The Doll Factory

I totally get it, why people drop this show, and why they do it within first 2 episodes, but I am glad I did stick to with it.

Initially I stuck with it, because I did like the overall atmosphere of the show. It felt heavy and sticky, foreboding even. I thought that it be similar to "The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart", which (for me) ended up more about atmosphere rather than character development and actual exploration of complex feelings. Boy, was I wrong.

Aside from atmosphere the show seem to provide little of substance in the beginning. Not in a sense, that it's empty, no, it's just that characters' goals feel shallow. That is not bad by itself: their goals are totally normal in real life, and they can serve as a good initial premise for a story, but they way this particular story is told makes you think that they are the goal of the story. Which does make you wonder: what's the point of it all? Especially since for for a period drama it's pretty inaccurate even to my eyes.

Episode 4 changes things, though. It pulls a "Fight Club" on us in a very unexpected way, because you would never really guess that that's the linchpin of the story. The plot twist also works as a revelation of what the goal (and the conflict) of the story really is (and sorry, can't say what that is, because it's a major spoiler). It also makes those little interactions earlier in the series make a bit more sense, because what you might have thought as "quirks" turn out to be the precursors of this twist.

It does not stop there, though. Even early in the show you see some random(-ish) daydream sequences, which in some cases may feel a bit out of place. Last episode goes off the rails with those, and the show becomes very reminiscent of movie "Martyrs" (much milder than even US version, though). Surprisingly, they make complete sense in the circumstances of the episode, and it makes the ending feel somewhat cathartic, but still wonder if it was real, because of how rushed it is (which may or may not be the idea).

I think this show should have had a start with a "flashforward". Showing like half a minute of something from the last episode could have been enough of a hook to keep people by the screen till the main reveal. As I've mentioned, there are some "quirks" in interactions here and there before the twist, which would have made viewers wonder how exactly will the story reach the point, that was shown in the beginning.

So my recommendation here is: if you want to drop the show because you think it's going nowhere, and only because of that - give it a chance, if you do have free time. It may surprise. If you are expecting a highly accurate period drama - do not bother, at all.

Oh, and I do think the title should have been changed. Don't know whether dolls matter that much in original book, but in the show they play practically no role.