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Dollhouse: ~ Ghost

“Ever try and clean an actual slate? You always see what was on it before.”

After a five year hiatus from television, Joss Whedon has returned, re-uniting with some familiar faces to create his new world. This project, which stars Eliza Dushku as the main doll, focuses on a secret organization that allows people with needs and money to access their every desire. You need a date for the weekend? This organization will make you the most compatible date you have ever had. You need a negotiator to help you get through something that doesn’t take risks and gets the job done? They can oblige. You need a Rambo to clean up a mess? We can do that. Hell for the right price, they can have someone watch the paint dry on a wall. In this world that Joss has created, the Dollhouse organization seems to be doing some good, but at the same time you can already see that they only care about the bottom line and not being discovered. Because let’s all be honest–if caught even with the records to show they have actually done good things–the things they have done to the dolls is just down right unforgivable. It’s even mentioned in the pilot that one FBI agent consider each memory wiped to be the same as a single murder. They are basically destroying someone’s life with a click of a button.

There have been a lot of worries leading up to this show, due to FOX network’s past dealings with the creator. FOX seems to like to have control and not let the creator’s vision be seen with out a say. For this reason, a lot of Whedon fans have been hesitant to invest time into a show that could and very well still be canceled after 3 episodes. But worry not fans: this episode even after being reshot due to network issues still has a lot of the stuff we have grown to love from Whedon . There is vintage Whedon sprinkled in there, with lines like, “Had to get to her carriage before it turned into a pumpkin, stroke of midnight, end of the ball.” We see hints of what is (hopefully) to come for this show. Glimpses of the strong snappy writing we have grown to expect and love from this guy. I found it amusing (that makes me feel like a huge nerd) that we basically meet our lead in the same way we met her when she was back on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: dancing her ass off.

Dollhouse is going to live or die by the performance of our lead. Dushku was convincing and solid in her debut . She really sold her different identities, and actually had me already caring for her before the main credits hit. She nails empty well, which I think will be an important aspect of the show. When these “dolls” are cleaned they basically become empty shells. We as a viewer really need to believe this emptiness for this show to work. As for the supporting cast –they were ok, no one really stood out. But for a pilot, I think that’s ok because we want to get to know the lead of our show. Our supporting cast has a another Whedon alumni in Amy Acker–and its always nice to see the Whedon crowd getting work. Also included in the supporting cast is an actor that is currently working on one of my favorite currently running shows BSG, Tahmoh Penikett, who didn’t really have much screen time in this episode but seems to be setting himself up to be part of the big picture.

The episode itself wasn’t anything to write home about. It was set-up very episodic, but one can only assume that they played it relatively safe with the pilot to get viewers to come back next week. Whedon did add little hints of an overall arc structure , though, which I’m a huge fan of. The episode’s plot was basically a kidnapping with our heroine imprinted to be the negotiator for the money exchange to get the child back. The way an imprint works is the creator of it takes a punch of people’s lives and splices them together to make the perfect person for the assignment. Echo plays her part and does everything pretty much flawlessly, up until the actual exchange when her imprint’s past starts to effect her created life. Someone from her imprint had been abducted and tortured by one of the kidnappers, causing the whole deal to go south.

We then get a quick extraction of Echo, like she never was there. Clearly the people that run this thing only care about the bottom line because she is rushed to be cleaned so that no traces lead back to her. On her way back Echo or “Miss Penn” starts to put the whole thing together in her head on how to find the girl. But her bosses don’t care; they want to distance themselves from the foul-up. Only her handler is an ex-cop that seeks out justice and not just the bottom line. He delays them long enough to allow them to go after the girl. Whedon sets up an awesome sequence : Echo goes into the cleaning chair, and as the ex-cop finally convinces the other handlers that she can do her job–Echo comes out of the chair with that all-too-familiar empty stair. But it only lasts for a brief second as she is still “Miss Penn” and asks the cleaner for her glasses. Which leads me to an interesting sidebar in the attributes they can program into the dolls. The dolls can be perfect but the organization still seem to give their creations some sort of physical ailment. Echo is given glasses because “Miss Penn” is near-sided, and on top of that gives her asthma. These little things really intrigued me about this episode. I’m not quite sure how to explain it but it brings a real twist in a sense that even at their most perfect they can be grounded or be caught off guard by one of their imprints issues. Both ailments played right into the episode and Eliza played the part accordingly. The final set piece in this episode involves the handlers finding of the girl and the simultaneous exchange with the kidnappers and Echo. Followed by the entrance of another doll. The shot following the finding of the little girl was top-notch. Echo’s imprint “Miss Penn” finally gets closure. A The shot of “Miss Penn” bringing the little girl out of the house almost melts into the next scene of Echo walking out of the cleaning room with no memory of the event ever happening.

The show seems to have a solid foundation on which to build. Anyone that has ever watched a Whedon show knows the man knows how to get you attached to his characters and their world. I can’t wait to see what he has to offer in his next Dollhouse.