Fall of the Dollhouse of Whedon . . . Or, When Good SciFi Goes Bad

By Steven McLain

"Dollhouse" was a television show created by Joss Whedon that aired between February 2009 until November 2009.  It starred Eliza Dushku as Echo, a woman who had sold her body on a five-year contract; the catch was that she had literally sold only her body.  Her memories, her personality, her soul, were not part of the deal.  To achieve this, a shadowy corporation wiped her mind and imprinted her with new memories, new personalities, whole new identities.  These were the women being sold.  Each week, we're introduced to brand-new characters playing the role of protagonist.  They simply happen to share the same face.

When "Dollhouse" first aired, I was not particularly excited about it.  The premise seemed odd and I wasn't really drawn to the stories.  Since then, it suffered two half-seasons and early cancellation.  Most people, it seems, shared my ambivalence.  Since then, it came on Netflix so I decided I'd give it a shot.  At the very least, it would help distract me from finals.

First episode actually seemed kind of interesting.  Presented with a glimpse of Caroline, the woman who would become Echo, the audience is teased with the prospect that we might actually get to know her backstory and motivation.  Adding to this, is the hint of ominous undercurrents as a new handler for Echo is brought in, and we witness teasing glimpses of carnage in the Dollhouse.  Adding to the suspense is the teasing mention of Alpha, a doll who underwent some sort of compilation event, and is now homicidal and at large.  On top of all that is the plucky FBI agent desperately searching for the Dollhouse even after he's been assured by the higher-ups that it doesn't exist.  All the bits are there for interesting television but it quickly becomes apparent that all that teasing in the beginning was just that.

The storytelling is inept, at best.  Characters change every week as part of the underlying conceit, so viewers are left desperate for some touchstone--something to care about.  The people we're left with are Echo's handler, the FBI agent, the socially awkward geek who programs the dolls every week, and the repressed and repressive woman sitting at the top.  None of these characters are particularly engaging, and none of them are sympathetic.  Shallow at best, venal at worst, we simply don't want to sit through forty minutes watching them try to clean up their messes.

Because, at the end of the day, "Dollhouse" should be about the moral implications of stripping a human being of their memories and replacing them with entirely new ones.  One could argue (and the show does badly) that these people have volunteered to have their minds taken from them and, in effect, are not slaves.  The point is raised often in the show that these "dolls" are little more than slaves, but it misses the key distinction; slaves know that they are enslaved.  The men and women in the Dollhouse do not.  That subtle distinction could have opened whole avenues of storytelling possibility as the moral implications were developed.

Furthermore, by stripping their identities entirely between characters, the writers of the show omitted necessary dramatic conflict.  Imprinting new identities is fine, we've seen something similar in The Matrix, but not giving the audience something to care about is just lazy and ultimately self-defeatist, as the cancellation demonstrated.  Ultimately, these flaws are what killed the show.  The plot itself was shallow to the point of nonexistent.  Except for FBI guy (who eventually comes to work for the Dollhouse) no one challenges the organization; the lack of antagonist is indicative of the underlying flaw in the show and should have alerted producers early on.

There's some interesting movement toward the end of the first season toward addressing many of the underlying moral implications of memory-wiping technology.  Jumping ahead ten years in the season finales of seasons one and two (calling them epitaphs), the show looks at a world reeling from the weaponization of Dollhouse tech; it's a post-Apocalyptic world with the slogan "Ditch the Tech."  It is a world in which anyone can be wiped at anytime via phone, radio, or television.

Hints of this world are built into the first season; in one episode, a recently deceased woman who had rigorously uploaded her memories gets the opportunity to inhabit a new body and experience her own funeral (and discover her murderer).  In an early episode, we saw the unregulated dissemination of Dollhouse tech could drive a college campus to the brink of madness.  So kudos for foreshadowing their own season finale.  Perhaps it was a hint of where the show was ultimately heading.  Once more, however, the writers teased too much; faceless corporations do not make for good villains. 

Ultimately, the writers and producers copped out of good story-telling and presented something stale and boring.  It deserved to be cancelled, and I would not recommend this show to anyone.