TV Review: Dollhouse

Two "ahead of the game"s in one day? What is the world coming to.

I'm sure Charlie Brooker will get round to seeing this eventually, but for those of you who can't wait I will endeavour to fill in the time for you.

What is Dollhouse? Well, it's the new show from Joss Whedon, who was the creator of the classic Buffy The Vampire Slayer (and Angel) as well as being responsible for the far superior (and far more cancelled) Firefly and its movie spin off, Serenity. We saw the pilot of this new venture in advance of its UK premiere through a mixture of luck and design.

It is also a "star vehicle" for Eliza Dushku, Arnie's kid in True Lies (yeah yeah, and Faith from buffy, and Tru Calling woman etc) as she gets to show of her acting chops.

This is going to be massively spoilerific for those of you who like your first pilot viewing to be blind so let me summarise: it is not, unfortunately, very exciting viewing.

This is primarily a problem with the way Whedon's shows work - he likes to develop plot and character slowly over large arcs and many seasons and this is why his big fans (like us) love his shows so much. Is there any crime greater than the one that killed Firefly off? Not in my book.

Dollhouse is, like all of Whedon's shows, based on a very interesting premise.


=======SPOILERS START HERE========
We are introduced to "Caroline", played by Eliza Dushku - who is very concerned about soemthing that has gone wrong. She is offered a way out by a strange lady who says she must serve out a "five year contract".

Interesting. The next shot is of Eliza on a motorbike, racing and flirting with a handsome guy - only to leave the party they go to early, so she can have a "treatment".

This is where the plot finally starts to make sense. This "treatment" is in fact a full brain wipe. The physical body of "Echo" (as her character is now known) is being used as the vessel for any number of different personalities, which are grafted on in your typical Rekall memory implant apparatus (fans of Total Recall take note). This means that in any episode Dushku can be wildly different characters, with different skills and personalities depending on what the sinister agency (known as the Dollhouse, obviously) is hired to provide. These programmed dolls (between missions they are much like emotionless automata) are know as "actives".

Obviously, in the first task, she is hired as a "date" for the guy in question.

It's the second mission (or, "engagement", as the owner prefers to call them) with which the pilot mainly concerns itself. It regards the kidnapping of a little girl, whose father pays a lot of money for an "active" to be assigned to the task. He is told that as far as the active is concerned they are a real person, with a full history and memories so he should not refer to the Dollhouse at all.

Echo is programmed with the personality and history of a highly driven hostage negotiator - passionate but collected. Perfect for the task at hand.

Or so, as is predictable, they think.

The typical engineer type who runs the wipes and reprogrammings explains that while these exact people never existed, the personalities downloaded are amalgams of many separate real people, hence why Echo needs glasses as the negotiator (and she has asthma...). With the good side comes the bad side.

Of course, there is a major complication with this engagement and a real moral question arises (and the show gained a lot of interest from me for it) - one of the kidnappers who has taken the little girl is the same one who abused the negotiator in the past and she loses composure at a vital moment, failing to rescue the girl in the process! Setting aside the likelihood of the conceit for a while, the show makes the Dollhouse organisation make a choice - do they continue to go after the girl even though it may put them in a dangerously open position?

Well, no prizes for guessing the outcome.

=====END OF MAJOR SPOILERS=====
(though minors ones may remain - you've been warned)

Look, I don't want to get on the show's back straight away, but here's my two cents.

Firstly, if the pilot is designed to do anything, it must get people to watch the next episode. It should have a WOW! factor and pull people right in.

While it is clever and interesting to me, the beginning is far too slow to grab a majority casual viewers and many Americans, I am sure, will have switched off after fifteen minutes (which is the kiss of DEATH to any new show).

Secondly, the plot demands a versatile and skilled actress (as this one does) and I'm just not sure (never have been) about Eliza Dushku's range. She's a perfectly good actress at certain types of role (Vamp, Petulance), but this part will be quite outrageously demanding - I notice she is listed as a producer on the show... I will leave it at that. I hope she surprises me. (I'd have cast Summer Glau, myself)

The only performance that really stood out in terms of acting was that of the engineer, and there are a couple of interesting touches (the physio's face is covered with scars, for example) that point toward interesting future plot developments.

I enjoyed it to a certain extent, and I am sure that given time it will develop into a good show. I will certainly be watching the upcoming episodes (if we can get our mitts on them) to see if it picks up in true Joss style.

BUT unfortunately I have a bad feeling it is already in the list to get canned due to bad ratings (I blame the slow pilot start), and poor old Joss will have another one season wonder on his hands.

Finally, look, if he has enough caché now to get new shows made...

WHY NOT FIREFLY SEASON TWO? I'M DYING HERE!
IT'S NOT LIKE FILLION IS NOW A MASSIVE MOVIE STAR, IS IT?

A
(heady with all the excitement of seeing something early!)