Last Friday, Dollhouse, the latest series from Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, began its second season on Fox; and it may have found its footing at last.
Here’s hoping it’s not too late.
Dollhouse centers around an organization that programs various men and women with the necessary personalities for a given situation. Then it “rents” them to high paying clients. When not in the field, these “Actives” or “Dolls” are kept in a child-like state. These individuals all agreed for reasons of their own to have their personalities wiped for five years, while selling their bodies into indentured servitude. At the end of that time, they’d receive a huge paycheck.
The central character is “Echo” (Eliza Dushku), or “Caroline”, to give her real name. She should have been the series’ prime mover- especially given the revelation that even after being returned to a tabula rasa state, Echo often retained some bits of the personalities she’d been programmed to assume.
Instead, the series’ prime mover last season was FBI Agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett), who’d been searching for Caroline, and was trying to prove the Dollhouse existed. For all intents and purposes, it was The Paul Ballard Show.
Yes, I was curious to know why Ballard was so driven, especially since he didn’t know Caroline; but Echo was the protagonist. She should have driven the action.
It looks like she finally will. She has told Ballard (who agreed to work with the Dollhouse for unstated reasons) that she remembers being other people. She also not only wants to “find Caroline”, but (if I understood) help the other “Dolls” find their original selves.
All well and good, but something along those lines should happened last season.
And what is the Dollhouse’s raison d’etre? In one episode Echo was programmed with the personality of a hostage negotiator. Why? Why not hire an actual hostage negotiator?
The “Dolls” aren’t androids capable of handing situations ordinary humans couldn’t; nor is the Dollhouse meant to handle top secret and/or sensitive situations that can’t go through “ordinary channels” (some Dollhouse clients appear to treat it as an escort service). So why the need to program “Actives”?
If the show were set in a political environment akin to the Cold War, it might make sense to have the volunteers programmed with personalities sympathetic to the enemy power. The “Dolls” would carry out their programming unaware that they were double agents. They’d have no qualms about what they were doing, because they’d have no feelings of guilt. Raymond Shaw, but with better programming. The closest we came to that was the way the Dollhouse used the Dolls Victor and November against Paul Ballard.
These were people Ballard thought he knew. If he hadn’t ended up becoming involved with the Dollhouse, would he have begun feeling paranoid, wondering who else might be a Doll?
The idea of a place like the Dollhouse raises several ethical questions, but a key theme is one often explored in science fiction: a question of identity. In fact, two of my own short stories explore that theme.
Interviewed recently at fearnet.com, Eliza Dushku indicated that Echo “is becoming an entirely different character”, and moving farther away from the personality of Caroline. Which raises a question: If Echo become self aware, and rejects aspects of Caroline, does she have any say in whether Caroline returns when the contract expires?
Dr. Claire Saunders (Amy Acker) is wrestling with a similar issue. Late last season, she discovered that she was a “Doll” named Whiskey, programmed with the persona of Dr. Saunders, following the real doctor’s murder. Now she seems uncertain about whether she wants to know anything about her true self, let alone resume that identity.
Again, who decides? If “Dr. Saunders” hadn’t learned the truth, would the Dollhouse have returned her true persona when her contract was up? Or would it have decided that “Dr. Saunders” was too valuable to let go? And who makes sure the Dollhouse honors its contracts?
Buffy, Angel and Firefly were all well-written, well-acted, intelligent shows. Dollhouse retains a lot of potential, but frankly, some of the more basic questions should already have been answered.
Another show worth noting, Supernatural, recently began its fifth season on the CW (Thursdays at 9). I like how it mixes urban legends, ghost stories, fables, and mythology. And the current storyline concerning Lucifer’s release from Hell and a group of angels’ involvement in that, so he can be defeated and the apocalypse brought on (because they believe God is either dead or has abandoned them), has possibilities. But it’s a shame the writers are limiting themselves to judeo-Christian mythology. Since other mythologies have already played roles in the series, it’d have been more interesting if, say, the battle involved opposing forces in Zoroastrianism.
Which, for the record, pre-dates and has influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
A mix of mythological characters would also have been interesting. For instance, if a group of archangels had helped precipitate events to release Loki in order to bring about Ragnarok.
But maybe Supernatural creator Eric Kripke and his team still have some surprises in store.
Copyright 2009 Patrick Keating.