One Down

Well, crap, my DVR just got a bit emptier. R.I.P. Dollhouse.

Fox has pulled the plug on Joss Whedon's controversial mind-sponges-for-hire show Dollhouse, although the show will finish the 13 episodes already planned.

More here, linked by Bobby Z.

Dollhouse

This week the Dollhouse is working on the nephew of a major client/investor (Colonel Tigh, what's up?). The nephew was hit by a car and is in a coma, but he's also a creepy serial killer. In order to figure out the location of the missing women he's holding, Topher transfers his consciousness into Victor. Cool - the guy who plays Victor gets all the juicy roles, all on one show.

Paul questions him, and it's very cool, but he doesn't reveal where the women are. Uncle Colonel Tigh figures he can do one better, and springs Killer!Victor. But then the dude beats his uncle up and escapes. So now Victor's on the loose with a serial killer's mind.

Meanwhile, Echo's assignment seemed quite standard and dull. An old, fugly college professor wants a student to bang. But when Topher tries a remote windwipe thing on Victor, it ends up instead transferring the serial killer's mind into Echo. She stabs the college professor in the neck. Oh snap! I don't know if this story makes any kind of logical sense, but it's pretty damn cool.

So now Victor is at a dance club (where he was stalking a victim), but he has Echo's fun-loving college student/slut personality. It's hysterical and fabulous! I told you that guy gets all the good roles.

Killer!Boy!Echo shows up to the killer's Basement of Victims. Paul tracks her down through her GPS and all is well. (Victor's GPS had been disabled -- in furtherance of the plot.)

This episode was fun. Again, don't know if it made sense, but it was hammy and fun.

Dollhouse

Echo is assigned to be a mommy. A breastfeeding mommy. Ew. Topher programmed her to lactate. I'm finally creeped out by this show.

She is suspicious of her husband and goes snooping around, finding pictures of the real baby mama, who has died. When the husband has a change of heart and wants to end the assignment, and Paul comes to collect Echo, she turns into Super Protective Mommy. She flees the house with the baby and freaks out when she's finally separated from the little life ruiner. They can't get her to willingly come in for a treatment so she's sedated.

When Topher tries to wipe Echo, she still carries with her the maternal instinct, and punches him in the face. She escapes the Dollhouse, wiped clean yet following instinct, heading for the kid. I like that maternal instinct has a built-in GPS to locate the house. She grabs the baby - and a knife - threatening the dad. He's able to talk her down until the Dollhouse team arrives, all whilst in the midst of a nighttime lightning storm... for the atmosphere, don't you know.

DeWitt goes to visit Mellie/November/Madeline, who you may recall was released from the Dollhouse in exchange for Paul's employment. She's still a fattie. And now she's a filthy rich fattie. Fattie returns to the Dollhouse for a diagnostic. She and Paul talk, and Paul is happy to see she's happy.

Finally, someone gives the Senator files on the Dollhouse. Don't know who, or what the files say, but he's definitely investigating Rossum Corporation now.

Dollhouse

Echo's assignment of the week is a long-term one. She marries Lee Adama, because Battlestar Galactica alumni gotta make a living somehow. But Lee isn't the client, Agent Helo is. Echo is partnered up with him as an undercover agent, marrying an arms dealer to bring him down.

I found the Dollhouse stuff much more interesting this week. The doctor is going nuts because she hasn't come to terms with the fact that she was/is an Active. "Designed by a sociopath in a sweater vest" LOL. There's a bunch of cool angsty stuff as Claire deals with the fact that Topher is pretty much her God and her creator. And she can't stand him, only I'm pretty sure they used to be involved or something and he designed her to disagree with him so no one would know. But I can't say I paid attention too well - he was in his underwear and there were innuendos about erections. That's distracting.

Echo's still getting echoes (heh) of her former real self and all of her other imprints. Former-Agent Helo becomes her Handler. Also Victor's scars are all healed up, pretty much just because DeWitt wants to bone him and is willing to spend money on fixing him up.

I'm Going To Have More Free Time

The Unusuals and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles were canceled today. Dagger. I was really getting into The Unusuals, and of course I'm bummed about being rid of my David Silver action. Asses.

Dollhouse got renewed though, so that's good. And even though I thought those cancellations would mean I would have more free time, they're going to do a Fall season of So You Think You Can Dance. That's in addition to the Summer season which starts Thursday! Yay!

Last Dollhouse Ever?

I hope this isn't the last Dollhouse ever. But it's a long shot that it'll be renewed, so I'm not really holding out hope.

When we last left the Dollhouse, Alpha took off with Echo, after imprinting her as his girlfriend. He also takes all of Echo's imprints. They're off Bonnie & Clyde-ing, and Alpha's got a multiple personality thing going (48 personalities, to be exact). They kidnap a chick, strap her into Alpha's homemade imprinting chair, and imprint her with Caroline's original personality.

Then Alpha imprints Echo with a combination of every imprint she's ever been. But that backfires, when Echo attacks him instead of the other woman. They have a nice fight, as is customary on this show, ending when Alpha shoots the other woman in the neck. His psycho-killer goal is to imprint women all over America with Caroline's personality and then cut them up and kill them.

In flashback, it's revealed that Dr. Saunders was once an Active named Whiskey, paired up with Alpha for some hot bloodplay threesome action. OH SNAP! I didn't see that coming at all. Alpha became obsessed with Echo, and cut up Whiskey's face in Bonsai class when he wanted Echo to be the #1 Doll. He then goes on a violent rampage, poking out his Handler's eyes and killing the old doctor.

Before becoming an Active, Alpha was a criminal named Karl Kraft, imprisoned for attempted murder and on his way to becoming a serial killer. Agent Helo and Awesome Handler track down one of his victims and get the location of Alpha's hideout. It's an old nuclear power plant, which is pretty much the coolest hideout ever.

Agent Helo saves Echo, and the Caroline imprint, but Alpha is still on the loose. Helo strikes a deal - he'll work for the Dollhouse if they let November/Mellie/his old fat girlfriend free.

That was a really good episode, but it'd be better if it wasn't the last.

Dollhouse

Echo's sent to deal with a troubled kid. Her imprint is the adult version of the troubled girl so that she can connect with her and help her. That's a lovely little nonprofit assignment. See, the Dollhouse might force people into what is essentially sex slavery, but it isn't all bad.

Victor is imprinted as Former Security Head Close-Eyes. He's good too - really has that dude's mannerisms and stuff. I loved it! They use him to open a file with some clues about Alpha.

Agent Helo rejects Mellie and then follows her when she is taken back to the Dollhouse by her Handler. He doesn't go in, but he tracks down the engineer who designed the self-contained/self-sufficient building. The engineer is weird and paranoid... and grows a lot of pot. A lot of pot.

The engineer gets them into the Dollhouse. Agent Helo tasers the Hot Geek and frees Echo from her sleep pod. But her old Handler is right behind him with a gun. They have a nice fight. They always have some goddamn good fights on this show.

Turns out the engineer isn't really the engineer. He's Alpha, and he killed the engineer and took his place. And when the Doctor and Victor walk in on him, he slashes up Victor's face. He nabs Echo, imprints her with someone, and makes out with her. To be continued.

Dollhouse

Finally caught up on last week's Dollhouse and it was sooo good! Hearing that this show might be canceled is Thing No. 657 that has made me bitter this week.

The main plot revolves around a spy in the Dollhouse who has been tampering with the implants. So I assume the spy is the one who sent Mellie back to Agent Helo with a message. It was creepy-cool - they were hanging out and then suddenly it was like a switch flipped. She was all, "This body has been sent to you with a message. She is a sleeper agent. Don't tell her anything about your investigation. You need to investigate why the Dollhouse exists." Meanwhile, Agent Helo has one of those paper/Post-Its/strings charts on his wall, the kind that signifies Nutsy Obsessive.

Sierra is imprinted to find the source of the chip, which is tracked to the NSA. She breaks in to the NSA taking the place of an Asian employee. Because, you know, all rook same. (And they must. Because it worked.) She gets the name of the mole on some kind of top-secret invisible paper. No really, it was like one of those transparencies from the projector in high school with digital information encoded on it.

While she's out, Hot Geek imprints Echo to investigate the spy from within the House. It ends up being Head of Security Close-Eyes, who worked for the NSA. Attic Time! His mind is wiped and stored onto a disk while his body is stored somewhere else. Good. Get those too-close eyes away from me.

In other news, the Dollhouse Madame is even more of a Minxy Cougar than I thought. Turns out she's been hiring out Victor - for fencing and sex. Minx!

And in the saddest note, Boyd is no longer Echo's Handler!!! He was promoted to Head of Security. But nooooooooo! I can't have them broken up!! He's bummed about it too. Though the only silver lining is that the show brought in their 85th Asian cast member for the new Handler. I love this show.

Dollhouse

Echo and her pals wake up in their pods prematurely. They get out and think they're either lab rats or in something out of a Saw movie. Eventually they are let out of their room and they see other Actives in their Inactive state. They decide to try to blend in to figure out what's happening.

Blending in doesn't quite work, but it's OK because it was the House experimenting on them. They want to see what would happen if the actives "woke up". Well, what happens is they remember a mix of real-life and engagement memories. Sierra remembers being raped by a client. Victor and Sierra are still attracted to each other. November (Mellie) remembers having a daughter and knows where she is... a cemetery.

At some point, those rogue Actives all fall asleep and are collected by Handlers and Agents. They were programmed to fall asleep when they got closure on their bad past events or desires. The doctor's theory was that this would help with the glitches they've been experiencing.

This was the first show that didn't have your typical mission-goes-wrong story. And I kind of missed the formula actually.

Dollhouse

We open with a flashback of Caroline joining (or being strong-armed into?) the Dollhouse. She's offered the 5 year plan. She was an animal rights activist who was working to expose the practices of the Rossum Corporation, a pharmaceutical company. And I'm guessing that, to shut her up, they threw her into service in the Dollhouse.

Rossum is involved in the Dollhouse somehow, maybe backs it financially or something? But they need help now - they're working on a drug that has gone missing from the Rossum Building on a college campus and they need a team of Actives to find it. Also, a drug that turns people all goofy is leaked. I love a good drunk/drugged-up, watch-all-the-main-characters-get-high episode. Echo's Handler gets loopy, Close-Eyes too, even Topher strips down to his underwear while the British chick jumps on a trampoline.

The drug makes the Actives glitch, meaning they have traumatic memories of their pasts, Engagements and real.

Echo's on another Engagement when she sees news footage of the campus. This brings forth some memory and she leaves to go to the campus. She follows her vague memories to break into the Rossum Building with another student. She remembers breaking in with her boyfriend, who got shot by security and died.

In the final flashback we see that Caroline did indeed get forced into a deal with Rossum/the Dollhouse because she "fit the profile." And now, in the present day, they offer the same deal to the Hot Shirtless Black Dude who helped Echo break into the Rossum Building.

Dollhouse

Oops, Victor and Sierra are playing "husband and wife". The Actives aren't supposed to have sex drives. That Victor is an insatiable horndog. Except it turns out that Sierra's Handler was the one banging her. That's creepy in a taboo parent/child way.

Patton Oswalt! Sweet! He's an internet millionaire who rents out Echo as his wife. Agent Helo suspects him as a Dollhouse client, so he comes to his house. He's shocked to see the woman he knows as Caroline there. Echo's Handler leads her away as Patton's security fights with Helo.

Turns out the Dollhouse knows that Helo is investigating them, and they introduced Echo to him on purpose. Now it's time for Round 2. They send Echo out with mad skillz and she has a pretty epic fight with Helo. Make that really epic.

After they fight, Echo gives him a message from "a person on the inside". Basically saying the Dollhouse is real, there are 20 Dollhouses, and that he has to back off to let them get complacent. I don't know if that's real, or if the Dollhouse is really saying it to try to throw him off or what. But I think there's a rat in the House. Also, it turns out Helo's little neighbor girlfriend is really an Active. That was cool - she was activated in time to kill the Rapist Handler who was sent to kill her, and then she was deactivated. I think that the Madam of the Dollhouse wants more information on the upper echelon controlling the Dollhouses, and that's why she's using the FBI Agent. I don't know. But it's cool and I like it.

Dollhouse

This week, Echo is hired out to the government. There is a crazy religious cult that needs taking down, so a Senator goes to the Dollhouse for help. Echo's going to join the cult as a true believer, with a camera installed in her eyes that makes her blind, but transmits the video to the ATF.

The cult leader initially suspects Echo because he's wary of outsiders, but after some questioning, and a gun held to her head, he's satisfied.

The crazy cult has their crazy arsenal of guns, and the ATF begins to storm the compound. Cult leader assumes it's because of Echo and smacks her around enough to knock out the camera and restore her sight. At one point after she had regained her sight, Echo had to read from the Bible. Now if she was blind since she was 9, and hadn't read in 10+ years, would she really be able to read? Hmmm.

Cult leader does what all cult leaders do when threatened, and starts a fire to kill everyone. But Echo knocks him out (is this old imprinting making her so violent?) and leads everyone to safety. Her Handler comes in to rescue her, like he always does (and I love him for it) and all is well.

Agent Helo sees Echo in one of the news reports. Of course, he knows her as Caroline because a super-secret admirer sent him a picture and now a video of her. He heads to the scene and talks to the lead ATF agent. The agent doesn't say anything, I suppose because her undercover operation is supposed to be a secret. And now Agent Helo could always just think Caroline went all cult-y.

Back at the Dollhouse, Victor pops a boner while in the shower with Sierra. Oops. The actives aren't supposed to do that apparently.

Dollhouse

While Echo's on a mission to steal artwork, there's interference on her link to her handler. And she's wiped clean - while on a job! The people back at the Dollhouse eventually help her through it. It always makes me smile when Echo and her handler are reunited.

Agent Helo shows Victor (undercover as his Russian informant) a picture of Echo (Caroline) to see if he knows her.

Echo is still retaining bits of old assignments. Echo, Victor, and Sierra are flocking together, eating lunch at the same table together every day even when they've been wiped and don't know each other. And Topher says that Alpha is the only one who has the ability to work a remote mindwipe.

Still wanna live in the Dollhouse. It's beautiful and peaceful-looking, and you can be dumb all day long.

Dollhouse

A pop star (Rayna) is performing in a concert when one of her back-up singers is set on fire by pyrotechnics... or the creepy Ginger Kid watching from the audience.

Echo's handler has recovered enough from his arrow wound to get back to work. Rayna's manager hires Echo out to serve as a back-up singer for Rayna, whilst also undercover-protecting her.

Another Active, Sierra, gets sent in as a contest winner who gets to hang out backstage. The Ginger Kid tries to shoot Rayna at another concert. Turns out Rayna's a little nuts, and was communicating with her stalker, and was hoping he'd kill her. In the end, of course Echo ends up catching the bad guy and saving Rayna.

The Russian guy that Agent Helo has been trying to get "Dollhouse" information from is revealed to actually be an Active, Victor. That was cool and unexpected. So he's putting Helo on the wrong track, including getting him shot.

Dollhouse

This week, Echo goes white water rafting with the client. No, really. It's outdoor adventure time. And then some outdoor sex. And then the dude tells her to start running because she has a 5-minute head start, and then he's going to hunt her and kill her. Guess the sex wasn't so good after all.

Of course Echo, with some assistance from her handler, ends up kicking the guy's ass and killing him.

We get some cool and informative "three months ago" flashbacks in which Alpha, the rogue Active, went on a murderous rampage in the Dollhouse. We also saw Echo getting her handler (the former one was killed by Alpha) and imprinting on him so that she always trusts him. Their relationship is cute. She gets rambly and excited after assignments and he's always like, "Mmm-hmmm, okay, sure." I don't know, it's just sweet.

Agent Helo (hey where the hell has Helo been in the last couple Battlestar Galacticas anyway?) gets a package from Alpha - a picture of Echo marked "Caroline" on the back, along with a message to "keep looking."

I'm definitely enjoying this show. It's doomed, I'm sure, but I like it.

Dollhouse Gets My Conditional Seal of Approval

Eliza Dushku, her adorable dimples, and her hot ass star as Echo, a person who is kind of rented out by an organization (what the FBI calls the Dollhouse). These people ("Actives") are programmed with memories and assignments, and then are wiped after. I think the memories they are given are based off of real people.

The FBI is investigating because it's essentially a human trafficking case, but also something of a legend, as it's hard to get hard evidence on the Dollhouse. It appears that there is a rogue former Active who is trying to help the FBI agent piece things together.

This week, Echo is made into a tough-ass negotiator in order to save a kidnapped girl. Her "persona" has flashbacks of being kidnapped by one of the same kidnappers when she was younger. And it sounds like they said that persona was based on an actual girl who killed herself. So that was weird how the fake life bled into the real one. And also Echo was having flashbacks of real things that happened in the Dollhouse.

The thing that bothers me about this show: one of the people who run the Dollhouse is the guy who was on Journeyman whose eyes are too close together. I don't know if I can take another show starring a guy whose eyes are too close together. They bother me way too much. Hopefully he won't be on much.

I do like the cool Asian aesthetic of the Dollhouse though. I want to go there.