Dollhouse
Season Two Review
“At those hearings you will hear a most innocent
word, a word that will take on a new and grim meaning,” a United
States Senator announces in season two of the FOX drama Dollhouse.
“A word that will become synonymous with human trafficking, prostitution
and unconscionable abuses of neurotechnology. That word is Dollhouse,
an urban myth that has become all too real. Where people have their
memories erased and are brainwashed to do things that would appall the
most cynical among us.”
Creator
Joss Whedon initially intended Dollhouse to serve as an exploration
of the underbelly of society as described above, including the psychological
need for fantasy, as well as a critique on identity and what it means
to be human. The television series thus follows an elicit organization
that is capable of removing a person’s memories and persona and
then replacing them with the “made to order” characteristics
specified by high-paying clients. The characters on the show are morally
grey, including the former FBI agent intent on bringing the Dollhouse—as
the organization is known—down. The main protagonist of the series,
meanwhile, is an “active” named Echo whose services are
routinely sold and is often a brand new, slate-wiped-clean personality
each episode.
With such
subject matter and a lead character that changes personas each week,
it is not hard to understand why Dollhouse struggled in the
ratings. A tug of war developed between FOX and Whedon during the show’s
first season, effectively turning that inaugural effort into an initial
handful of standalone episodes that failed to live up to the potential
of Dollhouse and a much more effective second half that balanced
the network’s needs with Whedon’s original intent of philosophical
dissertation on the nature of humanity.
Season
two continues that exploration—at least during its early stages.
Dr. Claire Saunders, for instance, came to the realization at the end
of season one that she herself is a “doll” imprinted with
the persona of the previous Dollhouse physician. Despite this knowledge,
she resists the urge to find the identity of her past self and instead
struggles with internal identity issues: is she really the doctor that
she has been programmed to be or simply a shell waiting for its original
occupant? And if her original self was reinstalled, would Claire Saunders
cease to exist in the same fashion as a computer program that has been
deleted?
Echo has
similar issues in regards to her own identity. The active is an anomaly
in that she slowly began “remembering” during the course
of season one only to eventually evolve into a hybrid of all the personalities
she has been imprinted—with the exception of her original self,
Caroline Farrell. This evolution has effectively transformed Echo into
someone “new” but the question remains as to whether this
Echo, whom has been born from technological manipulation, is more real
than the actual Caroline. And if there is only room for one person in
Echo/Caroline’s body, which one gets to live on and which is inevitably
placed on a shelf to gather dust?
Because
of conflicting contractual agreements with both the FOX network and
the international market, Joss Whedon had to create a thirteenth episode
for season one of Dollhouse that was not shown on US television
but was included in the subsequent DVD release. Entitled “Epitaph
One,” the narrative took place ten years in the future and featured
only flashback appearances by the main cast of the series. It also revealed
an apocalyptic world where the technology of the Dollhouse had run amuck.
Mass brain “wipes” that erased personalities wholesale and
randomly replaced them with new ones had reduced society into chaos.
Small bands of humans who had not been affected, meanwhile, struggled
to hold onto their humanity. “Epitaph One” was sci-fi at
its best, a warning of the dangers of technology set against the backdrop
of a decaying civilization.
Having
thus revealed how the Dollhouse saga would ultimately end,
a vast majority of season two was regulated to building the pathway
from the present to that apocalyptic future. Advance notice of the show’s
inevitable cancellation served to accelerate that narrative and likewise
effectively changed the scope of Dollhouse. Philosophical dissertations
on identity and explorations on fantasy fail to the wayside as the series
evolved into a battle between the forces of the Los Angeles branch of
the Dollhouse and the “evil” corporation behind the technology
known as Rossum. Despite such course shifting—as well as the fact
that a sneak peak of the ending had already been provided in “Epitaph
One”—Joss Whedon and his band of writers were still able
to fill the remaining episodes of Dollhouse with enough twists,
turns, sacrifice and betrayal to keep the narrative gripping and fans
of the series on the edge of their seats.
Complimenting
episodes “The Public Eye” and “The Left Hand”
are a prime example. United States Senator Daniel Perrin has stumbled
upon what he believes to be concrete evidence of the Dollhouse’s
existence as well as Rossum’s involvement in the new breed of
human trafficking. What starts off simple enough, however, eventually
spirals into a Manchurian Candidate-like thriller as the Los
Angeles Dollhouse conspires to halt Perrin’s investigation, Rossum’s
plans become murkier and Echo goes off mission, embarking on her own.
Add a rival Dollhouse technician with a connection to Echo’s real-life
Caroline who is bent on vigilante revenge and the two-part installment
evolves into a pressure-cooker action thriller that keeps the viewer
guessing throughout the narrative.
If there
is one major flaw in season two of Dollhouse, it is the fact
that the last few episodes appear to be packed with too much information
that is revealed at too rapid of a pace. Whereas season one started
slow due to the creative differences between Joss Whedon and the FOX
network, it would appear that the show’s cancellation meant a
quicker resolution to the overall narrative than originally intended.
Although some storylines—such as techie Topher Brink’s ethic
struggles, subsequent guilt for his unwitting role in events and ultimate
sacrifice to “right” what he unintentionally made wrong—developed
at a natural pace, others evolved in a less ideal fashion. The revelation
near the end of the series, for instance, in regards to the identity
of the mastermind behind Rossum and thus the “Big Bad” of
Dollhouse would have been better served if that character’s
dark side had more slowly seeped to the surface over a longer period
of time.
Unfortunately
time is the one thing that Dollhouse was ultimately denied.
Despite its cancellation, Joss Whedon was still able to craft a complete
story over the course of twenty-six episodes that both raised philosophical
questions about personal identity and the dangers of advanced technology
while likewise incorporating all the ingredients of a sci-fi action
thriller into the mix. Taken as a whole, Dollhouse is not perfect
television but it is intelligent and culturally relevant television
nonetheless—one that rewards viewers for their patience and resonates
with them afterwards.
Anthony
Letizia (October 20, 2010)
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