Echo has spent the perfect dirty weekend with a young man who she really believes could be the one. But when the night is done, she walks into a waiting van and is transported back to the luxury home she shares with others of her kind – and her mind is completely wiped of any memory of the incident. She’s an elaborate ‘doll’ – hired for the weekend to be the perfect fun no-strings companion. She is unaware of her role in life, for when she is cleansed, she becomes docile, with no realization of her existence outside the moment. But when she is pressed into action again, her personality will be replaced with the fully formed memories and life experiences of another – of any other – person.
The dolls are not just escorts, however. When a man’s daughter is kidnapped, Echo is sent into action again, this time as an experienced hostage negotiator. She’s polished as usual; but something is going wrong. Leaks are beginning to appear in her memory. She is started to remember incidents that happened when she was in a wiped state, sparked by her stumbling onto a new doll receiving her painful initial treatment.
The hostage exchange goes wrong. The kidnappers shoot the father and take off with the girl. Echo knows why; she was implanted with the memories of a woman who was abducted and abused as a young girl, and one of these abductors is that man.
When the exchange goes wrong, she is pulled out for her ‘treatment’, but her handler, Boyd Langton, manages to convince Ms DeWitt that even though they may no longer have a client, they need to save the girl.
Echo finds the men and the girl, and by exposing the child abuser’s plan to kill the other two men, is able to rescue the girl.
The episode ends as we see unexplained footage of a young man who appears to have broken into Echo’s parent’s home and murdered them. He sits on the table, shirtless and cross-legged, watching a college video of Echo. We never see his face.
Oh, yes…to complicate matters even more, FBI Agent Ballard is convinced that the clandestine and rumored dollhouse does exist, and he is pursuing every angle – including threatening an infamous Russian people-smuggling gang.
Comments
Joss Whedon has done it again! This polished production combines pure fantasy with police/crime themes. The concept of the show is a bit hard to explain fully in a blurb, but that is because it is wonderfully ‘open’, with almost limitless ability to combine fantasy and reality in countless combinations. A five year run is already planned; hopefully, the viewer numbers will be strong.
Whedon also plans to release one webisode for each aired episode, so stay tuned for information and reviews of those as they happen.
Firefly fans are aware that when Firefly originally aired on Fox, it was mis-handled and shuffled so that episodes were shown out of order. It has been reported that the same happened with Dollhouse. However, Joss Whedon has stated that the decision to change the first episode from Echo to Ghost was solely his decision based on initial viewer feedback
This Fox show (along with Fringe) are shown with reduced commercial interruptions, and so run about 49 minutes instead of the normal 42 or so minutes.
Quotable Quotes
Matt: I know at the beginning of the weekend, we said ‘no strings’.
Echo: We also said ‘no ropes’, and look how long that lasted.
Echo: Something fell on me.
Topher: I bet it was something great!
"You see someone running incredibly fast, the first thing you are going to ask is are they running to something or are they running from something? The answer is always both."
- Topher
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