by Jill Jackson

Created on: February 15, 2009   Last Updated: February 16, 2009

I want to begin by saying that I am more than a little biased toward Dollhouse.

After all, it is a Joss Whedon show, and in my book, Joss Whedon can do no wrong. From Buffy to Dr. Horrible, each show has a special place in my heart and I worship at the altar of Whedon. So I was prepared, nay determined, to love Dollhouse before I even saw it.

So, Friday, the 13th I got together with friends, grabbed a couple of beers and watched the premier on Fox. I have to say, I didn't love it. I LIKED it... I liked it a lot, I was even into it, but it wasn't quite love.

For those who haven't seen the show, the Dollhouse is about this discrete organization that maintains a stable of robot-like operatives whose personalities have been completely wiped away. Anything there were (and anything they've done) before joining the Dollhouse is eradicated, leaving them a blank slate. Then, when a client has need of a person with a specific personality or set of abilities, a "Doll" is imprinted to the client's specifications and becomes "Active" for an "Encounter". At the end of the encounter, the Active automatically returns to the Dollhouse for a "Treatment" that erases the imprinted personality and all memory of the encounter.

When they're not active, they hang out at the Dollhouse (which looks a lot like the Wolfram and Hart set from Angel) in a dreamy, child-like state and, baically, look pretty. They are oblivious to their situation or anything beyond the walls of the Dollhouse.

It seems that every "doll" in the house is a young person who is running away from something or has gotten into some kind of trouble. But we can only say that, for sure, about our lead character.

The show opens with Caroline (Eliza Dushku) being recruited after getting in trouble for some unspecified crime. It's not clear what she's done or her punishment, but we're given the impression that the Dollhouse is the lesser of several evils. It's revealed that, if joins Dollhouse, she'll be in for 5 years and her crimes will be "taken care of". So Caroline is recruited and becomes Echo.

Interestingly, it appears that Caroline is aware of the exact nature of her role in the Dollhouse, and the Dollhouse is a pretty secretive organization, so it makes me wonder what happens to the ones who say no. For that matter, if they wipe out all traces of who they were before, how will they know when their contract is up? What's stopping the Dollhouse from keeping them indefinitely? Hopefully future episodes will touch on that.

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