Dollhouse 1.02 "The Target"

[hazelk]

According to various reports this episode was the one that saved the show from being cancelled in mid-development hell. This was the show FOX wanted to make. See hot girl. See girl run. See girl fall. See girl hurt. See girl turn. See girl win. Wipe girl’s mind and rinse-wash-repeat. It’s the ultimate CSI SVU procedural with added soap opera catharsis, a demographic double.

It was slickly done. Much smoother than the pilot episode at integrating its flashbacks and exposition dumps into a single A plotline and giving a more rounded characterization of Langdon and Topher and their possible motivations. Ballard was written as a contender this time round and the security guy, Dominic, revealed as misogynist in chief. The women remained largely ciphers and, as in the kidnapping plot last week, evil was something that random psychopaths commit, no audience complicity outside that constituency implied.

The creepier sections of the show and the parts that give me hope that it’s aiming for more than FOX wants to give aren’t the ones where bad people do bad things but the standard engagements. The motorcycling babe who shucks off the helmet and gives unprotected love, the beautiful woman who can see the real man behind the heavy. All these common or garden fantasies but what if they could be real and to whom? Having the Dollhouse so illegal and exclusive rather pulls the show’s punches by implying that these are privileges only billionaires might abuse but I suppose you can’t really be Never Let Me Go bleak on TV.

There are reasons to keep watching. The mutually protective bond they made between Langdon and Echo was very effectively realized. It was, however, explicitly set up as an artifact, we saw them both being programmed. But they both feel it. Does that make it less real? The other thing I thought was quite subtle was seeing Echo put together scraps from her programming to create something new. When she used Topher’s script to take over Boyd’s role it wasn’t simple echolia, she was using those borrowed phrases to make her own meaning. Similarly, when she mimicked Richard’s salute to the security chief. In her doll-like state she’s not only not supposed to remember things from her engagements but also to have any opinion about what people say to her. In that context the salute compares Dominic with the guy who tried to kill her (but who she fought back against). Even if the higher order recall of those events has been erased from her mind it’s as if her body retains something of the experience. And has views.

Comments

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

She's a fanwork in progress!
It actually reminded me of a thing my kids used to do (still do to an extent). They were very slow to go from using single words to building sentences and like many autists much of their early speech was simple echolia - repeating phrases, often quite complex ones, that they'd heard other people use or on TV. So one of the big breakthroughs we saw (heard) was noticing that although they weren't making their own sentences they were using these copied ones in context appropriate ways.