Dollhouse

Episode one: Vows

After a storming end to the last season, with all the doors blown off ready for a change in format to come storming in, there was evidence in this first episode of a big picture plotline – but also the same old familiar work of keeping the Dollhouse in business. Because the LA Dollhouse is going to stay on top of those competitive human-imprint-provider rankings, right?

Echo’s big adventure of the week

This week, Echo got married. Not really of course, and not even in first-tier pretend. In fact, she was engaged (in a professional sense) as a secret undercover agent by Paul Ballard in order to catch a dreadful weapons trafficking type. Sadly, she got found out (and violently) as a double agent. And then – when a head injury caused all 38 other personalities to come bubbling up and bursting on to the surface of her pretty face – as something much more random than that.

Other happenings, inside the Dollhouse and out

Back at the Dollhouse, the gentle unfolding of anything that gives Amy Acker more to do can only be a good thing – so we come to a storyline concerning Dr Saunders/Whiskey’s difficulty in dealing with the realisation that not only is she an active pretending to be a doctor, but that she’s been given enough personality, feistiness and identity to question the ethics of the place, and the part she played in it. (Which was also, of course, tied in knots by her being a strong person who not only wasn’t feeling herself – but didn’t really exist.)

She tortured Topher for making her this way, she confided in Boyd, all while quietly, bitterly, playing out her role as doctor to the dolls … until, after telling Boyd she’d be to scared to leave the confines of the house, we saw her driving on the streets.

Once Caroline/Echo was back in the Dollhouse, Ballard, now moving into the role of Echo’s handler, apologised to her – in Doll-state – for not getting her out when he could. And suddenly, she slowly, deliberately, started recounting all the things she remembered and all the personalities she felt knocking around inside her. This bodes well – if not for the future of the Dollhouse professionally, then certainly for the future of Dollhouse, the series. The less Scooby Doo the better, I say (as ever).

Also building the big picture is the appearance of a senator; a bouffant-haired chap with nice suits by the name of Daniel Perrin – who seems to be going after the Dollhouse. I have the feeling we’ll be seeing more of him.

Notes and questions

How has Paul Ballard got the money to hire a doll? Particularly a long-term engagement? Is it a payment-in-kind in return for his silence, perhaps?

There’s something less childish about the way the dolls speak while in tabla rasa – they say the same kind of things, trusting people with their lives, pointing out obvious things such as "You’re touching my face" and "I like X" – but there’s something about their delivery that’s more controlled, somehow older than in the first season. Not just Echo, either. All of them.

Hits in the face for Echo

A record-exploding four smacks in the kisser. And a headbutt.

And for Ballard?

Three. At least.

Successful missions

Given the incompetence of the LA Dollhouse displayed in the first season, we’ll start a new count of successful missions.

0 for 1 after episode one. Episode two: Instinct

So episode one gave us a taste of the new Dollhouse, which turned out to be quite a lot like the old Dollhouse but with a couple of new characters, an agent-turned-handler and the revelation that Echo’s definitely carrying all her personalities at once.

Echo’s big adventure of the week

This week, Echo has had a baby! Except, of course, Echo has not had a baby. She has been imprinted to not only think she has had a baby, but to form a full motherly bond with it, in order to provide the motherly love a newborn needs, while the baby’s father gets over the death of his wife/the kid’s mother.

And does that all go swimmingly? No. Of course it bloody doesn’t. Turns out a mother’s love is a dangerous thing to replicate, and maternal feelings override the Doll programming. A baby-kidnapping and all manner of unpleasant shenanigans ensue.

Other happenings, inside the Dollhouse and out

Madeline, who was November, pretending for a while to be Mellie (ah, the naming conventions in these recaps just get more fun. You wait till we start dealing with all 38 – or is it 40 now? – of Echo’s personalities) came in for a check-up with Topher. She’s fine, apparently, we were all glad to hear.

When the wipe on Echo doesn’t work – because of the old maternal bond thing – during her big cry and a heart-to-heart in the park with Ballard, Echo rejected the idea of being properly wiped once more; "I’m awake now" she said "Feeling nothing would be worse".

And that created an interesting moment raising, once more, the questions of identity, the strength of instinct and the nature of self that are already starting to built more cohesion into this season. Granted, it’s coming after a ridiculous yummy mummy plot (Dushku can play all manner of kickass and several dozen shades of sexy – but thoughtful and tender are still two emotions she struggles to carry off) but it was all the better for that.

Senator Perrin appears to be getting closer to the truth. You can tell this, because he’s been saying everything in a Very Dramatic Tone of Voice with one eyebrow up. And after last episode’s very involving Dr Whiskey Saunders plotline that ended in her seen driving away from the Dollhouse, there was no sign of her this week at all. Crikey, someone that unhappy with the Dollhouse loose in the wild with that much inside information? You’d think they might like to find her.

Notes and questions

Echo might be more evolved in this state, more interesting and more human: but if she keeps royally screwing up engagements, shooting people, and kidnapping babies, surely someone in power at the Dollhouse would consider shutting her down?

Mellie, or November, or Madeline, as she is now that she’s been released from her contract, is remarkably posh. I know she’s got a lot of money now – as her Dollhouse payoff – but it felt clunky. She even had posh hair.

Successful missions

0 for 2.