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 2.1: 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.