Welcome back to the “Dollhouse”
Joss Whedon is a genius, pure and simple. We know from the success of his brilliance – “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and its spinoff, “Angel,” that he has what it takes to make a quality teen sci-fi drama. He’s also responsible for the wildly popular Internet sensation, “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” and the short-lived but equally epic “Firefly.”
Last year he brought a new brand of greatness to network television with “Dollhouse,” starring Buffy’s Eliza Dushku as Echo, an empty body that can be imprinted with any personality, life, skills and string of memories. The “dolls” are used for a number of purposes — lots of times for dirty pleasures (think: a woman designed to know exactly what you want and love you wholeheartedly or serve any need you wish) but often for top-level government projects (in one episode, Echo is imprinted as a master bank robber and in another she’s an expert hostage negotiator). At the end of each mission, they are wiped and go back to a “tabula rasa” state, simple drones roaming around the dollhouse.
Every episode was fresh and interesting, as we can expect Whedon’s work to be.
If you didn’t watch any of last season, here’s a quick recap of the underlying story: Caroline Farrell entered the dollhouse voluntarily to serve a two-year term as a chance to re-start her life. Her mind was wiped, and she became “Echo,” one of the most requested and most necessary dolls in the dollhouse. While working amongst the other dolls/”actives” (what they’re called when they’re out in the real world, imprinted with an active personality), one male doll backfired. Something went majorly wrong, Alpha was broken. All of his former imprints came flooding back, including expert intelligence and lethal instincts. Meanwhile, federal Agent Ballard is on the tracks of the dollhouse, determined to expose its wrongdoings.
The whole season leaves the Alpha situation in mystery, but we know that Echo had a major importance in all of it. At the end of the season, Alpha and Echo reunite, and Alpha imprints Echo with every personality she has ever experienced except for her true self, Caroline. At this point, Agent Ballard has discovered the dollhouse, but it is obviously too much for him to take down alone. Alpha tries to recreate the flooding back of life which happened to him and wants Echo to murder the body in which her true self currently resides, but instead she fights him. She recognizes that of all of the 38 personalities inside of her, none of them belong. You need to watch season one on DVD to find out all of the secrets and get the real background.
All we know is that what Alpha did to Echo at the end of season one is going to have a major role as we start season two, and Agent Ballard has a big part of all of this, too. Will he expose and take down the dollhouse? Is Caroline active somewhere inside of Echo? What is going through Joss Whedon’s head?
From the rumor mill, we can theorize that the real personality somewhere within Echo will be a lot more active this season. I’m not sure if it’s Caroline who will show herself, but I don’t think Echo will recover easily from the incident with Alpha. Something a lot more extreme is going to go down, and I’m sure tonight we can expect something major.
Joss Whedon wouldn’t dare insult us with a less-than-spectacular season opener.
Leave a comment if you have any speculations as to what might happen on “Dollhouse” tonight or during this season.
Tags: alpha, dollhouse, echo, eliza dushku, fox, joss whedon, Television, TV, whedon
Loading ...