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.

Dollhouse 2x13

Dollhouse, “Epitaph Two,” Los Angeles 2019 ... chaos, anarchy, the end of civilization as we know it... Another year later in this post-apocalyptic state and half the world has been wiped and imprinted to kill the other half. Our savior, humanity’s hope for survival, Caroline/Echo, has been imprinted into this young girl, named Iris in “Epitaph One” ... but she and her sidekicks get abducted and taken to Neuropolis ... “The City of Minds,” young Caroline explains (in case you don’t speak neo-Greek; it actually means “nerve-city,” but who turned on the History Channel, right?) ... where once Tucson, Arizona, used to be ... where the Rossum Corporation used to have its headquarters ... and where they developed the vaccine against neurological imprinting... Had they not blown up Rossum’s laboratory, would its technology have been safe? It sure doesn’t seem to be in the right hands now... Young Caroline ends up locked inside with the real Caroline (Eliza Dushku), who’s still with Paul Ballard kicking ass. Then they bump into genius whiz kid Topher, who’s on the brink of reversing the effects of imprinting, “bringing back the world,” as he puts it...

Adelle DeWitt is living in some agrarian community with Priya (beautiful Dichen Lachman) ... and then Echo barges in with Ballard, Topher, Iris and her sidekicks ... “The world still needs a hero,” Ballard blurts out, and finally they call him corny. Fortunately that’s when things get interesting! The compound gets raided by some poor Mad Max imitation, oh, wait, it’s Victor speaking whatever foreign language, and he’s here to help (with another sexy Asian toting guns). Alas we soon find ourselves in the mid-episode dip, when things get mushy and melodramatic in some unsuccessful attempt at psychological depth ... the kind of sentimental blah-blah I’ll spare you... “You got a hundred people living inside your head, yet you’re the loneliest person I know” ... that kind of crap, but then again, they’ve already called Ballard corny.

Anyway, they drive into L.A. where Armageddon is still on its last legs ... to get inside the Dollhouse ... fighting, confusion, lots of guns are fired ... and Big Bad Ballard takes a bullet in the head trying to protect one of Iris’ sidekicks (and I still don’t rokin give a dam)... Then they find the Dollhouse is in fine working order, thanks to Alpha (the original rogue Active). Victor’s sidekicks get anxious and start pointing guns hoping to become masters of the universe, but Alpha, Echo and Victor take them down easily. Some alone time in his old bunker bed and a video of Bennett Halverson (that awfully cute Summer Glau) allows Topher to finish the “Pulse” tech to reverse imprinting. We get some more pseudo-religious crap about shepherds leading the flock, while Topher sacrifices himself for the salvation of mankind and atone for his sins. Then, whoosh, all is forgotten ... well, not for “Actuals,” they all remember everything ... and Caroline walks to the chair to be with Ballard one more time... The End. (Next week I’ll give you a final analysis of the show.)

Dollhouse 2x12

The Dollhouse is inching towards the finale of the second season... Last time we got completely taken by surprise when we found out that Boyd Langton is actually one of the two founders of the Rossum Corporation running the Dollhouse. We’ve been made to believe that Echo/Caroline and her friend are fighting against Rossum, and we have been under the impression that Boyd is perhaps the only trustworthy companion Echo could have hoped for ... and now ... ??? So, let’s return to that meeting two years ago ... when Boyd explains to Caroline that his corporation is on the cutting edge in brain scans and neurological research, blood tests and microscopic examinations, leukemia and Parkinson’s disease. He also explains that by committing an act of terrorism blowing up the lab Caroline might be facing ten, fifteen years in prison. So she might as well offer five years of her life to the Dollhouse, under Boyd’s protection, so they can learn how far they can go with their neuroscientific experiments.

In the present day, Sierra/Priya and Victor/ Anthony are returning to the L.A. Dollhouse, only to find the remains of a small battlefield, bodies of a swat team strewn about, guns and damage, flickering computer screens in the darkness... On the rooftop Adelle DeWitt is waiting for a helicopter to take her away with Paul Ballard and November/Madeline. Then Boyd arrives with Topher and Echo, who’s completely gone bonkers now that they’ve dumped Caroline’s original imprint back into her mind. They have to take her to the Rossum Headquarters in Tuscon, where Clyde Randolph (in the body of Whiskey/Claire) gives them an awkward meet and greet. Back in L.A. Topher’s left his own imprint behind, so that Priya and Anthony can figure out what has happened and how to help. Now we learn the Boyd drugged Caroline so that she wouldn’t immediately exclaim he was the enemy. It’s not going to be long, though, before Caroline is going to come to.

Meanwhile Topher and Boyd find that Rossum is already in the process of mass-producing his remote-wipe gizmos with which you can imprint brains. (I know, that annoying sci-fi gibberish...) All it needs is for Topher to fix something twenty researchers weren’t able to crack for weeks. Then Caroline barges in, hitting Boyd to the ground. Clyde breaks them up, pointing guns at Caroline and Adelle, and Topher still hasn’t been able to figure out what’s going on. Caroline wants to know what the whole charade is about. Why bring all those people to the Headquarters if not to kill them? “Don’t you understand I love you guys?” Boyd replies. While Paul and November/Mellie/Madeline are looking to destroy Rossum’s mainframe, Boyd praises his team and tells them the neurological technology that they’ve invented cannot be undone. So, you have to face the fact and chose which side to be on: the imprinted slaves or their masters. “You are spectacularly insane,” Adelle sighs in despair. Now Boyd believes that Echo/Caroline will be humanity’s savior (we westerners always need a savior). He continues that they are going to create a vaccine against imprinting from Caroline’s cerebral spinal fluid... (Uh, what?) Topher, with Anthony and Priya set out to destroy the remote-tech that he invented. Caroline’s chased by Clyde and Boyd, Paul gets distraught when Melly kills herself, fist fights ensue, and then Topher walks in zapping Boyd into his doll state. They use him to blow up the mainframe. Have they saved the world? Switch to ten years in the future, and the neurological apocalypse is still happening. Something must have gone awry... (Stay tuned for more next week: “Epitaph Two.”)

Dollhouse 2x11

At the L.A. Dollhouse it is time to meet Caroline, Echo’s original identity before her brain got wiped blank and subsequently imprinted with a whole series of different personalities. We’re getting very close to the season’s end, but first we go back in time three years ... when Caroline Farrell (Eliza Dushku) broke into Adelle DeWitt’s office to discover information about the Rossum Corporation. Instead she found a file on herself, as well as on Bennett Halverson (that wicked smart, little hottie, played by Summer Glau)... Fascinating! Bennett was a genius neurology student at the Tucson Institute of Technology (very unfortunate glasses, darling), where she met Caroline and they became fast BFFs. Or is Carline simply trying to use Bennett’s access card to the laboratory?

When Bennett finds out about Caroline’s plans to bomb Rossum’s lab, she’s actually hurt that Caroline didn’t ask her to help. When they set out to blow up the lab, Caroline comes across a section she didn’t know about, with preserved bodies inside that come alive... During the explosion a piece of concrete dropped on Bennett (that will eventually cost her the use of her left arm) and Caroline has to leave her behind. She gets caught and send up to “Rossum” which, as it turns out is just a name. She meets one of the founders of the corporation, Clyde (in a different body from the Clyde she saw in the Attic) ... as well as the other founder ... no one other than Boyd Langton (Echo’s former handler, and now the L.A. Dollhouse’s Head of Security)! Whoa!!! That completely caught me sideways!

Back in the here & now, Caroline’s original memory dump, the hard drive that contains her identity is missing from the vault. In order to help them fix a backup that programmer Topher once broke, they abduct Bennett from the D.C. Dollhouse, in the course of which Echo’s handler Paul Ballard also retrieves Madeline. Topher and Bennett giggle uncomfortably around each other. Then Boyd Langton brings back Dr. Saunders a/k/a Whiskey, in the course of which they kiss (what the? When did they get romantically involved?). Later, former chief of security Laurence Dominic resurrected himself from the Attic to inform them that Rossum is sending the troops in. During the evacuation, Boyd is able to shoot Rossum’s gorillas that were sent to fetch Adelle, but he gets shot himself, too.

Now Boyd has to run for his life, while Bennett has to try and bring back Caroline from a broken hard drive. That’s when Dr. Saunders blows her brains out! (Aw, just when I was drooling with adoration!) Probably Rossum got to Saunders and made her a Sleeper (an inactive Doll waiting to be triggered for a mission). With the Dollhouse under siege, electricity failing, Topher sends away his assistant Ivy (another Asian cutie) in the hopes of saving her life ... and her brain from getting shot to pieces ... and now he has to revive Caroline’s memory wedge. Once Echo’s on the chair to get her imprint of Caroline, everyone else runs for their lives ... and then Boyd enters the room to get Echo/Caroline... (Stay tuned! We’re picking up the story next week.)

Dollhouse 2x10

When we last heard of Echo, she was sent to the Dollhouse’s Attic, together with Victor/ Anthony and Sierra/ Priya. There, in the Attic, they are left in tubs in a vegetative state with their worst nightmares running over and over in their heads. Echo soon enough learns to overcome her fears and ignore the nightmares. Eventually she comes across the old Head of Security, Laurence Dominic, who is chasing a dark figure he calls Arcane. (Here comes more sci-fi rubbish!) Apparently, their minds are somehow connected and they can find others by tuning into fear. In Anthony’s recurring nightmare, he’s a soldier in Afghanistan, locked in hand-to-hand combat with himself; Priya dreams of making love with Anthony but every time he turns into a zombie rapist...

Echo and Dominic team up to find and release Anthony and Priya from their nightmares and catch Arcane. Turns out the latter is merely a man called Clyde, also locked up in the Attic, who has been trying to kill as many people as possible, because he knows that all their connected minds are being used as Rossum’s mainframe – not only from the L.A. Dollhouse, but all houses across the globe. With Clyde they walk straight into his own personal nightmare of things to come – the neurological Armageddon, the apocalyptic anarchy, the final battle between the rebel “Actuals” (those who haven’t imprinted) and the “Imprints” (those humans, or what’s left of them, whose minds have been programmed to butcher the rebels).

Echo then decides that if she flatlines, she will be taken off the mainframe, and if she can then revive herself she can rescue the others and take down Rossum. Meanwhile boy-genius Topher has successfully imprinted Paul Ballard to release him from his coma. Echo squares off with Adelle DeWitt, but then we get a flashback telling us that the two agreed to this whole scenario so that they would learn Rossum’s darkest secret and finally get a real advantage over the corporation. Adelle, Boyd, Topher and his assistant Ivy (another cutie, by the way), together with Ballard, Echo, Victor/Anthony and Sierra/Priya are eager to overthrow Rossum. But they need one more person: Caroline Farrell (Echo’s original personality, who knows certain things no one else seems to know). Things are heating up! This show is really starting to become worthwhile.

Dollhouse 2x09

At the Dollhouse they’re facing more and more problems with ghost emotions persisting after wiping an Active’s brain that’s supposed to turn them into mental blank slates... Victor, for instance, has fallen in love with Sierra (ew, dude, I don’t want you near her, she’s too cute for you) ... and remains so even on mission... Meanwhile, Alpha’s spiel has rendered Paul Ballard brain dead, physically he’s alright, but his mental architecture is empty, there’s no neurological activity left ... and Echo’s worried about him. Now Victor is released from the Dollhouse. His contract has run its five-year course and he is allowed (under supervision) to return to his life as Anthony Ceccoli... Not long after falling asleep (in the bathtub), he’s attacked by some swat-team who blindfold him and take him to a bunker.

The team is part of some sort of para-military project, called Scytheon, run by the Rossum Corporation, that uses a “Mind Whisper” program that links all soldiers with a neurological radio so they can hear what the others are thinking. (I know, more sci-fi gibberish...) When Head of Security Boyd Langton and genius programmer Topher realize what has happened to Victor/ Anthony, they arrange for Echo to rescue him from Rossum’s clutches, and she takes Sierra/ Priya with her because of the emotional bond she has with him. Although eventually Echo is successful in getting Anthony out safe, Adelle DeWitt has come out of her drunken stupor and orders the use of that disruptor gizmo to get all three back into the Dollhouse. Once back into the house, Adelle sends them to the Attic ... where they are left to vegetate in tubs with their own worst nightmares running over and over in their heads.

Dollhouse 2x08

Adele DeWitt was pretty miffed when Harding took over her position at the L.A. Dollhouse, so when Topher’s latest invention (not just to remotely wipe an active Doll, but to imprint just any random person with a simple zap without consent), she saw an opportunity to regain control and grabbed it with both hands. Now she reigns the house with an iron fist. So, when Paul Ballard finally returns with Echo, DeWitt has her thrown into an isolation cell just to see how she’d hold out! That, and to check how torturing Echo affects Ballard. Then DeWitt finally decides to employ Echo again on an engagement, and Topher, Boyd (the head of security) and Ballard witness that she doesn’t even need her imprint for the mission, she can just access it herself. Finally, on her next two missions, we hear from Alpha again, the Dollhouse’s first Active Missing in Action, who became obsessed with Echo and escaped after violently running amok. Now he’s back and ready to cause some serious rampage with his own little device that turns all the Dolls into black-belt martial artists! In the confusion, Alpha vents his jealous frustration about Echo’s affection for Ballard ... causing Ballard to go brain-dead... Ouch!

Dollhouse 2x07

Over the course of The Dollhouse series so far our main star Echo (Eliza Dushku) has gradually become more aware of her past, despite her blank-wiped mind after each mission she performed as an operative. Now she has escaped the clutches of the Rossum Corporation, without the GPS tracing device in her neck, utterly lost in her doll-state on the streets of D.C. or even beyond... Her handler Paul Ballard is still AWOL... and we’re left wondering what happened to that wickedly cute, evil doctor Bennet Halverson, or the moralizing white knight with a Rossum brain imprint, Senator Perrin... Echo has in fact made it all the way to Texas, without money or anything else except the clothes on her back.

Months have passed now... The L.A. Dollhouse is now run by Harding, someone above Adele DeWitt ... and Echo has somehow managed to get a job at a hospital... Like, what? If that’s not enough, she’s allowed to check on an imprisoned illegal immigrant, who she met in a supermarket before she got arrested... Wanna know how she’s pulling this off? Ballard has been training her to gain access to her former imprints! Too bad we get a lot of that sci-fi mumbo jumbo that’s supposed to enlighten us how we’re about to head towards a neurological Armageddon with Topher’s latest portable gadget that can wipe imprints remotely. Fortunately it is beautiful Sierra (Dichen Lachman) who does the mumbo jumbo, and I can watch her without sound! Meanwhile the L.A. Dollhouse has turned into a whorehouse for the filthy rich (providing Dolls on romantic engagements)... and Harding is proud like a boy to announce the grand opening of the Dubai Dollhouse... Yuck, I don’t want to even think about Sierra going there...

Dollhouse 2x06

So, what happened to Echo and Senator Perrin, his wife Cindy, agent Ballard and the whole Dollhouse? Well, apparently Cindy has been Perrin’s handler. The Senator’s memory has been programmed to pass through legislation behind the façade of an ethical neuroscience subcommittee that will benefit the Rossum Corporation. Now Cindy has brought Echo and Perrin to her own Dollhouse in D.C., so that their memory can be reprogrammed by the wickedly charming Bennet Halverson (played by actress Summer Glau, who somehow reminds me of my ex-girlfriend – the forehead, the lips, and that she likes pigs, Bennet that is, not Summer – but I’m probably just seeing things...) It’s getting pretty exciting and I finally feel that much of the fast ‘n’ furious, but ultimately superficial sci-fi babble, is beginning to pay off – and I admit that all the attractive, scantily clad women are a guilty pleasure, too.

That lovely, sick, little evil doctor, slash brain programmer Bennet tortures Echo by showing how they’ve met before... We only get to see glimpses, but she’s imprinted her own memory onto Echo’s mind. Meanwhile Adele DeWitt (the head of the L.A. Dollhouse) and her programmer Topher flew into D.C. to retrieve Echo, which required some forceful convincing on Adele’s part, but then Senator Perrin runs away with Echo before Topher can get to her... Echo and Perrin cut out each other’s GPS retrieval chips in their neck (yeah, I know, more sci-fi babble). Now, to trace and disable the fugitive actives, Bennet suggest readjusting Topher’s gizmo from last week ... and this new device will lead us one step closer to the neurological Armageddon of remote brain wipes we witnessed in the glimpse into the future (the Epitaph episode appended to Season One). That sly witch doctor then uses the device to turn Perrin into an assassin, hoping to get rid of Echo. In the end he kills Cindy, chairs the subcommittee’s hearing and clears the Rossum Corporation of the accusations of unethical practices. Not exactly as intended ... or was it?

Dollhouse 2x05

Have you been waiting impatiently for the Dollhouse to return? I know I have! Fast girls and furious action, flimsy plots and pretended female empowerment, sci-fi nerdery and purported ethical issues – what more can a modern guy ask for? Yay! Well, Senator Daniel Perrin is giving a press conference accusing the Rossum Corporation (that runs the various Dollhouses around the globe) of ethical maleficence, and is hoping to use Madeline (the former active called November) as a witness. She used to have a relationship with former FBI agent Paul Ballard (who is now Echo’s handler), when she herself was a sleeper operative spying on Ballard. The situation is putting pressure on Adele DeWitt, the head of the L.A. Dollhouse, as the Corporation is questioning her judgment when she released November two years before her five-year contract expired. It actually remains unclear why exactly Madeline suddenly turned against the Dollhouse.

That moralizing hypocrite senator son of a gun pretends he’s his wife’s knight in shining white armor and she’s his damsel in distress, that they live the happy-ever-after fairy-tale life, “it’s like they made her just for me,” he says in an interview ... O!M!G! You know what? Gasp! Could it be his very own wife’s a Doll?! Wow, that would be so messed up! Is she a sleeper and if so, to what end? To assassinate Perrin himself or any witnesses he might bring forward, like Madeline? DeWitt sends Echo on a mission setting up the senator with a nice video ... you know, wink, wink, nudge, nudge ... in a hotel room and all that... Meanwhile Ballard is supposed to rescue Madeline and take out the senator’s sleeper doll before she gets activated. Yet when he turns on some sort of gizmo that is supposed to knock out Dolls (active, sleeper or former ones), November and Echo fall to the floor, but not the senator’s wife...! The real kicker is in fact that Perrin himself was affected by it! Hahahaha! Didn’t see that one coming! Echo runs away, taking Perrin with her, shouting, “I think my bad guys are better than your bad guys!” From there things take twists and turns that are so wicked and exciting, I will have to leave it till next week! Aw, poor you! Can you take it?

Dollhouse 2x04

We return to the Dollhouse and a year ago sweet Sierra (the ever so fabulous Dichen Lachman) was known as Priya Tsetang, a free-spirited artist who unwittingly caught the attention of some head honcho inside the Rossum Company. He bought her paintings and arranged an exhibit, but when she refused his advances, he had her committed to the Dollhouse against her will so that he could finally have his little Doll. When charming Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams) finds out about the repeated engagements this guy’s been arranging with Sierra (and then manner in which he got her into the Dollhouse), he calls him “a raping scumbag one tick shy of a murderer” in his face! Hahaha! Of course, she’s been guilty of hiring out one of the male Dolls once in a while... But beneath the pot calling the kettle black, there’s actual depth in this episode. I’m not taking about some profound philosophical revelations, but this one is bleak and disturbing.

Dollhouse 2x03

This new Dollhouse episode starts out really weird and dark and disturbed. I can’t even describe it. Doctor Saunders (a/k/a Whiskey) is gone missing. There’s nothing this week about former operative Madeline, nor about the political campaign against the mysterious medical corporation Rossum that runs the Dollhouse. But a new patient arrives after being hit by a car, but even Topher (the boy genius who imprints Actuals for their engagements) has ethical problems waking this guy up from his coma, when he discovers the patient has the brain of a serial killer. Uhuh.

The patient’s uncle (yet another Battlestar Gallactica veteran) is apparently close to the Rossum Corporation, but I missed that part. They mind-dump the nephew’s brain on Victor, who’s then accidentally let loose on the streets of L.A. (not that anyone would know or care) and now boy genius has to come up with a method to mind-swipe Victor remotely. (This, we who’ve seen episode “Epitaph One” know, is the beginning of the Apocalypse...) That means Victor will become a mindless robot wandering in Hollywood (not that anyone would know or care) ... Except that Topher’s attempt causes a power failure at the lab...

On her part, Echo is starting to recollect more and more of her past missions, although not much of the time when she was still Caroline. This time she becomes Kiki, a college student, who figures she take Medieval Lit, rather than Advanced Eval and skip Intro to Eval, or whatever, because how hard can it be? but maybe she should never have taken this course, but really this Chauncy guy he doesn’t even know how to spell! Heehee! Seeing that I am (well, was) a college professor, I find that very funny :-) Kiki comes to the professor’s office, reads some Chaucer, dances and flirts ... and then stabs a knife in his neck as she glitches just when Topher caused that power failure at the lab... Now Kiki and Victor have swapped minds, so she has become the serial killer on a rampage, and he’s become a mindless twerp in some L.A. club! Hahahaha! What fun!

Dollhouse 2x02

In last week’s episode, Echo (Eliza Dushku), one of the Dollhouse’s Actives, has been imprinted to thinks she’s just given birth, and now she lactates! To explain, we’re told that “the human mind is like Van Halen, if you just pull out one piece and keep replacing it, it just degenerates.” Genius! Interesting that Echo and Sierra (the very attractive Dichen Lachman) are employed on the same engagement... Why? Anyway, Echo is married to this guy who’s never home, but who locks his office behind him at home, and now she’s getting paranoid. She wants to know what the guy is up to. She’s suspecting that he’s having an affair and finds photos of him with another woman... He tells her that’s someone he loved before but she died...

And just when it’s getting too boring ... she overhears him saying, “This isn’t working, get rid of her and I’ll get rid of the baby.” Echo flees with the kid, and her husband complains to the Dollhouse that instead of a wife they sent him a kidnapping freak. (Oh, the woman he loved died in childbirth and he paid the Dollhouse to give him a replacement mother!) Her “handler” returns her to the lab, but after her mind-swiping treatment she punches geek boy Topher in the nose. She runs out, gets in a car, because her maternal instincts from the engagement couldn’t be wiped out... A sudden spell of thunder and lightning, and a power outage later and the baby is gone! “Mommy’s home.”

Oh, gosh, does it really sound as sci-fi crap as I think it does? This show is a lot of fun, though, with some effort at psychological, ethical and philosophical depth, even if you have to try hard catching it. We also continue to get bits and pieces of other plot-lines. There’s the senator who’s out to get the company behind the Dollhouse for their unethical, inhuman practices. And now we also get another plot: that of former Dollhouse operative Madeline. Hmmm, where is all of this going to take us?

Dollhouse 2x01

I told you about that unaired episode of the Dollhouse, “Epitaph One,” which in a way tells us what the future holds in store: an apocalyptic world in which “imprinted” humans wage war against “actuals” (those who have not been “mind-swiped”). But the story we saw was told through the memory of people working for the Dollhouse. Their recollection may be unreliable, partial, distorted, or otherwise incorrect... Shall we move on to Season Two? What’s Echo’s “engagement” this time? To be the bride of Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Gallactica’s Apollo!) ... whoa! Okay...? For reasons too mhmhmhm, mumble-mumble, incoherent to comprehend, former FBI agent Paul Ballard (Battlestar Gallactica’s Helo) now becomes Echo’s “handler”... They’re trying to set up the groom, who’s apparently a big arms dealer... Meanwhile Dr. Saunders (a/k/a Whiskey) is pulling hilarious pranks on genius programmer boy Topher! Heehee! New this season is the political campaign against the corporation that runs the Dollhouse. There’s also more philosophical depth than before, and more than I can write down. Moreover, if I would try to put it in words, it would sound real silly. The action was pretty exciting, too, this episode. Watch it, if you can!

Dollhouse 1x13

I’ve mentioned before that I enjoyed the first season of the Dollhouse earlier this year. I feel it’s very much a guys’ show, that is to say, a show for guys who like watching scantily clad, sexy girls in fast action. And let’s be honest, that’s most straight guys. So, I don’t understand why this show isn’t more popular, but what the hey. At any rate, I was so excited for the season two premiere that I found the unaired thirteenth episode of the first season to hold me over! I promise you that the first few minutes are very confusing: Los Angeles 2019, riots in the street, fires and burning cars, people shooting, flashlights in the dark ... huh? But then we’re back in the Dollhouse, the facility for inactive operatives who are abiding in their blank state of mind until they are imprinted for a mission – of any nature, professional, criminal, recreational, romantic, as long as someone pays the bill. Somehow the plot involves flashbacks that give clues about the characters we knew from season one, and about what’s happened to the Dollhouse in those ten years. In this post-apocalyptic chaos Whiskey (the doctor who once treated the operatives) suddenly appears in her mind-swiped state, talking about Safe Haven to people who consider themselves “Actuals” (i.e., not imprinted)! And the rest would sound like even more gibberish if I tried to explain... So, let’s forget about it.