The Power Object Review
I have to admit that when I first read the basic premise of the webseries The Power Object, I was a bit skeptical. As described by creator Claire-Dee Lim, the show “follows the adventures of three young San Francisco women who turn their loser lives around with the help of a magic vibrator.” Adding to my cynical view was the fact that The Power Object used dolls as actors as opposed to actual human beings. “Think Team America meets Sex and the City,” Lim offers, referring to the 2004 motion picture from South Park gurus Trey Parker and Matt Stone and the classic HBO series starring Sarah Jessica Parker.
Despite my misgivings, I decided to watch the first episode of The Power Object with the expectation that I would switch to a different website within sixty-seconds of viewing. In reality, however, I could not have been more wrong as both the overall narrative and inherent humor of the webseries quickly became apparent. While Team America, as well as the Seth Green co-created Robot Chicken on Adult Swim, utilizes marionettes and action figures for satirical observations on culture and society, The Power Object is indeed more akin to the realistically-grounded Sex and the City. The story of three college roommates who had big dreams for the future only to find disappointment afterwards is universal after all, and while the use of a “magic vibrator” may be off-beat—to say the least—The Power Object likewise contains a cautionary tale of “watch what you wish for” storytelling.
The Power Object centers on Glenda, Hannah and Jessie, whose lives did not turn out the way they expected. Glenda, for instance, had plans of becoming an investigative journalist but finds herself thirty-years-old and working as a researcher for a local television morning show. Jessie, meanwhile, wanted to be a record producer but instead ended up as a “baby-sitter to the stars” as she watches over the musicians signed to the company where she is employed. And Hannah is a sculptress who was unable to find traditional success and now crafts items more suitable for the bedroom than an art gallery.
“I thought my life would be so much different,” she laments. “I’d be an artist and married and surrounded by babies. Instead I’m making fake penises all day.”
With their lives finding little satisfaction from either a career or romantic standpoint, the three roommates drown their sorrows in bottles of wine before they discover an old spell-book one night and decide to take desperate measures. Like the Halliwell sisters from the former WB series Charmed, Glenda, Hannah and Jessie utilize their own “Power of the Three” to make their working-lives more successful. When the next day yields results, the trio turn to a more potent spell and create a literal “power object” that is capable of turning their wishes into reality. The “object” in question, of course, turns out to be a vibrator.
“This is insane,” Glenda remarks afterwards. “I’m Phi Beta Kappa, have an IQ of 154. I can’t entrust my future to a plastic, battery-operated penis. Can I?”
According to creator Claire-Dee Lim—who co-wrote the family-themed motion picture Firehouse Dog—the inspiration for producing a webseries originated during the 2007 strike by the Writers Guild of America. For content, she turned to an old screenplay likewise entitled The Power Object that was based on a story crafted with her Firehouse Dog partners Mike Werb and Michael Colleary. “A few years ago I was really into Sex and the City and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I wanted to mix the idea of female friendship with a supernatural comedy element,” Lim told Animation Magazine in June 2011 about the script. “I’m also a huge fan of wish fulfillment stories. Having one’s dreams come true is too nice and tidy but when those desires go haywire, that’s a lot more fun.”
Claire-Dee Lim originally planned for the webseries adaptation of The Power Object to be an animated creation using Flash but discovered that her artistic abilities were not necessarily up to the task. She thus turned to the idea of home-crafted dolls instead, and the concept suits The Power Object well. The likes of Robot Chicken has made the narrative device a comedic medium in its own right and in the hands of Lim and The Power Object, it adds to the overall humor of the webseries—the life-size bottles of wine, martini glasses and other items that are used as props on the show are just as funny as the overall plot. A narrator keeps the action focused and centered, meanwhile, and the storyline itself is both entertaining and engaging to the point that one actually forgets that the world of The Power Object is populated by Barbie-like dolls rather than actual human beings.
The one-sentence tagline of The Power Object may sound far-fetched but when it comes to execution, the webseries is right on target. Claire-Dee Lim has done an outstanding job of not only writing a comic-filled script that is likewise grounded in reality despite containing a supernatural element, but turning the “watch what you wish for” narrative into a first-class webseries as well. Which just goes to show that one should never judge a book by its cover—especially when that book contains a spell capable of transforming a handcrafted sex device into the source of magical power.
Anthony Letizia (July 4, 2011)
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