Super-Powered TV: Dollhouse 2.4: Belonging

Sierra becomes the immediate focus of this week’s episode as we flash back in to her past. Apparently she is a starving Australian artist named Priya. Nolan, the man interested in her, is a Rossum executive and rather important scientist in the doll program.

It goes to the point that the art show Nolan puts on seems to be an elaborate hoax produced by Rossum. Unfortunately she doesn’t show a hint of interest which leads to her new role as Sierra. He continues to manipulate her now that he can easily seduce her whenever he pleases. And that’s just the set-up.

Topher quickly uncovers the reason for Sierra’s distress, but it only comes to bring out how big of rat bastards Rossum as a whole actually are. We also learn why this effects the normally calm Topher so much: he believed he was helping Priya when he turned her in to Sierra.

Topher goes in to business for himself and imprints Priya with her own memory. The imprint doesn’t do anything to break down her relationship with Victor which is another interesting statement on how poor the doll-making process actually seems to be.

Nolan and Priya fight until Priya stabs the sick bastard to death. Topher, and then Boyd show up after the death and go to work disposing of the corpse by dissolving it in the bathtub. Boyd is nothing if not disturbingly professional.

Boyd also seems to be in business for himself as he also learns of Echo’s own memory issues. It’s good to see Boyd actually get to be the smart character he was for most of the first season. He goes as far as to leave Echo a security badge.

Interesting note: this episode was directed by actor turned director Jonathan “Commander William Riker” Frakes. Good to see him working on some genre television again.

“Belonging” proved to be one of the best episodes of this series so far.

Super-Powered TV: Dollhouse 2.3: Belle Chose

We open the episode with an apparent psychopath who is using drugs to turn people in to some kind of living manikin. But on a search for a replacement for the one he kills, he gets hit by a car.

We find out that the man is the son of a major shareholder of Rossum and Topher is being made to try to remap his brain after his head injury. Topher detects the abnormality in his brain, and even he has ethical objections to reviving a serial killer. The decision is made to revive him in a doll (Victor) in order to learn the whereabouts of his missing victims.

Meanwhile Echo’s mission seems to be going off without a hitch.

Ballard grills Terry/Victor about the crimes committed.

The uncle breaks Terry free, but Terry knocks him out and leaves. Ballard goes out in search of Terry. Terry meanwhile is searching for a new Aunt Sheila. But an attempt at a remote wipe fails. Instead, they knock the entire system offline and switch the brain scans around. Terry ends up in the body of Echo.

Echo returns to Terry’s lair and sets out to kill the victims, but her brain snaps as she raises a cricket racket to strike. Echo warns the victims to kill her before she starts to hurt them again. They are ready to kill her when the team arrives to stop them and take Echo in to custody.

But even after her treatment, Echo shows signs of retaining his personality as she has dozens of others.

An interesting premise this week, although one perhaps somewhat far fetched. While there has to be some suspension of disbelief for a show like this, it does stretch even the science of the show to have us believe that they can transfer two personalities i the field as they did this week. Or maybe it doesn’t, and I am just knit-picking. I will say this season has offered us more consistently solid episodes than last season did at this point. We clearly seem to be continuing on the slow burn to the future images shown in Epitaph One, but Joss and company seem quite able to make the ride more exciting than the stop.

Next time (in two weeks): “Belonging”.

Super-Powered TV: Dollhouse 2.2: Instinct

Topher opens the show with a chat about the human brain to Ballard. Must say I am a big fan though of “The brain is kind of like Van Halen, if you just pull out one piece and keep replacing it, it just degenerates.”. As we see Echo, the ability that Topher talks about becomes clear, as she breast feeds a child she thinks is her own.

Echo begins to think her husband is up to no good, when in reality he is a greaving husband trying to cope with the loss of his wife & child by using her.

The senator continues to investigate Rossum, but his evidence isn’t solid. But his lady-friend (wife?) does return from an rang doorbell with a stack of files for him.

Adele pays a visit to the former November, and she seems a little standoffish. Adele insists that Melanie come in for a check-up and she realizes Adele will not take no for an answer.

Echo is acting overly paranoid at her current assignment. She calls her friend Kelly (actually Sierra) worried that her husband wants her dead. But when Kelly arrives so does the black van she saw outside. They take Kelly for her treatment and she just grows more paranoid.

She escapes the house and uses “Kelly”s car to make her escape. The father freaks out because Echo disappeared with his son. She finds a pair of police officers on the street and reports the situation as a potential crime. At the precinct, they take the baby away and Ballard (acting as an FBI agent) drags her away.

Back at the Dollhouse, Madeline gets a clean bill of health. After the check-up, Ballard returns with Echo who knocks Madeline to the side.

After Madeline and Ballard have a chat, Echo finally goes in for treatment. But the treatment doesn’t quite take. She decks Topher.

Senator Perrin learns the true status of the Dollhouse. And they apparently have a name to trace.

Echo tries to escape, but her mind does not retain any knowledge. The glandular situation mentioned at the beginning of the show has seriously affected Echo’s mental state. She wants the baby back, without any knowledge of who the baby is.

Echo breaks in to the house and retrieves the baby and a knife. Dad explains the situation to a confused Echo who has enough sense left to understand. She quietly leaves the house and returns to the park.

She and Ballard discuss the situation. We really begin to get in to the situation that gives Echo agony. Ballard offers her an out, but she reiterates that she “doesn’t want to go back to sleep” just as our episode ends.

We get a decidedly different episode of Dollhouse this week. While not as solidly built as last week’s show, we do get a few good character bits with Madeline and Echo. We learn more about Alexis Denisof’s crusading senator character, but we still see very little to differentiate his quest from Ballard’s last season. But the ability to not have to rely on easy answers and the season’s worth of narrative drive the show has to build upon, clearly seems to have set this season up to be much more capable of building an ongoing storyline.

Super-Powered TV: Dollhouse 2.1: Vows

We open the new season back in the present day. Echo is put in to a project where she is married.

Dr. Saunders is playing games with Topher’s mind, even as Langdon and Claire seem to be deepening their relationship. But the doc has plenty of issues to deal with since the revelation of her own status as an active.

Ballard’s mixed feelings about his new situation are obvious as Echo continues from wedding day in to wedding night. But the mission is apparently Ballard’s idea, as her new husband is an arms dealer. Her new self thinks she is an FBI agent as well, active on an undercover mission.

While back for treatment, Echo has an echo (for lack of a better word) of a previous mission alongside Whiskey. But even in her numbed state, Echo seems to be gaining deductive reasoning.

Alexis Denisof (of Angel fame) makes his debut as Senator Daniel Perrin, a crusading statesman on a mission to expose malpractice by the Rossum Corporation.

Dr. Saunders hits on Topher back at the house (where he apparently sleeps in the server room). In the process, we actually get a look in to Topher’s head as something more than a morally ambiguous nerd.

Martin attacks Echo in his house and accuses her of being someone else. But the head injury also causes her to have flashes again. She is doing rather well, until the flashes cause her to lose her identity mid-speech.

Martin brings Roma/Echo with him on the arms trade. Ballard uses Echo’s flashes and channels her previous fight with him (from last season). Suddenly an expert martial artist, she takes out Clar’s men Jet Li-style. She goes as far as leaping on Clar’s car and using his own explosive to stop his escape.

Saunders leaves for greener passages, while Sierra and Victor still seem to have a connection. Meanwhile, Echo speaks with Ballard. She admits to being aware of all her past selves. Ballard tells her that Caroline is the real her, but Echo seeks to find away to save all her past lives. And so Ballard goes from being the dollhouse’s enemy from the outside to being Echo’s handler... and maybe an even greater threat from the inside.

Dollhouse 1.13: Epitaph One

Before we get to the review of the first episode of Dollhouse season 2 this weekend, we need to take a look at the missing episode “Epitaph One”.

Ten years in a future, the world is a disaster. We seem to be following a small group of survivors as they try to escape a bunch of crazy people turned monsters called butchers. They stumble from one underground hiding hole to another and as we open, we stumble upon the Dollhouse.


Apparently, somehow just about everyone has been wiped in to some kind of killing machine. They implant a wiped man in their band, apparently with one of Adele’s memory. We follow that with a look at Topher’s first day on the job.

In 2019, the little girl goes to the bathroom while her escort stops to use a well-needed shower. She of course lets her guard down and gets knocked down by her own flashlight.

Our next flashback comes post episode 1.12, with Ballard as her agent. But Echo somehow maintains her own intelligence post-implant.

In the past/present, Boyd and Dr. Saunders discuss Langdon’s leaving of the facility.

In the future, we find Whiskey/Claire acting more than a little crazy. She asks them if they are looking for Safe Haven, which is apparently another legend in the post-mindwipe-land.

We learn that Mr. Ambrose, a higher-up at Rossum, has changed the rules of actives. He has imprinted himself to Victor’s mind, apparently permanently.

In the future, Iris murders Griff, the group’s leader, and plants the gun on her brain-wiped “dad”.

In the past-present, Adele resurrects Dominic in to the mind-wiped world of the future. They find that Caroline has the answers. Sierra and Victor have a heart to heart in the past (in their real identities).

In the future, Zone is stupid enough to give the kid a gun. They learn Iris is an imprint. But Zone already knew because of the birthmark tattoo.

In the past, the group at the Dollhouse seem to have gained an almost religious furor in the post-mess world. Topher has went quite insane. He explains a way to make pre-programmed warriors through a phone call and realizes he had already done it. Caroline and Ballard arrive minutes later.

As a kid, Caroline agrees to lead the survivors to Safe Haven. Whiskey stays behind even as the butchers arrive on a mad rampage. They escape up the elevator shaft while Whiskey turns on some kind of gas failsafe. The episode ends with Zone, Mag, and the new Caroline setting out for Safehaven from Adele’s office.

An interesting episode to say the least, with Felicia Day and Zack Ward putting on excellent performances as Mag and Zone. With this not being the final episode as planned and only a DVD extra, it will now be interesting to see what it will mean for season 2 of Dollhouse. Joss says Felicia Day will be back next season though, so I suppose we will have to wait and see. As I think about, I personally wonder if the future narrative may not prove a far more fulfilling story to tell in the long run. We will see as things get kicking tomorrow with “Vows”.