Dollhouse

Sunday night (or more precisely Monday morning) I finished watching the second and last season of Dollhouse, a television show created by God (and by God I mean Joss Whedon, duh). Though it only lasted two seasons (of course it got canceled, it's a Joss Whedon show; what do you expect?) it had a well thought-out premise and a clear direction that lent itself to a satisfying series resolution despite having a short time to do it in.

The premise for Dollhouse is as follows: all around the world are secret facilities known as "dollhouses," which are run by a pharmaceutical company called Rossum, where people who either volunteer or suffer serious mental health issues are used essentially as human puppets. These people have their minds scanned and stored in portable hard drives (I'm simplifying the show's tech terminology) before being completely erased from their brains so that other personalities and artificially constructed minds can be downloaded into the person's brain.

Super rich clients can then make certain purchases with different "dolls" wherein the dolls can have any personality and be anyone the client wants for a specific period of time (a weekend, a month, etc.) and be willing to do anything that client wants. These encounters can be romantic, get a task done with no questions asked or without going to the authorities (such as a hostage negotiator or forensic investigator), substitute for someone else or anything else the client chooses as long as the head of the specific dollhouse allows it.

The show follows one specific doll, Echo, played by Eliza Dushku. Echo was originally a woman named Caroline, but we are not given the details how Caroline becomes a doll, at least initially. As the show progresses, we learn that some of the dolls are not in the dollhouse by choice, as is normally the case, thus opening up one of the many moral dilemmas the show brings up.

The rest of the characters include two other dolls, Victor and Sierra, who have a natural attraction to each other even after they are completely wiped of all memories, Boyd Langdon, Echo's "handler (essentially a bodyguard hired by the dollhouse to look over Echo when she is out on an encounter), FBI agent Paul Ballard, who is trying to bring down the dollhouse despite it being considered a myth, Adelle DeWitt, who runs the LA dollhouse the show centers around, and Topher Brink, a brilliant scientist who helps develop a lot of the technology used by the dollhouse.

The show does start out a little slow (stand-alone episodes that don't move the show's plot forward but do outline what a doll does when on an encounter and how a doll functions), but if you can make it through the first half of season one (by the way, there are only thirteen episodes a season) the show begins to hit its stride. At first it may seem like the show seem like an excuse to show a nearly naked Eliza Dushku in every episode, but the show does evolve beyond that (not that there's anything wrong with that).

The major turning point is when Alpha, an escaped doll who can recall memories of the personalities that were supposedly wiped from his brain, reappears and kidnaps Echo. After her encounter with Alpha, we find out that Echo also gains the ability to recall memories from the personalities she has been while on encounters, thus creating a permanent personality that turns Echo into a unique individual. Echo is no longer a designation, Echo is a person, mentally evolving as the show itself evolves.

This evolution is one of the critical parts of Dollhouse. The show opens up a Pandora's box of philosophical and moral questions that I find fascinating and is part of the reason it became one of my favorite shows. The show does a good job of presenting them, either directly or indirectly, but does not answer them. Dollhouse leaves it up to the viewer whether or not what goes on is ethical or humane.

Is Echo a person? And if so, what should be done about Echo when Caroline's contract is up and her mind is supposed to be returned to her body? What happens to Caroline's mind if her body is destroyed? Should a person be allowed to have their mind scanned and copied so that in the event of their death they can return in another body? What does this mean for mortality? Should this technology even be allowed to exist?

Then there are the more philosophical questions concerning the self and identity. How do we define what is a person? Is it the body or the mind? Both? Are you still yourself if your mind is in a different body? Again Dollhouse does not directly answer these questions, instead letting the viewer form their own interpretations about self-identity. This is what I like in a tv show: when you're not given the answer, either because there is no right answer or because it'd be no fun if they did.

Joss Whedon loves to bring big issues such as these to his shows as a way to explore them in a creative fashion. Buffy dealt with fate, Angel with redemption, Firefly with existentialism and Dollhouse with identity. The one weakness that I can find with Dollhouse is the lack of depth for some of the characters. We never really get enough background (partially due to there being only two seasons) on several of the main characters, and this drags them all down a bit.

We never really learn about Topher's past, why he agrees to work for the dollhouse or any moral justifications for what he does. Ditto for Adelle DeWitt. We never learn how she got her role as head of the LA dollhouse or where her moral compass comes from. These are crucial details that would help greatly in defining just how these characters became who they are when we meet them. And when we first meet Echo, it's hard to sympathize for her given how little we know about how she became a doll.

Acting, conversely, is one of the show's strong characteristics. Eliza Dushku, Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman all do terrific jobs as dolls and having to portray dozens of different characters with a wide variety of personalities. Olivia Williams, as DeWitt, has a strong presence onscreen and brings a lot of depth to a character that is not given a whole lot. Fran Kranz is simply brilliant as Topher Brink and Harry Lennix does a good job as Echo's handler, Boyd Langdon. Tahmoh Penikett as Paul Ballard is my least favorite actor, mostly due to the fact that he delivers all his lines in the exact same tone of voice. The supporting cast is great as well, with recurring characters played by Amy Acker, Alan Tudyk, Alexis Denisof and Summer Glau.

Ultimately though, the key to watching and appreciating Dollhouse is having to think about what the implications are of there being such a world like the one on the show. On one level, Dollhouse is about the development and evolution of Echo. But at a deeper level, Dollhouse is about what it means to be ourselves and how we deal with the dark side of technological advancement.

(Note: I don't want rail against technology; I love my iPod and I think advancements in technology are extremely helpful in moving society forward. A problem arises when advancements in science and technology can be (and are) used improperly. But I'm not interested in getting into a Michael Chrichton-like debate about whether we are prepared to deal with all the advancements we make and the implications that come with them)

Until next time, Orange Hat Guy