TV-Reviewed

Joss Whedon has created many unique shows. Some were successful and others weren’t. Firefly was a decent show at best but it proved to be a better movie than a TV show. On the other hand, Buffy The Vampire Slayer proved to be a better TV show than a movie. Angel made itself a cult following but not enough to ink a movie deal. At least its comics are selling. The big question now is can Dollhouse capture the same fame or following that Whedon’s last shows did.

This show opened with excitement. It begins with a good old fashioned bike race. They ride through streets like a scene out of The Fast and the Furious. Their destination, you ask? To Echo’s boyfriend party. These two seem to live an adventurous life. Too bad it was all a fake.

Echo, played by Eliza Dushku, is part of an unique experiment.  An organization that can wipe your personality and give you new ones. The process is quite tricky. All they have to do is wipe out your memory completely and give you different ones. Your new personality will be a combination of many others that have passed or no longer in need of them. Quite unique right. That is until something goes wrong.

Once they implant you with a new personality, they send you on missions called engagements. Their purpose is to help people when they are in need. It could be anything from a good date to saving people’s lives. A very powerful man’s daughter is kidnapped and held for ransom. Echo is given a personality to help him find the kidnappers.  They didn’t get off on the right foot due to trust issues. He didn’t like the way she was talking to the kidnappers and thought she would get his daughter killed. She tried to reassure him that she knew what she was doing. He was so concerned about his daughter’s well being he almost let the cat out of the bag. He dropped clues to let her know that she was an experiment and not the real thing. He came close to succeeding when she briefly remembered an incident at the lab.

Echo (Eliza Dushku, R), Gabriel Crestejo (Kurt Caceres, L)

Once she convinced the kidnappers to do things her way, she arranged a meeting place to exchange their gifts. Everything was going well until she remembered that one of the kidnappers used to be one of her own. She went into an asthma attack and the mission was almost blown. The organization did not know that they gave her a memory as being a victim to one of the kidnappers. Because of this the exchange went bad, he father ended up shot and one of the kidnappers ended up dead. They were ready to pull the plug when Boyd, played by Harry Lennix, convinced them not to. He knew that she was the only one who could help find the girl after the other kidnappers escaped.

Given the second chance, Echo was ready to conquer her fears. She went to the house was able to keep it together. She talked down the other kidnappers and was able to find the girl but not before a few shots rang off. The last remaining kidnapper was going to let her go scott free when another experiment busted through the door and starting cleaning house. This was a clean job so the organization wouldn’t get exposed. Smart move but it was a little to late.

There was a second storyline being told when all of this was going down.  A cop by the name of Paul, played by Tahmoh Penikett, is looking for the dollhouse. He believes this place needs to be shut down because it is inhuman. No one believes him though. He has no other choice but to investigate on his own. In this episode he took a good step forward by bullying one of the housemates. If he keeps this up then he should find out the truth soon enough. Something tells me, however, that his time may be occupied finding a killer than the dollhouse.

I have to admit that this show is promising. Eliza Dushku is very attractive and is presented in the very beginning. She plays her parts very well and makes it believable. I enjoyed the scene where Paul was getting a verbal beat-down by his superiors. During this scene they switched back and forth between what the superiors where saying and the metaphor that he was thinking. He was getting beat down by a big guy in a boxing ring. The superiors where suppose to be the big guy. I wonder if anyone else caught this metaphor? I loved how this show was directed and i can only say good things about it. I hope this show can get the following it needs to stay on the air. From the looks of things, it just might!

Rating: 7.0