TV-Reviewed

Dollhouse all season has been an up and down show. Sometimes it had quality episodes and other times it was boring. I would have to say less than fewer of its episodes were entertaining.  The characters of Boyd, Paul, and Topher made the show watchable at times.  Topher was the comic relief. He was always able to make the most serious situation seem funny. Boyd added the seriousness of the show with his facial expressions. For what should have been a boring character, Harry Loyd brought life to him. No matter how flat his facial expressions were, you could tell he cared for Echo. Eliza Dushku is always watchable even when her acting isn’t. She should stick to comedies and playing the bad girl.  Overall, Dollhouse seems like a show that should have been made into a 2 1/2 hour movie. Maybe the second season will be it’s last if there is one.

Fran Kranz as Topher

The episode picks up with Echo acting like an uneducated school girl. Alpha is having some trouble keeping his personalities in tact. During the episode we find out that there was a malfunction with Topher’s machine that made him insane. One of Alpha’s old assignments reminded him of his former self. It didn’t help matters that echo looked like one of the victims. This explained why Alpha was so obsessed with her. He wanted to finish killing her. Instead of doing the deed, he wanted her to be his girlfriend. He kidnapped a girl named Wendy and puts Caroline into her body. He believes if he does the same thing to Echo that happened to him that they could be together forever.  Once the procedure takes place, he realized it was a big mistake.

Echo turns on him and starts to kick his rear end. She explains to him that she understands and that he is crazy to think that she would kill herself. Too much talking was exchanged between Echo and the girl and unfortunately Alpha did the job for her. He shoots the girl in the neck and runs of all of echo’s personalities.  She runs after him and does a pretty good job keeping up. She manages to save her memories with the help of Paul. Echo is returned home and is back to her usually self. Don’t worry about Paul though, it was part of his deal.

Paul joined the dollhouse and is now one of their agents, freelance of course. He teamed up with Paul to track down Alpha. He also had Sierra and Mellie help out. After he rescued Echo he managed to get Mellie free of her contract. It was a sweet thing for him to do and quite a surprise. They didn’t manage to catch Alpha but now have some idea of how to stop him. This show also gave us some interesting flashbacks. The surprise of the night was when we found out that Dr. Saunders was once a doll. A naughty doll at that. She was Alpha’s main squeeze before he went nutty for Echo.  They made her into a nurse to cover up their own mistake. She does find out by episodes end and has some questions for Topher. Why did he make her hate him so much?

This episode was a good way to end the season.  We were able to find out Alpha’s past. Paul finally found his girl and became part of the mystery. Dr. Saunders got some depth to her and Echo evolved.  If there is a next season i hope that we get more of Dr. Saunders and her story. It could make for some good tv. I would love to see more of Topher and Sierra together again. They make a cute couple. Season 2 should be better if there is one!

Rating: 7.0