Episode 1 - Ghost
28 March 2012
Synopsis: Caroline seems to have no choice but to become an “Active” in the “Dollhouse.” A mysterious and secret organisation who reprogram their “Actives” with a new personality for each mission they are hired for. They claim to be doing good. Caroline becomes Echo and one day she is partying with a guy, the next she is a hostage negotiator, in between she is a blank slate living a child like existence. As the negotiator she tries to deal with a gang who have kidnapped a rich man’s daughter. To become a skilled negotiator she is given the memories of a real woman who was abused when she was kidnapped as a child. Now Echo comes across this woman’s kidnapper and ruins the trade off. Echo’s handler Boyd argues with their boss Adelle to allow Echo to continue with the mission. She relents and Echo frees the girl with a little help from another “Active” Sierra. Working at the Dollhouse are arrogant tech guy Topher and seemingly kind doctor Claire Saunders. Outside the Dollhouse FBI agent Paul Ballard is under instructions from high up to uncover its secrets. Someone who knows who Caroline is is also killing and encouraging Ballard’s investigation.
The Good: This is one of the more vague pilots I have ever seen. There is so much we don’t know by the end of the episode that the possibilities for this show are vast. We don’t know who Caroline is or what she did or what deal she made to join the Dollhouse. We don’t know who created the Dollhouse, why, how, who knows about them, what services they offer, why they claim they do that, why they really do that and so on and so on. There is so much about this world that we don’t know that it’s almost enough of a hook to make viewers come back to see where the focus of the show goes from here.
More specifically though there are some interesting angles which begin to be explored about the lives of the “Actives.” The most interesting is the discussion which Topher and Boyd have over Echo’s negotiator personality. The personalities which are given to the Dolls are taken from real people and Topher has made this brilliant negotiator both asthmatic and short sighted. He explains that this is because personalities are made up of different balances including faults and weaknesses which help create strengths in other areas. It’s the type of discussion which creates an entertaining backdrop to the characterisation going on within the show and points to the type of issue which the show will explore. It’s also a neat science fiction plot device allowing us to imagine all the different personalities which Echo will get to become.
Within this episode it creates a nice twist in the story that part of the negotiator’s past leads her to recognise one of the kidnappers. The twist means that Boyd and Adelle are forced to address the issue of what is more important in this instance, doing what is right or protecting the security of the Dollhouse. Echo’s breakdown also shows us what can go wrong with these personality grafts and fragments of her memory of the Dollhouse start to bleed into her new personality again indicating a likely direction for her character breaking the mould as the show develops.
Agent Ballard working on the outside to discover what the Dollhouse is is a good idea. Hopefully he will act as a surrogate for the viewer, slowly uncovering the truth about its existence just as we learn about it too. Here his angle seems to be a prostitution racket which has obvious parallels and raises obvious questions about the “Actives” and what kind of “Missions” or “Engagements” they are used for. Particularly as Echo’s first mission here is getting intimate for a long weekend with a client.
The Bad: The strength here is also a weakness. The very vagueness which could lead the show to great things make for a deeply uninspiring pilot episode.
Buffy couldn’t live a normal life because she had to save the world. Angel couldn’t be happy lest he become evil and Malcolm Reynolds had to deal with a world where he had fought on the losing side. But here Echo has no moral conflict because she has no personality. In between missions she remains in a naïve state with no discernible personality. The Dollhouse is clearly a disconcerting environment but she is not a slave there, as we saw her signing up because it was a better option (than prison presumably) for her. So again her situation doesn’t present an obvious moral conundrum for a viewer to get invested in.
Echo of course has no personality and we know almost nothing about Caroline so the pilot leaves you feeling empty as if you have no one to support or develop a like for. The roles chosen for Echo to portray aren’t diverse enough to give the “Active” concept much of a kick-start either. Her party girl personality doesn’t seem too far removed from average hot women and she follows this up with the stern negotiator which she doesn’t imbue with too much personality. So we don’t get a shocking range of personalities which drive home the amazing ability of the Dolls or of Eliza Dushku’s acting ability.
The kidnap storyline definitely has a generic cop show feel to it with all the clues leading to the safe recovery of the girl. The only moment where it threatens to get interesting is when the emotional father begins scoffing at Echo’s advice because he knows she is just an “Active.” For a moment you wonder if she will start to realise why he is asking strange questions but she doesn’t and the moment passes slightly awkwardly.
The rest of the characters seem somewhat obviously characterised here. There is doubtless more to come but again the word generic springs to mind as Ballard deals with his cynical “you’ll-never-succeed” speech from his boss. And if it has no further significance then the cuts to his boxing training (as if to show that he never gives up) are about as obvious and unsubtle as characterisation can get.
The Unknown: Rather than list the hundreds of questions which spill from this episode I will leave it blank for now. One can only assume that we will begin to learn about each character as the series goes on and learn why Ballard is divorced, Boyd left the police force, Caroline had no other choice and so on.
Best Moment: A rare flash of the classic Whedon humour (all too briefly seen here). Echo wanders accidentally into a room where Topher is putting a new “Active” through a painful looking procedure. He walks her out and tries to get rid of her as politely as possible. Echo’s naïve brain seems easy to manipulate for now as he ushers her back to the doctors office. “Something fell on me” Echo blankly confides in him as she leaves. “I bet it was something great!” he says with a grin.
Epilogue: For those in the know Joss Whedon refilmed the pilot and one wonders about his motivations for doing so. You suspect that Firefly’s cancellation may be on his mind and FOX’s placement of the show on Friday evenings seems an odd choice for a show which is clearly quite dark.
But sadly this episode leaves you feeling empty. The characters and the concept aren’t clearly defined and this episode feels more like a generic procedural show than a character based morality play. And it is that exploration of human behaviour which has made Joss Whedon so loved. For now though it’s not difficult to have faith that he knows where this is headed and the myriad of questions should be enough to keep viewers for now.
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