Forgotten Television: Dollhouse 2009

Technology secretly exists that allows someone’s memories and personality to be wiped and a whole new personality, memory set, and various skill sets can be reprogrammed into that person.  The Dollhouses, where this is done, rent out “dolls” or “actives” to high paying clients for a plethora of different reasons ranging from sexual or romantic interludes to high-risk criminal activity.  The “dolls” are people who voluntarily gave the organization their mind and body for five years in exchange for large sums of money.  While on mission they are monitored by their handler to make sure they are not harmed.  Each “doll” is assigned a name based on the phonetic alphabet.  Echo (Eliza Dushku) slowly begins to retain some of her memories, not only from her past, but from all the other personalities that she has been programmed.  This could cause problems for the organization and their sponsor, the Rossum Corporation. Throw in a deranged ex-doll named Alpha (Alan Tudyk) and an FBI agent, Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) who is attempting to track down the Dollhouse and Echo in specific and you have plenty of conflict for Echo to deal with each week as well as grappling with her own emerging personality and whatever new personality she has during her latest mission.

Dollhouse was created by Joss Whedon and premiered on Fox on February 13, 2009.  It ran for two seasons for a total of 26 episodes. The first season consists of twelve aired episodes and two unaired episodes which consist of the original pilot entitled “Echo” and the final episode of the season entitled “Epitaph One”, which was not shown due to contractual reasons with the Fox network and how they viewed the number of episodes produced.  Much of the unaired pilot was cannibalized and used throughout the series and both episodes are available on the DVD release. “Epitaph Two: Return” is the title of the series final episode at the end of season two.  Both deal with a future where the Dollhouse Technology has been used for ill gains and basically destroyed the world.

I remember watching Dollhouse when it originally came out.  I did not watch all the episodes, mainly because it was on past my bedtime, and I didn’t really have time to watch everything I wanted to.  But I really liked what I saw and thought the premise, although not completely original, was uniquely done and well-conceived. The cast is good with a slew of Whedon usuals like Eliza Dushku, Fran Kranz, Enver Gjokaj, Amy Acker, Alan Tudyk, Alexis Denisof, and Summer Glau, who have all been in or will be in multiple Whedon projects. Eliza does an amazing job portraying a multitude of characters as well as the blank persona each doll has after a wipe. I did watch the original unaired pilot in preparation for this article, and I have to say I think they should have aired it.  I thought it introduced all the characters, the shows premise, the moral ambiguity, the themes surrounding personhood all very well and in an entertaining fashion while not hitting you over the head with exposition that felt forced.  That being said, the episodes that did air were well developed, written and produced, with the stories being full of moral themes along with the classic action sequences.  The dialogue is witty with a type of realistic urban poetry.  Overall, this was an amazing show, with great scripts and stories examining moral issues that once again failed to find a large enough audience to remain financially viable for a network.