What would you pay for a person who could be absolutely anything you wanted him or her to be, a person who could be programmed to do anything you wanted, an individual whose memories of everything they did would then be erased forever? That is the premise behind Dollhouse, a show by Josh Whedon, the former creative genius behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. It stars Eliza Dushku, formerly the star of Tru Calling. In this show she plays Echo, who in an attempt to escape her past agrees to have her true memory and identity erased, thus becoming the “Active” who is the central character of the show.
The Dollhouse, as it is known, is illegal, to say nothing of unethical, and a doggedly determined FBI agent is determined to find it and shut it down. First, he has to prove its existence to his skeptical and even derisive fellow agents.
Sure, the program has its obvious flaws. For example, anyone with the money can hire an Active to perform any task they want or need. The flaw here is, how many people who could afford such a high fee could also be trusted to keep the details of the operation secret? It seems to me that it would be better to hide the true nature of the Dollhouse from the clients. All they need to know is these people can perform the needed tasks beyond any ordinarily reasonable expectations. On the other hand, many of the tasks involved are illegal to begin with.
The procedure is fraught with danger. The various personalities grafted onto the Actives are real ones, and along with their talents, they are also replete with their own sets of weaknesses. Unfortunately, there is a rogue Active on the loose, one inadvertently imprinted with the memories and personality of a murderous maniac. After wreaking havoc on the operation, murdering all the then current Actives with the exception of Echo, whom he spared for some unknown reason, he then escaped. He is still on the loose, awaiting the opportunity to strike.
It’s hard to explain my liking for this show, other than I can see where it has potential to be something really special and exciting, providing it lasts long enough to develop its potential.
Eliza Dushku is delicious in the role of Echo, whose true identity and motivations are unknown as of now, though she seems to retain some slight trace of her original personality which manifests in flashbacks during periods of unexpected stress when certain projects start to go wrong. As the Dollhouse is under assault from two different fronts, from the rogue Active as well as from the one lone FBI agent determined to shut down the operation, we can expect these moments of unexpected duress to come with some degree of frequency.
As an aside to those of you-well, both of you-who read my novel Radu, which I still hope to have published and eventually become a screenplay or a mini-series, I think I’ve found my Grace Rodescu. Eliza is certainly in the top ten of my picks to play the character on screen.
I’ll say no more for now, as words can really not do it justice anyway. Watch the video I’ve provided at the beginning of the post. If it succeeds in whetting your appetite, the Dollhouse is on Friday nights at nine.
4 comments:
I saw her in a movie called Nobel Son. It was a horrible movie. I liked her in Bring It On.
She is Albanian.
I would like to see her doing an eastern European character, complete with accent. It should be a natural for her. I think she was born here. She was a child actress.
I'm thinking she is retaining bits of the personalities she is imprinted with, too.
My only complaint is that it is moving a little too fast That's probably because Fox yanked Firefly so quick.
Anyway, here's hoping the handler dude is also an "active".
I think the future of the show is going to be the layers of the company behind the Dollhouse (which will explain why none of the customers blab about it)
It could possibly turn out to be some project overseen in part by a government cabal, just to see how well the technology works in the long run, to see if the Actives can be utilized by them and to what extent. But it probably will be some giant conglomerate company that has invested in the technology working hand in hand with them.
Fox is a strange company. They have some of the best shows in television, their production values are far and away superior to most other networks, and yet they seem to have this thing for screwing up a good thing.
They ruined Firefly by showing episodes out of sequence. It's almost like they have certain individuals determined to sabotage programs they don't like-or maybe they just had it in for Joss Whedon for some reason. This show has been re-tooled and revamped a couple of times before it was finally put on Friday night, typically the place tv shows go to die.
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