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DOLLHOUSE |
Echo - Eliza Dushku Boyd Langton - Harry Lennix Topher Brink - Fran Kranz Paul Ballard - Tahmoh Penikett Sierra - Dichen Lachman Adelle DeWitt - Olivia Williams Claire Saunders - Amy Acker Mellie - Miracle Laurie Daniel Perrin - Alexis Denisof 
OTHER DOLLHOUSE SEASONS Season 1 OTHER JOSS WHEDON SHOWS Buffy The Vampire Slayer Angel Firefly 
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VowsEcho, a woman who can be programmed to be anyone, is on assignment as the new bride of one of the largest weapons dealers in the States. When he finds out that she is not all that she seems, her life is put in danger. Inside the Dollhouse, mind-controlling genius Topher is being stalked by Doctor Saunders who is still coming to terms with what she learned at the end of the last season. It took half a dozen episodes to get DOLLHOUSE off the ground in its first season, but that's not the case with this second season. Whilst this opener is not as good as the show got towards the end last time around, it is far better than most of the early episodes. There are emotional fallout issues to be dealt with and these might be opaque to anyone who didn't see the show the first time around, but the main story of Echo's assignment is straightforward enough. Jamie Bamber (of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) guest stars as the arms dealer and though he hasn't got that much to do he makes the most of the sudden bursts of action, something that series star Eliza Dushku has a long history of in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL and which she is easily capable of selling. Acting honours, though, go to Amy Acker as the doctor who was revealed to be one of the programmable actives herself and a killer to boot. The twisting of her psyche by the discoveries that were made then is a tough act to pull off, but she does so really well with a mixture of barely contained psycho and hurting victim. DOLLHOUSE is now in its second season and has a sense of confidence and purpose that it only discovered halfway through its last run, so we are promised good things to come. Written by Joss WhedonDirected by Joss Whedon Top InstinctEcho is imprinted to be a loving mother with the added wrinkle that the changes to her mind are extended to her body, allowing her to breast feed the baby she is supposed to mother. When the man who paid for her decidest that things aren't working out, she decides to take the baby away from him and no amount of mind wiping is going to suppress the maternal instincts aroused. Eliza Dushku gets to play a scary psycho woman in the latter stages of what is a fairly straightforward story that only comes to life when the mind wipe doesn't quite take. As she takes on the father in a house darkened by her wire-cutting but lit by lightning flashes, the episode riffs like mad on those thriller movies where nice girls go evil, but the writing team are far too clever than to let things work out the way the audience expects. There are issues, such as why the formidable Ms DeWitt doesn't put Echo in the Attic following the second completely screwed up mission in a row with evidence of the programmable girl's brain glitching all over the place, but it's entertaining enough for that not to get in the way of the fun. Written by Michele Fazekas & Tara ButtersDirected by Steven S DeKnight Top Belle ChoseVictor is imprinted with the mind of an injured psycho in the hope of finding out where the women he kidnapped are to be found, but he then escapes. In an attempt to remotely wipe the imprint, the personality is transferred to Echo who is on an assignment as a student fantasy for a lecturer. Regular Joss Whedon co-worker Tim Minear comes up with an entertaining thrill ride that has lots of great moments and an opening scene to really make you sit up and pay attention, but doesn't quite hang together and leaves a slight sense of disatisfaction in its wake. Exactly how rich do you have to be to hire an active from the Dollhouse when a university professor can manage it? How can a client walk out of the Dollhouse with an active without anyone noticing? Problems aside, however, there is more than enough fun to go around and once again a croquet bat manages to be a very sinister weapon. Written by Tim MinearDirected by David Solomon Top BelongingSierra's origins and her connections to the Rossum Corporation, one of the Dollhouse's affiliates, are revealed. No review is currently available for this episode. If you want to add one, please click here to e-mail it to us. Written by Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen WhedonDirected by Jonathan Frakes Top The Public EyeA young senator is on the warpath, publicly denouncing the Dollhouse and the Rossum Corporation. He also has Mellie, now released and willing to tell what she knows. Whilst Ballard is sent to rescue Mellie, Echo is sent to discredit the senator, but all is not as it seems and a conspiracy against the LA Dollhouse alone is revealed. This is a much better episoe thanks to a tight plot that has opportunity for action, character humour and twisty-turniness aplenty. You could give up on the plot arc conspiracy and just go with the who's doing wht to whom storyline and still manage to be confused. This certainly not the episode on which to join the show. Those already versed in set up, though will find plenty of fun to be had and members of Whedon's repertory company pop up (Alexis Denisof from ANGEL and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and Summer Glau of FIREFLY in this case) to please the fans. Written by Andrew ChamblissDirected by David Solomon Top The Left HandEcho is now in the hands of the Washington Dollhouse's psychopathic doll programmer, a woman who wants to take revenge on Echo for the loss of one arm. Adelle and Topher take part in an audacious plan to get Echo back and obtain information about the Senator, revealed to be a doll himself, a plan that requires two Tophers. The Left Hand carries right on where the last episode left off and if you didn't see that then you are going to be at a serious disadvantage trying to catch up with the twists of the plot, but there are so many good things that it's worth the effort. First up there's Topher and his counterpart's awkward flirting (if you can call it that). The two ubergeeks are very funny and quite touching thanks to excellent comic performances from Fran Kranz and Summer Glau. If she weren't a psychopath we've just seen torturing Echo and he weren't on an undercover mission to subvert her work then they might be the perfect couple. So inexperienced, and rubbish, are they at the dating game that their efforts are an exquisite joy of embarrassment from start to finish. Then there's Topher's relationship with himself. Victor is imprinted with Topher's personality and the interaction between the two of them is very well written and very funny, mainly thanks to Enver Gjokaj who gives a startlingly accurate impersonation of Fran Kranz in character. The plot twists and turns and by the end you're not sure who has done what to whom, but subsequent episodes will surely sort all that out. The hints of the backstory between Echo and her torturer also promise a tale that we need to hear the telling of. The Left Hand continues the rise in quality of recent episodes and shows what the show is capable of whilst hinting at other good things to come. Written by Tracy BellomoDirected by Wendey Stanzler Top Meet Jane DoeEcho has been out of the Dollhouse in her doll state for three months and in that time a lot has happened. Adelle has lost control of the house, Topher has been given huge resources to create more advanced technology and Paul Ballard has tracked down Echo and is helping her to right a wrong that she committed in the early days. Meet Jane Doe audaciously welds together a story of the week involving Echo breaking out a woman from prison that she accidentally got put in there in her early days out of the house with events inside the Dollhouse that move the show mythology in a significant and new direction. Unsurprisingly, it is the internal stuff that is far more interesting than the jailbreak scenario, even with the added frisson of Echo being able to access her other personalities at will, but not without cost to herself. It is shocking to see Adelle turned from the all powerful head of the house into a downtrodden menial, all the more so because it is lost in the '3 months later'dissolve so that we never see it happen. This being Adelle, of course, you know that this is not a situation that she is going to allow to last. Her return to grace, however, is perhaps even more shocking than her fall from it was. Topher's invention moves the show towards the apocalyptic events of Season 1 finale Epitaph 1 and all the intriguing twists and turns that are going to lie between now and then. There are questions raised here to be answered and we can't wait to find out what happens next. Written by Maurissa Tancharoen Whedon & Jed Whedon & Andrew ChamblissDirected by Dwight Little Top A Love SupremeAlpha sets about killing off the assignmentst that Echo had that were about love. Not sex, but love. Whilst Adelle orders the last remaining candidate taken into protective custody inside the Dollhouse, Alpha proves just how easy it is for him to break that security and deal a wicked blow to the woman who still obssesses him. Welcome back Alan Tudyk's Alpha, all rage and tics and smart dialogue well delivered. His plan is a little less believable this time around (real security would have shot him dead instantly, hostage or no), but no less inventive (turning the actives) and with a brutal sting in the tale even if it's not one that he planned. Even so, it's hard to believe that one man can defeat all the resources of the house, however bright he may be, but the story moves along at such a pace that you barely have time to think about the plot holes and just get carried along with it. Written by Jenny De ArmittDirected by David Straiton Top Stop-LossVictor's contract comes to an end just as he is exhibiting signs that his relationship with Sierra is overriding his imprinting. Out in the real world, he is kidnapped and used in a Rossum military project using Dollhouse technology to create soldiers who can operate with a hive mind, increasing their capabilities. Echo decides to go after him. DOLLHOUSE is really on song at the moment. This episode provides an exciting standalone storyline about Victor's kidnapping and rescue as well as moving along the mythology of the show as a whole. Echo is now fully in command of her imprints and uses them in a clever way by entering the hive mind and battling the military machine from within as well as beating the hell out of them physically. As for the plot arc, Adelle is coming apart at the seams and her lapse into weakness transforms her into an emotionless, cold and vicious woman who clearly has become the enemy. This involves a great performance from Olivia Williams who has made the rather sketchy caricature of the hard-on-the-surface-but-vulnerable-underneath into a more compelling and thoroughly dislikeable villain. The episode also ends at a point that makes it almost impossible to miss the next episode to find out what happens. This is DOLLHOUSE in full flow and showing what it can achieve. Written by Andrew ChamblissDirected by Felix Enriquez Alcalá Top The AtticEcho, Victor and Sierra have all been placed in the Attic, a place where they are forced to live out their worst nightmares over and over again, but the Attic is much more than that. It is a place where supposedly redundant human brains are linked together to provide Rossum with an organic mainframe computer of astonishing power. Jumping from mind to mind, Echo tries to find her friends and encounters two men who have their own aims within the Attic, one to help and one to kill. OK, there is so much going on here that it pays to give it your full attention. There are the initial surprises of the Attic, although it is always evident that Echo is in a virtual reality inside her own head and so the deaths are less effective than they might have been. This leads to some bizarre imagery that is striking and then information download on the Rossum mainframe that is clearly going to inform the final few episodes of this season. There is the return of old characters, there are changes in motivations of characters, there are characters coming back from brain death and there are scenes of Iraq conflict and the end of civilisation as we know it to get through as well. All this means that there is little time for character development, just the setting up of the plot for the remainder of the season, but even if it's an empty thrill ride, it's still a thrilling one. Written by Maurissa Tancharoen Whedon & Jed WhedonDirected by John Cassaday Top Getting CloserThere is now a plan of action against Rossum and it all hinges on getting the original personality of Caroline back inside Echo's head. Since her data wedge was destroyed by Alpha, Topher needs the help of his fellow programmer Bennett, but there are forces ranged against the Dollhouse revolutionaries that are quite formidable and not everyone is quite what they appear to be. DOLLHOUSE is a show about identity, so it's no surprise that not all the characters are quite as presented, but the shocks of who is really who and who is on the side of the angels are really well handled, actually coming as shocks. There are also twists in the plot that really do surprise. This is smart, tight and exciting television writing, the plot now a bulldozer that is out of control and running headlong over any character who attempts to get in the way. The writing team, though, know better than to have only plot and the characters all have moments, some dramatic, some tender, some funny and some utterly devastating. Nobody is coming out of this one unchanged and some won't be coming out at all. It's welcome back to Amy Acker as Doctor Saunders and Summer Glau as Bennet, Topher's attractive rival programmer and now that the gang's all here the gloves are off and DOLLHOUSE is showing just what it is capable of. Written by Tim MinearDirected by Tim Minear Top The Hollow MenFollowing the assault on the LA Dollhouse, Adelle takes her team to Rossum's headquarters in Tucson and walks through the front door. The plan, once on the inside, is to do that maximum damage, but they has not counted on the Founder, whose identity is still not known to most of them, getting in their way. There is an awful lot of this episode that makes no sense at all, most of it the reaction of Rossum to events taking place, but the action is so swift, the constant twists and double crosses so relentless that there isn't time enough for that to matter. This isn't about the characters anymore, this is about the machinations of the plot and the threads coming together in a way that everyone gets to play their parts in it. It is pleasing that everything comes together so well. It's switch your brain off and just go with it because it's one hell of a rollercoaster ride. Written by Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters & Tracy BellomoDirected by Terrence O'Hara Top Epitaph 2It's 2020 and what remains of Rossum rules over a shattered world. Those few that have not been imprinted by the out of control technology have been turned into rampaging zombie types. A small group of survivors, headed by Echo and protected by their own technology manages to rescue Topher from the Rossum HQ and learn that he might be the key to bringing everyone back. This is a direct sequel to the Season 1 finale Epitaph 1 and it creates a lot of storylines that it then has to tie up in the length of one episode. There's the change in relationship between Viktor and Sierra, Topher's downfall and potential redemption, Adelle's maternal feelings for the genius that she misused and Echo's need to lead and failure to connect. Oh, and a surprise visit from Alpha. That's a lot of loose ends to tie up in one show and if you factor in the saving of the entire human race, well it proves to be too much. It's all very slick and occasionally surprising, but the ending is a bit too pat. The fact that even at this late stage the show is capable of losing major characters for the sake of the story is admirable, but the idea that the mindwiped masses could be returned to their original personalities would suggest that those personalities were there all the time, something that goes against the whole premise of the show from the start. This is the last episode of DOLLHOUSE and, knowing that this is it gives the makers a chance to craft a real ending to the story, to create closure for everyone and that's a rare thing. Written by Andrew Chambliss & Maurissa Tancharoen Whedon & Jed WhedonDirected by David Solomon Top |
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