Dollhouse - recap

By the first looks of it Dollhouse appears to be nothing more than a flimsy fast ‘n’ furious fun-filled show. But if you make some concerted effort there are one or two deeper layers addressing the ethical/moral underpinnings of the sci-fi premise of neurological imprinting (i.e., wiping someone’s mind blank and then reprogramming their neurological architecture). Naturally, the show deals with questions of personality and identity, what defines us, our character, our moral fiber, our human idiosyncrasies, our quirks and foibles... Most importantly, though, there’s the issue of consent: if someone volunteers for this program, he or she has to agree on future activities that can only be guessed at. Of course, you don’t have to be a neuroscientist or astrophysicist to figure out that something like the Dollhouse will often get involved in at least two questionable activities: prostitution and assassination. (Let’s just say that, because I’m a Dutch pacifist, I have little qualms about the former, but vehemently disagree with the latter proposition.)

If you could reprogram someone’s personality, obviously, there will be enough rich men (or women) who would be more than happy to pay a fair amount for a romantic engagement with the perfect girl or boy. We aren’t told whether or not Caroline understood that this is what she signed up for when she joined the Dollhouse, but Echo is never asked for her consent (nor could she have the means of making a calculated decision in her mentally blank state), and the personalities she becomes after imprinting have been programmed to agree on their mission. In a way, then, whenever Echo goes on a romantic engagement in which her personality agrees to have sex, Caroline gets raped in that she has not and could not consent to the deed. The same logic applies to “murder-for-hire” operations in which either the mission is to eliminate someone or in which lethal collateral damage is expected. Echo may be programmed to kill, but Caroline is never asked, and could never be asked her opinion. The audience could have realized these issues from the start, but they’ve only gradually become more explicit – and more so in season two than season one. Things started to heat up as Echo slowly became self-aware and has been trained to access her former imprints.

Another logical outcome of the Dollhouse premise is that the Doll will become emotionally attached to his or her handler. It depends on the uprighteousness (if that’s a word) of the handler whether that bond becomes physical too. We might have thought it was cute when FBI agent Paul Ballard was dating his neighbor, but when he found out Mellie was actually a sleeper agent spying on him, he should have responded with moral indignation and vehement revulsion. Instead, he offered his services to the institution he loathes so much, on the condition they release Mellie (a/k/a November, real name Madeline)... Why release only one of the Dolls? Why her? We’re never made to ask that question – at least not explicitly. It’s simply implied that he fell in love with Mellie, and that that explains why he wanted her to regain her freedom... We’re never told why Ballard was so preoccupied with taking down the Dollhouse (but that could be taken for granted), and somehow they neatly brush under the carpet that he is completely obsessed with Caroline (Echo) to the point of stalking her – despite falling in love also with Mellie (gosh, the guy couldn’t even keep it in his pants). Unlike Boyd Langton (Echo’s first handler), Ballard is personally, emotionally and physically drawn to Caroline/Echo. That, too, is something Caroline never signed up for, to be attached to some hotshot douchebag with a moral spine as weak as snot.

Later in the second season, however, we hear about a portable device (hinted at in the unaired “Epitaph One” episode appended to the first season) that can wipe and imprint any mind remotely. That is to say, the issue of consent becomes moot. This is the neurological apocalypse the show has been heading toward. The Rossum Corporation will be able to imprint whomever they choose for whatever shady practices they desire. Somehow their technology will end up in the hands of the Chinese government who will know exactly what to do with it... program an army of “Imprints”... We learn that Rossum founder Boyd Langton deviously manipulated the team at the L.A. Dollhouse to discover exactly how far they could take the technology. At the same time, he’s also been willing to find a vaccine. But at the end of season two, Caroline uses Boyd to blow up the Rossum lab... After that, things got a very rushed ending in the show’s finale. Apparently we have to worry about “Imprints” returning to their original personalities, despite the fact that the entire time we’ve been told that, once your mind’s been wiped blank, your own identity is gone unless it’s backed-up on a hard drive...

I cannot help but mention that we shouldn’t expect Joss Whedon or the Dollhouse series to be philosophically sound. I don’t know what he studied (I could check on wiki, of course, but I’m too lazy for that), but the Dollhouse is a form of pop-cultural mass entertainment that cannot be expected to hold up to rigorous logical, ethical, philosophical examination. When we scratch two or three levels beneath the surface, there’s nothing left. The sci-fi mumbo-jumbo is so illogical that I have to ignore it. If it were possible to wipe someone’s mind blank and then imprint different personalities onto their neurological architecture, if a person then gradually becomes self-aware and can access those imprints, he or she should also be able to return to their original self. So far as I remember, we were never told how Echo was able to access Caroline, and we sure weren’t told how Topher’s “Pulse” was able to reverse the effects of his imprinting technology. Let me finish by saying that I clearly enjoyed this show (for the fun of it, and the cuties), but we have to resist reading too much into the storyline, because at some point our over-interpretation becomes more our own creation, than what Joss Whedon and his crew ever intended. Keeping in mind that Fox Network exerted quite some pressure, threatening to cancel the show after one season, then forcing to end it after two (while five were initially anticipated), Whedon no doubt was had no choice than to leave out details we’ll never know about. Overall, I’m glad I watched it, but not very sorry it’s over.