Dollhouse

Dollhouse: The Best and Worst Doll Personalities

Most shows have the benefit of following the same characters in every episode, so their audiences at least know what to expect from week to week. Not so with Dollhouse. Each week, most of the show’s stars play completely different people, depending on what personality they’ve been imprinted with for that episode’s assignment. If it’s a good imprint, it can make for a great episode, but if not, the whole show can suffer. We looked back at the first season and a half of Dollhouse to call out the imprints that kicked ass and the ones that fell flat.

Best: Hostage Negotiator (Echo)

In the very first episode, Echo was imprinted with a hard-nosed kidnapping negotiator... who also had asthma and was nearsighted. Oh, and the negotiator was also a kidnap victim herself, who later committed suicide, and she was kidnapped and almost killed by none other than the kidnapper she’s dealing with in this episode. While all of this makes her an incredibly flawed imprint, it actually makes her a pretty interesting character, and after getting yanked off of the case, she still manages to pull herself together enough to turn all of the kidnappers against each other, and Sierra comes in at the end to tie up all the loose ends. With bullets. (Episode: "Ghost")

Worst: Dead Horse Lady (Echo)

"Hey, I’ve got an idea! To make the show more engaging and interesting to a younger audience, let’s have our sexy lead play a stuffy old lady for an hour! She can drink fine wines and say delightfully droll things, and she can try to solve her own murder, like Angela Lansbury! Kids like Angela Lansbury, right? And horses?" ("Haunted")

Best: Serial Killer (Victor)

When you’ve got a serial killer who’s been hit by a car, and he’s got a whole bunch of women held prisoner somewhere, but he won’t wake up and tell you where they are, you need access to his brain, stat. So, naturally, you put it into a young, healthy male body, and you don’t handcuff him or lock the door to the room he was in or anything. Victor is arch, cold and calculating as the lunatic, from the minute he wakes up and realizes where he is to the moment he slams his own uncle’s head into the steering wheel while the man’s driving. Victor isn’t the killer for long, but it’s long enough to show how awesome— er, horrible he is. ("Belle Chose")

Worst: Geek Playdate (Sierra)

Topher is okay in small doses, but too much can be annoying. So the decision to create a second Topher for an episode may have been a bit rash. Sierra’s imprint is basically a female Topher, who’s into video games and playing laser tag and all of the stuff Topher is into, because Topher is apparently 13 years old. We get that Topher needs to program himself a friend on his birthday, because he can’t make any himself, but do we need to watch it? ("Haunted")

Best: College Co-Ed (Victor)

Remote wipes are scary. Once, Alpha erased Echo’s imprint when she was in the middle of an art heist, and things went bad quickly. But when Victor goes off the grid with a serial killer’s brain, it’s the Dollhouse’s only option. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work, and Victor only swaps personalities with Echo, turning into a flirty co-ed named Kiki who tears up the dance floor with his/her stripper moves and makes eyes at the boys until they attempt to kick his ass — unsuccessfully. Echo’s Kiki was cute, but Victor’s Kiki is fabulous. ("Belle Chose")

Worst: Lactating Mom (Echo)

If we wanted to watch a Lifetime movie of the week, we’d look up what channel Lifetime is and watch one. (Just kidding — we know what channel Lifetime is. They have Runway now!) So when we realized that Echo had been glandularly altered to breast-feed a baby, grow jealous of the dead wife she had replaced and flee because she thought her baby was in danger, we sat back and waited for the dramatic standoff with a knife. Aaaaaand there it is. ("Instinct")

Best: Dr. Saunders (Whiskey)

We loved Dr. Saunders from the beginning, before we even knew that it was an imprint, before we found out the real Saunders had been killed by Alpha and Whiskey had been given his memories and skills. Her moral objections to many of the Dollhouse’s practices, her occasional dislike of Topher (us, too!) and the shame she showed whenever anyone mentioned her scars all added up to a great character. And now that she’s gone crazy and AWOL, we can’t wait to see her come back. ("Needs")

Worst: Desperate Overbaker (November)

We kind of like November when she has her real personality, and when she’s a stone-cold sleeper killer, but her "desperate homebody" persona is a little off-putting. Starting in Episode 1, her programming had her practically throwing herself at Agent Ballard, waiting for him to come home with an "extra" pan of lasagna. Show some pride, woman! If he can’t see what he’s got across the hall, he doesn’t deserve you. Or rather, he doesn’t deserve to be romanced for information by you. ("The Target")

Best: Natural Born Killers (Alpha & Whiskey/Echo)

We still aren’t quite sure why anyone would hire two actives to play a pair of Southern wild cards straight out of Natural Born Killers, so we’re not surprised that the plan went south, and a crazed Alpha and Whiskey tied the client to a chair and tortured him. They also made out pretty much on top of him, but that doesn’t make it right. (Echo would take over the imprint when Alpha returned.) ("Omega")

Worst: Blind Undercover Cultist (Echo)

We have nothing against the blind. Or cultists, for that matter. But if you’re going to send an active to infiltrate a cult and transmit back images, why make that active blind for real, courtesy of more Topher tampering? Yes, it may have put Echo above suspicion, but it also made her a total liability that needed to be rescued. Also, how did she know where to look to make sure the right images were being sent back? Couldn’t they have just made her extremely nearsighted? ("True Believer")