Dollhouse: Epitaph Two- Return

"I can bring back the world!"

What a very strange ending. Things are still a bit post-apocalyptic, and there are many individual tragedies (for me, the fact that Priya and Anthony split up us more heartbreaking than either Paul's or Topher's deaths), but Topher manages to unwipe everyone in the world. That's... A bit of a cheat. Yes, this means all of the Actives get reset, and "die", but still, the world is saved, however post-apocalyptic it still looks.

Not that it isn't a good episode character arc-wise, mind. It's just that the Miracle ending seems a bit if a cop out, however large a price is paid. It's impressive how well planned out it all is, though- this must all have been planned out from at least Epitaph One.

2020... Not too far in the future now, and not much further into the future back when this was made. And that's the point: this is the sort of science fiction that extrapolates from current trends and grounds the sci if concepts into present day reality.

Dollhouse has been an unashamedly political series, with a strongly pro-civil liberties and anti-corporate agenda. It may, as we discussed last time, end with a bit of a whimper in this episode, but that doesn't matter. It was magnificent, and this episode is just a postscript to last episode's brilliant season finale anyway.

We end with Echo, the worlds last Active, going to sleep in her old pod. And there's the temptation. I'm as guilty as anyone, writing this on a smartphone that can track my every movement, but our generation is choosing convenience over liberty, and we know it.

This is an extraordinary series. It knocks everything else Joss Whedon has done into a cocked hat. And that's saying a lot.

Dollhouse: The Hollow Men

"This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but with a whimper."

For the first time ever (as far as I recall) I've broken my iron rule, and not used a quite from the episode. Instead I've quoted the end of T.S. Elliot's poem, The Hollow Men, as it's obviously a deliberate allusion and particularly, I suspect, with this being the season finale, to those final lines.

Interesting, then, that the imications should at first glance be so self-deprecating; personally, I think that this episode is a stunning triumph of a Seadon finale. Where, then, is the "whimper"? I suspect the answer lies in the fact that our heroes' victory is temporary, and the death of freedom is inevitable. This is the season finale, but it isn't the last episode. As with Season Four of Buffy and, more to the point, the first season of Dollhouse, there's another episode to go.

We begin with the inevitable flashback which has to follow the revelation, at the end of the last episode, that Boyd was the big bad all along. It's five years ago, and we see Caroline, in Boyd's office , being presented with a choice that is not a choice: life in prison for terrorism or five years as an Active? She's "special", apparently, and Boyd wants to be her handler himself. This makes sense of past events, but it ain't half creepy.

An unexpected pleasure is that we once again get to see Enver Gjokaj's performance as Topher, although it's also cool to see Anthony imprinted with ninja skills. Nice that they have time for such touches in this of all episodes.

I have to stop and praise Harry Lennix here, something I've shamefully neglected up till now. It's such a novelty to see him as an openly moustache-twirling baddie, but we can now see all his other performances in a different light. Like the actor who played Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (I shall name no names. Spoilers, as Rover Song would say!), I'm sure that, if I was to research those earlier episodes, his performances would appear in a very different light.

Horrifyingly, we discover that quietly, in Tucson, Rossum has been developing Topher's technology so that anyone, anywhere, can be wiped and imprinted. There are no longer such things as freedom or individuality; we are all Rossum's hive mind slaves. This is a concept rich with political overtones, and it's not hard to see a dig, here, at those right wing American "Libertarians", many of them in the so called "Tea Party", who fatuously cast "freedom" in terms of the state versus the private sector, and see corporate entities as "people" who must be protected from state oppression. In fact, as we are shown here, the concept of "freedom" only makes any sense when applied to individual human beings, not fatuous and overly abstract binary divisions into public sector and private sector. Corporations can, and do, assault people's liberties, and the truly libertarian thing is for the State to protect us from this through regulation.

There is, of course, no hope here, whatever temporary victory our heroes can bring about. The technology has been invented. It cannot be uninvented. It will be used. We are all doomed.

Still, we can at least hope for that temporary victory, and for Boyd to get his eventual comeuppance. It seems he controls Dr Saunders, and has done for some time. This means it wasn't really here who killed Bennet, which takes some of the poetry away. Still, this is a minor point, and these are the only words of slight criticism that you'll hear from me about this superlative episode of television.

Adelle, only a few episodes from appearing to be an utter bitch, is stoic and brave, refusing to co-operate even at gunpoint and willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. Other characters are unfortunate: Mellie's death is truly tragic. And Topher's realisation at what he has allowed to happen seems to be a sort of harbinger of the broken Topher we see in Epitaph One; "I did all this. I'm the one who brought about the thought-pocalypse."

Langton gets his just desserts in the end, being wiped and ending up as a suicide bomber.  But, just as we think we have a happy endng, the epilogue skips a few years into the future and tells us that no, we don't...

Dollhouse: Getting Closer

"They roam like free range chickens. We keep ours more like veal."

Deep breath. Very close to the end now. And...oh yes. SPOILERS. BIG ONES. Seriously, if you don't want to know, look away now. Because this episode ends with a big, big reveal.

Right, they've gone. So... Wow. The big boss of Rossum is, in fact, Boyd Langton. He's been undercover as one of his own underlings all along. Thing is, it makes perfect sense.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First there's the small matter of Caroline's back-up wedge that needs repairing, for which our friends have to kidnap Bennet from D.C: cue some simmering sexual tension between her and Topher. On top of this, Dr. Claire Saunders is back on the team (more Amy Acker- yay!) and, as we know, she's been sleeping with Langton, who at this point we don't yet know to be a baddie. It's complicated.

If it wasn't for the bombshell at the end, the big event if the episode would be Claire shooting Bennet dead. That's how much she hates Topher. He's distraught, of course, but it's lovely how Adelle mothers him.

What else? November is still an Active in Washington, but is freed and rejoins the team. Good. And much of the episode is given over to a big flashback in which we learn just why Bennet hates Caroline so much. Oh, and Clyde is dead. And Rossum know about the L.A. Dollhouse freeing all of its Actives and plotting against them. Oh dear.

There's going to be a final battle. Rossum are after them, but, touchingly, there's time for Priya and Anthony to spend one last night together.

Phew. Looks like we only get big, important episodes these days. There's a slight jiggle in that the pacing and shocks serve to distract us from how rushed it all is by slight of hand, but I just can't deny that this is excellent telly.

Dollhouse: The Attic

"My real name's Echo!"

Wow. This is at the same time a surreal, virtual reality themed episode, redolent of Part Three of classic Doctor Who story The Deadly Assassin, and a massive, massive reveal. This looks absolutely nothing like the rest of Dollhouse. Even the opening titles are different: this is big. Very big. It's not all over yet, though. Not by a long shot.

It's hard to know where to start. Dominic is back, of course. There is surreal stuff, and Echo, Priya and Anthony face their worst nightmares in the weirdest possible way. That Japanese bloke... I shudder at the memory.

But the big revelation is that the supposed big bad, "Arcane", is in fact a British chap called Clyde, the betrayed co-founder of Rossum, who has been languishing in the Attic since 1993! Clyde, with his cyber- superpowers, can see a terrible future that must be avoided or, to be a bit more meta, he's seen Epitaph One. He's a human computer, powering everything, and has been replaced in real life with "Clyde 2.0"...!

Echo, Anthony and Priya, being heroic and, more to the point, the protagonists, naturally escape back to our reality. At this point another bombshell is dropped: Adelle was a goodie all the time, and only sent our heroes into the Attic so they would find enough information to bring Rossum down. Well, well, well. This is not entirely uninfluenced by The Matrix, but it's excellent stuff.

Oh yes, and Ballard is back. He's a doll. Imprinted with himself. Weird.

There's one person who knows the identity of Clyde's partner: Caroline. And we end with Echo declaring an intention to "meet" her...

Dollhouse: Stop-Loss

"I'm Anthony, by the way."

It's clear that we're entering the final phase. Victor is leaving the Dollhouse, yet he and Priya are clearly still in love. But that isn't all, by any means, and Adelle finishes the episode seeming more if a total bitch than ever.

Our first doubts about Adelle's ethics surfaced last season, when we realising she was, in essence, using Victor as an escort which, like all other instances of this with Actives, is pretty much ambiguously rape. Except that this time it doesn't happen: although Victor's supposed to be imprinted, he "dumps" Adelle, and we know it's because of Priya. Victor (now Anthony) may have reached the end of his contract, but the mere fact that something like this can happen is a problem for Rossum. Love, it seems, is resistant to corporate control. How dare we pinko lefties have the temerity to feel such an emotion?

Echo, who is suffering quite a bit of nastiness from De Witt, is at pains to ensure that Victor says goodbye to Sierra before he leaves. At least one person cares.

So that's it. Victor is now Anthony, and he's free of both his contract and the post-Afghanistan post combat stress disorder that put him in the Dollhouse in the first place. But he's clearly institutionalised, perhaps by the U.S. Military as much as by the Dollhouse, sleeping in the same pose that he used in his pod. Things can't go on like this, and it's not surprising to find that he's soon kidnapped. So much for freedom.

There's an interesting contrast with Echo here. Echo is not free, but she has a personality that is, if not quite Caroline, her. She is, in a sense, freer than Anthony: what little freedom she has has been negotiated on her own terms.

Anthony has been kidnapped by Rossum's military wing in an act if outright kidnapping, and he's to become a member of a hive mind. This is totally outrageous, and the most heinous thing we've seen Rossum so far; they have as little loyalty to their promises to free people at the end of their contracts as they do to freedom itself.

Boyd tells DeWitt who, interestingly, is rat-arsed- stress at work, perhaps? Priya is brought back with her own mind- and Topher does not, as he promised, delete her day of abuse by Nolan, so she can remember Victor- and teamed up with Echo on a rescue mission. This mission is successful, and it's nice, although admittedly something of a cliche, that there's still enough of Anthony inside his body to asset himself. Wonderfully, he starts to chat up Priya.

Echo heroically deals with the group mind and saves all the individual, while an increasingly sozzled DeWitt seems to be having a personal crisis. But just when it seems she might have an attack of crisis, she becomes more of a black hatted baddie than ever; not just Echo, but Priya and Anthony too, are going to the Attic...

Dollhouse: A Love Supreme

"So... if she floats, she's a witch?"

If the situation wasn't volatile or chaotic enough already, throw in Alpha (Alan Tudyk is even better here, if such a thing is possible), stir, and wait for the excrement to hit the rotating device. This episode is full of shocks, from the pre-titles sequence onwards.

Adelle doesn't trust Echo so, naturally, she tortures her. Adelle is not winning any popularity tests at the moment with her sudden and apparent switch to the dark side and, indeed, in this episode Topher joins the growing conspiracy to bring down the Dollhouse. And the unwipeable Echo is quite a weapon.

Alpha is engaged in a killing spree aimed at Echo's former clients, as delightfully mad as ever. He's elusive, and toying with Adelle and her dysfunctional team. Adelle may be aware of the "cabal" arranged against her, but it's Alpha who's in charge here.

The ending, with Ballard apparently left brain dead after Alpha has tortured him, is a shock. Not only this, but Alpha is still at large. Things seem to be falling apart.

Dollhouse: Meet Jane Doe

"You are the coldest bitch on this planet!"

And this is where it all starts to look a bit rushed: three months have passed, just like that. There are only seven episodes left to wrap up the whole series, thanks to Fox and their stupidity. I suppose Rupert Murdoch has much worse things to answer for, but the premature cancellation of Dollhouse has to go on the list somewhere.

Not that it isn't incredibly exciting to watch, of course. If we look at the series as it is, not how it could have been if given more time, then it has never been more exciting or addictive. But wouldn't it have been nice to see Echo slowly falling in love with Ballard, or Adelle slowly being undermined by Rossum? This episode alone could have happened over the course of a whole season.

Regardless, it's clear that never again on Dollhouse will there be such a thing as a status quo. Echo and Ballard have been training and plotting Rossum's downfall for done time. Echo proves herself worthy on her mission, and they return to the L.A. Dollhouse (one of 23 worldwide, we learn), to bide their time before they strike. Interestingly, Langton joins them.

Echo has now developed a sense of self, but is able to adopt any of her imprints at will. She is, it seems, an evolved being, a homo superior if sorts, to a far greater extent than Alpha ever was. She has fallen in love with Ballard, but he's far too much of a gentleman to sleep with her. He's right, of course; I think most men would recoil from the idea of sex with someone in Echo's situation; the whole thought feels far too rapey for comfort. 

Meanwhile, De Witt is no longer running the Dollhouse, and moral standards have slipped accordingly. There is even talk of selling Sierra to the Dollhouse in Dubai, something which comes close to calling this what it is: slavery. 

Terrifyingly, Topher has come up with a portable device that can imprint anyone, Active or not. And we just know it will be used eventually, like Chekhov's gun, and humanity will be enslaved by a corporation. Interesting metaphor...

He confides in Adelle, who has always been a mother figure to him and, shockingly, she betrays his secret and reveals the technology to Harding, thus regaining control of the Dollhouse. Is she just looking after number one, or is there an agenda at work?

Oh, and are prisons in America really as shockingly inhumane as this?

Dollhouse: The Left Hand

"There is no Dollhouse."

Gosh. Where to begin?

 I suppose I'll start by praising Enver Gjokaj's extraordinary performance as Victor implanted with Topher's personality, but there's so much going on, things are going so fast, and there isn't a status quo any more. Rossum seems to be winning, resistance is futile, Madeleine is enslaved again by that nasty Washington D.C. Dollhouse, Perrin is probably going to end up as Rossum's pet president (yep, definite political allegory there, given the outrageous extent of corporate manipulation of American politics), and both Echo and Ballard have gone rogue. It's enough to make you dizzy.

But we begin with a little light torture as Bennett has fun with Echo, and our friends at the LA Dollhouse are experiencing a fair bit if red tape in getting her back, in spite of Topher and Bennett's mutual squeeing. We (and Echo, who is thus at one with the viewer here) are treated to a flashback as to how Echo dropped Bennett on it and did her arm in. Bennett is not the forgiving type.

We are learning more about Caroline's past, yet there is an ambivalence here: Echo is a person too, the sum of all her memories. As she puts it, "I'm  afraid of Caroline. If she comes back, where will I go?" This, in a nutshell, is the philosophical quandary that haunts the whole series.

Things are, at this point, great. I have no idea where this is going. But things are, perhaps, moving a little too fast, given that Fox are once again being absolute arises to Whedon and forcing him to tie up all the plot threads by the end if the season. Here's hoping he can do so while maintaining the exceptional quality of television seen here.

Dollhouse: The Public Eye

"Am I free?"

Hmmm. It seems we have a politician here who has quite literally been brainwashed by a corporation. Do you think we might have a bit of a political subtext here? Once again it's refreshing to see that Dollhouse, airing on Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network, has an essentially liberal left agenda, it's themes being the abuse of individuals' civil liberties by both public and private organisations, which in this day and age are so improperly intertwined.

This episode is all about Senator Daniel Perrin as we and he discover, on a nice twist, that it is he, and not his wife, who is the doll. This is already enough to elevate the episode to greatness. But on top of this we are rewarded at the end with an introduction to the Washington D.C. Dollhouse, far more unthinkingly loyal to Rossum, and to its own resident Topher, the unnerving, quiet and ruthless Bennett. And, in an episode that already features Alexis Denisof, she is played by Whedon veteran Summer Glau. Truly, we are spoiled. This episode kicks, as the day, ass.

It's fascinating to see the progress of Madeleine's sincere yet doomed attempts to "out" the Dollhouse, something which Rossum could never allow: Perrin is merely one aspect of the political influence they wield: we are reminded of the sheer, untrammelled influence of corporate power in US politics. 

Also fascinating, and disturbing in equal measure, is Topher's new invention which he tried out on Kilo, a new doll. It is know possible to remotely knock out a doll. We are reminded that not only can technology that threatens our liberties not be uninvented, but that new developments of potential oppression are being invented all the time. In a world where governments seek more and more control over the online world this is deeply relevant, and chilling.

No less chilling is the fact that Madeleine, although she has finished her contract, still has Active architecture in her head. Ballard is not pleased to hear this, and not should he be. It's interesting to see the moral conflict between outsider Ballard, now Echo's new handler, and the rest of the gang.

We end with Echo in Bennett's clutches, and she isn't the greatest of hostesses. To be continued...

Dollhouse: Belonging

“You're a rapist scumbag just one tick short of a murderer. I've forgotten, do you take sugar with your tea?”

Before I go on to this episode and its rather harrowing events and themes, I can’t help mentioning that this episode is directed by Jonathan Frakes, Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He ain’t bad.

This episode covers some rather heavy themes and deepens our concerns about the ethics of what the Dollhouse is doing and whether, whatever Adelle might try and convince herself, the Dolls truly consent to what is being done to them. We also see an entrenchment of Topher’s ethical troubles. Most of all, we are exposed to the full horror and tragedy of Sierra, a character whose pain we had never suspected.

Flashbacks show us Sierra as she was before any of this happened: a free- spirited Australian tourist on Venice Beach, an amateur artist and easy prey for Nolan, a creepy and predatory pervert who, sadly, combines this with being rich and powerful. She is only an active because of his sexual abuse and disturbing machinations, and cannot be said to have in any way consented to being made an active. Most upsettingly of all, Nolan is still seeing her as a client, which can only be considered as rape. Yes, Adelle is furious and throws the book at him, but the episode ends with Sierra still as an active with a year of her contract yet to run. The only concession she gets at all is to get her memory wiped to remove the events of this day. It’s all very dark. Fortunately, all this is balanced by the very sweet love between Sierra and Victor, which makes this episode less harrowing then is otherwise would have been.

Topher, with his new found conscience, is left to face the full horror of what he has done to Sierra while recruiting her. He may have been ignorant of Nolan’s motives, but he is left with deep misgivings about his role and things he has done. He is intelligent but juvenile; this is the first time he has ever considered the ethics of what he does and he has to go through it alone. Adelle may be something of a mother figure to him, but she has he own ethical blind spots. He may collaborate with Boyd in covering up Nolan’s death, but this act of washing away the blood is an apt metaphor.

Oh, and did you notice the graffiti on the inside of Echo’s pod? The story arc proceeds apace.

Dollhouse: Belle Chose

“Lovely. So you're saying that we've imprinted an active as a serial killer and blindly let him loose upon the streets.”

Yes, the Dollhouse reviews resume. So, without further ado… on one level this is a story of the week about a misogynistic serial killer called Terry, his creepy doings and habits, and the fact that his influential father is able to use the Dollhouse to deal with his wayward son rather than leave things to the justice system as lesser mortals do. On another level, this advances the themes of the season and begins the acceleration of the plot threads towards the season finale. From this point, things are liable to move just a little too quickly, courtesy of Fox not being very nice to Joss Whedon, again.

This is also the point where Topher begins to have ethical issues with what the Dollhouse is doing, which at this point is so at odds with his character to date that Adelle reacts with mock amusement at his sudden development of a conscience. This is linked to the fact that this episode sees the Dollhouse, and active technology, being used in new ways. After Terry’s capture, which results in severe injuries towards him, his mind is put into Victors’ body. This is an acting tour de force from Enver Gjokaj, but we’re left a little uneasy at what the Dollhouse is doing. And this is before Victor escapes into the streets with the mind of a serial killer.

Linked to this is the fact that Terry himself acts as a sort of metaphor for the Dollhouse’s clients (remember, this includes Adelle) and their attitudes to the dolls/people. The character makes us, and them, think uncomfortable thoughts.

Things get even murkier when Adelle convinces Topher to salvage the situation by means of a remote wipe. The fact that only Alpha has previously attempted this hints at it not being a good idea in the long run; this is our first inkling that Active technology will eventually go too far.

Interesting things happen to Echo, too. She ends the episode with Terry still inside her head, unwiped and accessible to her. It is also bizarre to see Echo suddenly reverting to doll form in public, asking if she fell asleep.

For all of its thematic unity, this episode very much points the way forward towards the finale. This is where the pace picks up. Hold tight.

Dollhouse: Instinct

“The human mind is like Van Halen; every time you remove a part, it degenerates!”

Oh my God. There is soOoOoOoOoO much going on in this episode. The central concept is brilliant as always, and an ingenious development of the idea of the Dollhouse. Echo is hired by a bereaved husband to be mother to his child, but the maternal instinct which was imprinted into her remains real even after being wiped. There is an obvious point here about the power of the maternal instinct, is significant that this should happen to Echo at this point, where wiping is not removing everything.

That’s the plot, and it’s a bloody good one which further develops the core philosophical concepts of the show. But around this are threaded all sorts of things which are clearly going to contribute to the season arc. Adelle is still in contact with November who, although she has now left the Dollhouse, is still receiving aftercare and obviously still has a part to play in the overall arc as she’s still appearing in the series. We also learn more about Senator Daniel Perrin, who lives in a big, big house and really has it in for the Dollhouse: did he hire Dominic? He’s certainly researching Rossum, the company behind the Dollhouse which is receiving rather a strong focus in this new season.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but it appears that Doctor Saunders has left for good. Things are changing. Echo and Ballard are plotting together to bring down the Dollhouse. Already, this season is beginning to feel as though the status quo is no longer stable.

Dollhouse: Vows

“Who did they make me this time?”

So, a brand spanking new season. This first episode is so important that Joss Whedon himself writes AND directs. There are lots of exciting things to notice about the first day of term, not least of which is the new boy, Alexis Denisof. Already I’m excited.

There have been changes since last season and, while an episode of the week of sorts, the plot revolves around them. Agent Ballard is now Echo’s handler, but he and Echo appear to have an agenda of their own. She is first seen with her thirty nine personalities seemingly being erased, with some rather appropriate footage from Bride of Frankenstein. All is not as it seems, however.

Doctor Saunders, now that the audience is aware that she’s an active, has a particularly interesting episode. She hates Topher, apparently, and is full of exactly the sort of existential angst that we expect from her situation. It doesn’t help, either, that Victor’s scars have been fixed and hers haven’t. What’s particularly interesting is that she doesn’t want to revert to her original personality as she doesn’t want to “die”.

The basic plot consists of Echo pretending to be married to someone whom Ballard had been trying to catch for some time while working for the FBI; her handler is in effect also her customer. But behind all this lies a major recalibration of the character. We learn that she is well aware of her active status and retains memory of all her imprints while maintaining a coherent sense of self. She is, perhaps, what Alpha believes himself to be. She has two years left on her contract as someone who remembers all her experiences, obviously has some sort of agenda and is essentially the same person as the inquisitive and ballsy Caroline. Sparks are bound to fly.