Four Things and a Lizard

Why you should watch Dollhouse February 23, 2009

Better stories, fewer commercials.

What more do you need?

Well, if you actually do need more than that, here are some additional reasons: Eliza Dushku. Tamoh Penikett. Amy Acker. Created and written by Joss Whedon. Also involved in the writing, Tim Minear. And a bunch of other good people who I’m not as familiar with.

Remember the first season or two of Alias? You know, when the show was actually entertaining—it was kind of silly (but at the same time not silly) and fun, with a strong, female protagonist who got to go out on secret missions every episode. Dollhouse bears some superficial resemblance to that, but has its own unique and interesting take on the idea. It toughens up one of the premises of Alias by three or four notches: Instead of simply going out on covert missions for each episode, series heroine Echo becomes a completely different person in each story. Her real identity has been wiped from her mind, rendering her a blank slate upon which the Dollhouse can impose any new and useful personality it wishes, for whatever reason it wants. Directly related to this are the questions of who she was originally, why she is where she is now, and how on earth she’s going to deal with a predicament which she isn’t even aware of. Echo and her peers (called “Actives”) are slaves, body and mind. If someone wants to purchase a girlfriend for the weekend, they can imprint an appropriate personality into Echo’s brain, and she’ll not only do it, she’ll believe in what she’s doing. The client in the second story wanted something like this…and then something much more sinister afterwards. What makes Echo’s situation even more compelling is that Actives exhibit an especially docile, childlike innocence when their mission personalities are wiped. They do what they’re told, sweetly, obediently, willingly. (Except there was one who went bad somehow, and slashed everyone up. More will obviously be revealed about that in upcoming episodes, and it will likely be tied up somehow with Echo’s own personal rediscovery.)

I’m already impatient for episode three!