Dollhouse

’Dollhouse’ review: Briar Rose demolishes that pop star episode

Here’s where the Dollhouse technology would really be useful — wipe everyone’s memories of the shaky beginning of "Dollhouse" and put that pop star "Stage Fright" episode in the attic, and instead just relish in what’s been some really strong episodes in the last few weeks. "Briar Rose" was great. "Dollhouse" is still the weakest of all of Joss Whedon’s shows, but this was a stellar episode.

Seeing Alan Tudyk is wonderful enough, eating up every hammy, hilarious moment of his appearance was even better. A big part of the heart and humor on "Firefly" as the amiable, witty Wash, here he was in high form. (Tudyk must have been thrilled to get to play action guy instead of watch the action guy.) And then, it turns out he’s Alpha. It became pretty obvious "Stephen Kepler" wasn’t who he said he was when Tudyk swapped clothes and showed that under that serape, he was seriously built. You don’t get buff if you’re a pot-smoking, Thai-food eating, agoraphobe.

"Briar Rose" started off strong enough just by having Echo take on a very sympathetic and interesting personality as a once damaged woman helping an abused girl. That then set up the kind of heavy-handed, but very appropriate, parallel theme of the Dollhouse with Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty.

The episode was twisty and action-packed, but it didn’t entirely skimp on character development. Sure, Topher likened helping people to pride, but he still thought to send a doll to do a good deed. And a couple of people who have been pretty much wallpaper lately — Claire Saunders and Lawrence Dominic (not that it’s his fault since he was sent to the attic) — were given something to do. It was a pretty cool scene with Dominic waking up to find himself in Victor’s body.

Then there were the show’s two resident good guys — Boyd and Ballard — duking it out. This episode actually delivered on a couple of the themes that "Dollhouse" has been trying to pull off all season. The first one is, are the dolls really worse off inside the Dollhouse? With the exception of Sierra, who was forced into the Dollhouse, and then exploited, some of the others have painful memories they might not mind hiding from. And, Boyd, who seems a fairly decent human being, doesn’t try to bust them out. At this point, he’s like a prison guard who’s got a few choice inmates who seem like they can turn their lives around when they get out. He’s not going to help them escape, but instead help them stay safe and keep their noses clean so they can be paroled. Except, the dolls haven’t really done much wrong.

The second has to do with the "cells in the body" mumbo-jumbo Alpha was muttering on about. (The switch from twitchy, reluctant environmentalist to steely-eyed killer was handled nicely by Tudyk.) It turns out, Alpha wasn’t really after Caroline, but after his "Natural Born Killers" sidekick girlfriend. After implanting Echo with his girlfriend’s memories, he takes off. So who is the girl — was she a doll who was sent to the attic or was she killed? It’s unlikely anyone had a use for the memory of a butchering Bonnie. And why did he pick Caroline? Just attraction? But what the situation brought out was the idea that at least to Alpha, the body doesn’t matter, just whatever was burned onto the hard drive.

Echo/Caroline though has proven one of the exceptions. She’s had flashes of her real self when she shouldn’t have. In the look at next week, though, Alpha is trying to erase all her personalities, both borrowed and the real one. He then showed them off by transplanting them in the girl (Ashley Johnson) who to me will always be Chrissy Seaver, the youngest kid on "Growing Pains."

There was a lot of speculation that Ballard would turn out to be Alpha. I never really thought that if only because "Dollhouse" needs one character who is not morally ambiguous. It was very satisfying to see all of Ballard’s tail-chasing pay off when he got to enter the Dollhouse. Ballard, though, isn’t perfect. Echo wasn’t exactly receptive of her Prince Charming coming to her rescue, and Ballard left Mellie hanging. OK, so his argument made some sense that since Mellie’s been programmed to turn assassin at the drop of a green vase, she’s not safe to be around, but Echo has now kicked his ass twice.

Great, great episode. It answered a lot of questions, and was funny, exciting and had some nice twists. The only worry is that maybe it answered too many questions. Fingers crossed that "Dollhouse" gets picked up for next season, but where can it go from here? Can it survive if Echo makes it to the outside? And on the flip side, can you put Echo back in the box after this? There are some possibilities for where it can go, and for evidence that a show can successfully move on after dismantling most of what it was all about, there’s always mid-season of Season 2 of "Alias." That’s where the entire plot structure (and the SD6 organization) was dismantled. "Alias" moved on, and it would be great to see where "Dollhouse" can go after the season finale.

A few more thoughts:

— Best lines: (all from Tudyk) "They’re medicinal carrots." "They’ve got feng shui up the ying-yang." "My arms are chilly."

— At first it seemed there was going to be some lazy exposition coming when Alpha asked Dr. Saunders, "tell me about the first time you met me," but luckily they backed away from that one.

— On the May 8 season finale, "Omega," Alpha’s reign of terror continues as his obsession with Echo endangers Caroline’s survival; Ballard must make a life-changing decision; and one Doll is permanently deactivated while another’s surprising past is revealed.

— I’ll be calling into a conference call Monday with Alan Tudyk. If you’ve got questions, send them my way.