone lives happily ever after.

Yeah, I know the last example is a bit weak, but you get the idea. Gods are plot points, not protagonists. This has been great fun. I hope GWC does something like this again.