Eliza Dushku

(S01E10) My first thoughts upon watching the beginning of tonight’s episode: that teaser segment was quick. It seemed to go right into the opening credits.

This episode focused on a lot of the moral implications of the technology to copy personalities. This is the sort of philosophical story that Joss and company excel at.

I suppose it would be hypocritical of Adelle to not permit Topher to program a "gaming buddy" once a year on his birthday, particularly considering her own personal use of the Actives in previous episodes. It does strike me as odd that Topher wouldn’t at least want to have sex with such an obviously compatible female. Perhaps Topher, despite his genius, is emotionally stunted to an age where sex doesn’t matter to him.

The identity that Topher programmed into Sierra was kept somewhat vague, but I have a theory: Topher copied his own personality into her. It just happened to be Sierra, but an Active would have done. Gender was irrelevant in this case. I’ll bet Topher was lonely growing up and couldn’t relate to anybody except himself.

Of course, then we have the main story of Adelle’s dead friend Margaret using the Dollhouse to extend her own life after death by putting her personality into Echo’s body. We did get a little background information of how the Dollhouse collects their personalities for use (I believe it was a year and a half of powerful, painful brain scans). We also learn that when a personality is copied, it also copies the handwriting (although I think Topher touched on that in a previous episode).

Either of these scenarios open up a world of possible storytelling. I envision some overbearing mother copying her personality into a mate for her son. Or some ruthless, wealthy dictator using an endless supply of bodies to obtain immortality. Or some psychopath could create an infinite number of copies of him/herself. Thank goodness the Dolhouse practices some degree of morality.

I’m surprised that the Actives aren’t tagged with some sort of subcutaneous tracker. That would certainly have prevented Margaret from skipping the country in Echo’s body.

And then we have Ballard, who is starting to understand the powerful attraction of an institution like the Dollhouse. I’m still not sure if he’s Alpha, but we’ll find out next week. It’s either him or Alan Tudyk. Here’s how my brain works: when Ballard and November starting getting it on, I was wondering if they were just going to leave those candles as they were to potentially fall over and burn the apartment down.

The mystery that served as the main story seemed kind of obvious to me. I called the son as the killer shortly after he was first introduced. It was further confirmed to me once he mentioned his gambling debts (there’s a motive). I think it was the interaction of the deceased (using Echo’s body) with her family that made for good storytelling.

The family itself even acted like the stereotypical television wealthy family. You had the artsy one, the drunk one, the cold one, and the one with gambling debt.

After tonight’s interesting episode, I think it would be a crime to cancel this series and not let Joss and company further explore these concepts. Come on, Fox. Cut this show a break.